CRECo.ai Roundtable: Technology, Marketing, Brokerage, Government Policy, Capital, Construction & Cyber Security in Real Estate with Andreas Senie

WHY TECHNOLOGY MAKES ENGAGING YOUR NETWORK EASIER AND EVER MORE EFFECTIVE FOR GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

March 11, 2022 Andreas Senie Season 4 Episode 1
CRECo.ai Roundtable: Technology, Marketing, Brokerage, Government Policy, Capital, Construction & Cyber Security in Real Estate with Andreas Senie
WHY TECHNOLOGY MAKES ENGAGING YOUR NETWORK EASIER AND EVER MORE EFFECTIVE FOR GROWING YOUR BUSINESS
Show Notes Transcript

Join Andreas Senie, Saul Klein, and Chris Abel for this month's Roundtable as dive deep into engagement with your network, the importance of never burning bridges and how to exponentially increase business opportunities from your relationships.

This month's RoundTable included:

Andreas Senie, Host, Founder CRECollaborative
Non Profit & For Profit Business Technology Transformation Champion, CRETech Thought Leader, Founder & Brokerage Owner

Saul Klein, Realtor Emeritus, Data Advocate & Futurist, Original Real Estate Internet Evangelist,  Executive Editor Realty Times

Chris Abel, Membership Director 
Associated Builders & Contractors Association 
CT Chapter

ABOUT THE ROUNDTABLE: 
Your all in one comprehensive view of what is happening across the real estate industry -- straight from some of the industry's earliest technology adopters and foremost experts. Join us live at 6 PM EST on the 1st Thursday of each month, across all major social media channels and wherever you get your podcasts. This three-part show consists of:

Part I: Introductions and what's new for each panelist and the business sector
Part II: Sector Focus on the past month's most prominent news and paradigm shifts
Part III: What does all this mean for real estate businesses, and what you can do for the next 30 days

Join us as we dive deep into Technology, Marketing, Capital, Construction & Cyber Security trends affecting your business. Learn more at https://welcome.creco.ai/reroundtable 

#datadrivenbusiness #businessmanagement #commercialrealestate #crecollaborator


[00:00:00] Andreas Senie: Welcome to this months. And this year is real estate round table. I'm in training setting round table host. And joining me this month is Saul Klein, realtor Xtrordinair. We're the first people to help evangelize the internet as far as it goes to real estate and Chris Abel leading construction architecture, and all things build and engineering out of Connecticut and powering our shell has always is Regan mug, Regan Mendoza, looking forward to another great year together.

So, uh, we were talking a bit before the show. How was your 2022 starting off what's what's changed or are you each of our different respective parts saw? I'd love to go around. It's a small group today. We're going to talk 

[00:01:00] Saul Klein: about where do you go? I know a lot of people went to a lot of places. I know a lot of people got stranded made.

There's all kinds of stories around what took place over the last couple of weeks. But for me, it was kind of, you know, life as usual during COVID and that is you stay home. You zoom, you have conversations on the phone with people and you try to get things done. That way I can report on the carwash. It was December, we had rain and it was terrible month.

And I got my checks in the mail yesterday. And instead of the three checks that I get from the car wash, I only got two. So it was a slow. 

[00:01:38] Andreas Senie: Well, California, better than it would be here. I'm sure. On the carwash side. 

[00:01:44] Saul Klein: Yeah. That's one of the things I have in a car wash where the weather is, is mild. 

[00:01:49] Andreas Senie: Right, right.

You're around. And last we spoke, you were thinking about baby changing the use. And I'd love to get back to that in a minute. If we are back, are you going to grow the beard again? Yeah, I know. 

[00:02:02] Saul Klein: I got it. I got 

[00:02:03] Andreas Senie: enough. And Chris, back here to the Northeast with you, how was your 20, 22 or start 

[00:02:10] Chris Able: up? It's so far so good.

And so up until possibly tomorrow in a, in Connecticut, the weather's been pretty mild for the most part. So carwash down the street is doing, uh, doing fairly well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, needs to see my car. I need to get, I need to get mine. Mine, mine washed is my, uh, my six-year-old always tells me, but things are going pretty well for 2022.

I got to take a little bit of time off. I miss being on the show the past, uh, couple of months cause, uh, some scheduling conflicts, but it's been, uh, it's been really nice to, uh, to take a little time off with the family and kind of, uh, crank up and get things back on for, uh, for 2022. Same. I mean, I've been out and about a little bit, but I haven't really been, uh, you know, adventuring to too much.

And, uh, just kind of looking to get through the winter and you know, like everyone else out there, but all is, well, I have nothing to complain about. I I'll take that for now. 

[00:03:10] Andreas Senie: Uh, there's, there's a lot of trick there as much as I might complain offline on certain things. Uh, everyone's happy. Everyone's healthy for the most part, but it was getting through this.

And I think that some, we need to remember where we're, we're getting through this. And I was choking just for the call, started that, you know, a tree may fall on my new house then I moved into, but at least I have that problem. I have a house I'm in the house. It fell on it. It's all about the frame of mind you approached these it's called the catastrophes or situations.

And so, uh, true to that. I, myself commercial real estate wise things are picking up, but scarcity is a huge problem for available assets, things to buy. I mean, everything's been scouted scoped, uh, there's some fear out there for business as usual on things shutting down, you know, lack of income, but otherwise everybody's just trucking along to do 

[00:04:04] Saul Klein: more.

Um, when you say scarce, you mean like there's lack of inventory, lack of 

[00:04:09] Andreas Senie: inventory. Absolutely. And, and variables now we're 26% positivity rate in New York. So, if they are forced to shut down, what does that do to the income for the year? How long will the shut down? Because there are a lot of businesses made it through the first shutdown and many can't survive another three months offline.

So, but everybody's his chin up, uh, that I run into is a chin up or nose down those down, finding a deal for chin up saying, we're going to make it through this. And I take a lot of taking a lot of that with me. 

[00:04:42] Saul Klein: So that's a couple of things in the commercial space. You've got re repositioning assets, right?

New uses of things because we in the, the dead horse in the room where it is, the co is COVID right. So no matter what anybody thinks about 2022, what I say is there's lots to do in 2022. We're not sure exactly what that is yet, because we have certain restrictions that are there that might not be there, or might be there more one way or the other.

But what happens and what's happened to us over the last couple of years is we've gotten new necessities, have created new behaviors. And the question is when those things that cause those new necessities go away, which of those new behaviors become habit and which one go back to no. And then you can build the right type of real estate.

If you knew that you could build the right type of real estate, you can procure the right assets. Right. But that's the big question, 

[00:05:45] Andreas Senie: right? The new normal, it's funny. I did a. And it's almost like a large telephone booth that sits six people here I'm in Brooklyn. And I had my first in the room, three people in the room meeting, plus somebody, a group on the TV.

And it was almost awkward because I could've, I could've done it flawlessly computer to computer a hundred people, but because half of us were in a room, half room screen, where do you look? How do you add it? Just, it was a unique experience. Um, this, this coming back. Like, how do we position? How do we 

[00:06:20] Saul Klein: sit and what's necessary and what's not because another thing, right, is that we've given up certain things or maybe those things were necessities.

We just was habit. 

[00:06:31] Andreas Senie: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:36] Chris Able: Andrew, to you, when you were talking about the inventory thing, something that I've, it's interesting. The past two days, I've had two different people, uh, basically reaching out that they were planning on selling, you know, they they've sold their business or they've decided to get away from their business and they have space and they were planning on selling the space, but both of them, um, totally unrelated to one another contacted me basically seeing if any contractors were interested in now they want at least their.

So to your point about the, you know, not being the inventory out there, those are two really prime pieces of, of, uh, property that, you know, would probably be out there on the market. But instead these people decided, Hey, you know, we're gonna, you know, we're going to lease instead. So it's kind of a. It's an interesting turn and that's not something that I've, I've seen in, in the two or three years that I've, I've been, uh, you know, been with the organization that life either.

So well, 

[00:07:33] Andreas Senie: it goes back to repositioning holding and, and just, uh, I like to say coupon cutting, right? They thought they would get a nine cap. Now. They won't, they won't get the money they needed to sell. So they're just going to have to hunker down, fill that space, collect that annual cash flow, take advantage of leverage appreciation, and the next next cycle, whenever that is whatever the expectation is, the next cycle.

And that's, that's the concern. It's, it's some, I said this a year ago with, I think you guys, uh, my early investors were coded for said two to 18 months ago or whatever it was. I said, sell fast. If you've got to sell, otherwise, you're going to be holding for awhile. And that's the truth. There's some bandages come in and sell in the last three months.

I didn't take what they would have took more than six months for five months. And now I think we've kind of slid back just a little, just waiting to see how this plays out and 

[00:08:26] Saul Klein: we should, right. And then in certain new, certain properties, their uses might not come back. Right. And so you don't know. And when is the best time to sell and the industrial markets different than, you know, the commercial market is different than the residential market.

And I just thought Christian made me think of this as I wonder how many of the new leases being signed or for what terms, because that would be kind of an interesting indication of people's thoughts about the future and, or at least their confidence in their pets. That's 

[00:09:00] Andreas Senie: spot on the. And you lease the COVID clauses, let's call them if they're there, what they look like, what are the exits like?

Is this, is this new behavior to say, wait a minute, do I need an hour to close my business down for three months without incurrent people being the most expensive space being the second most expensive? How do I protect myself for the future? Um, need a lawyer on this call, actually. 

[00:09:27] Saul Klein: So kind of interested in some of the real estate associations that I'm familiar with, uh, know that they've, you know, had to cut back on staff that they had to, um, have fewer hours right.

Closed for certain, and they were stealing. Uh, able to exist. And as a matter of fact, ended up the years with in a better financial position, because some of the things that they thought were necessities once they were taken away, turned out to be not that big of a necessity and, or you could compensate in some other area that took the, any resistance away.

So it's really given people time to reevaluate their businesses. At the same time, a lot of money has come from the federal government. And so that's changed things and change people's habits. And that's going to be interesting to see what happens to the workforce. And, uh, and where that goes and how hard or easy it's going to be to find people to do the jobs that are going to be needed.

And then we get the other side that says everything's going to be technology anyway, we need people. 

[00:10:37] Andreas Senie: Well, speaking of associations, continuing ed promote not having a right to space, light a space, feed the people. There's a lot of money to be saved, to have it teaching these classes are remote and then go eight months or 12 months down, the looking glass here even recorded the whole season, the whole class.

In many cases, you can now just resell the recording depending on the updated changes. 

[00:11:00] Saul Klein: So we had an experience like that, right? What year was that? 2000 and matter of fact, 2001 had September 11th was when we were going to launch. And we were in that estate real estate convention in Ohio in that day. And we were going to launch this first online technology certification program for the national association of realtors.

First one. At E-Pro. And so we launched that thing until we had to get continuing education credit from each state. And I think we got up to like 30 states where he did that, but it was all technology, right? It was something he took on at that point. It was their little interaction other than the groups that we had created.

And, um, once we created it, then people just enrolled for the knowledge and we didn't have to teach it at all. Matter of fact, our time was consumed telling people they needed to buy the course that became the real chore, was getting people to realize they had a need and that the course solved their need.

[00:12:05] Andreas Senie: They've grown tremendously. It's still, it's still in use today and 

[00:12:10] Saul Klein: taking that whole off online learning and accelerated same thing with zoom and other technologies, right. That new behaviors have been accelerated. By this pandemic. What's 

[00:12:25] Chris Able: no good. 

[00:12:26] Andreas Senie: I'm just going to ask you what, you're, what you're seeing Chris on your side.

[00:12:30] Chris Able: It's interesting because the, you know, as far as what's, you know, what's necessary and all that, you know, when you're, when you think about what's necessary, what can be cut out? You know, it's funny, we had a conversation today within with our, our office being, being that weird, you know, construction association.

We did, we did really well. Last year we did, we did really, really well. And, um, and it's, it's the members who basically spoke up and it said, Hey, you know, this is, you know, this is what we pay our dues for and all that. And we provided a lot of value in a lot of different ways. Um, you know, Cracow being, being one of those ways, quite frankly, but the it's just been this, this it's just been a constant kind of, we talked about the supply thing, a lot of.

Okay. Now I don't hear anything about the supply thing, unless it has to do with like COVID tests, quite frankly, which it's just, it's just odd. Um, and, but we had a conversation with our office. We're kind of saying, you know what? We played things correctly last year. So right now, Where you kind of, we kind of roll ours, it's aggravating, what's going on because we have to do events virtually instead of in-person and all that sort of stuff.

But at the same time, the conversation kind of went towards, you know, what we did this last year and things, you know, even though they're not great, things are better than last year. Um, in regards to many things, you know, the, how sick people are getting and, you know, deaths and all these types of things, and the industry is still building, you know, our people are still out there.

Like I said, the weather has been, been filed enough, they haven't stopped. Um, so as far as our us, as a construction association, we kind of said, you know, what, if we basically do the same things we did last year, or plan on that, and that made people happy and just make our adjustments as we, as we go, you know, we're going to be in good shape where I saw, you know, I saw a lot of different associations, um, in all different facets, you know, all different fields where, you know, they do.

Have the robust event schedules, they didn't crank things up. They didn't make the adjustments. And, you know, here we are almost in the same exact position in a lot of ways. And, um, and I'm kind of curious to see how some of how some of them, you know, how some of them react and how some of them, you know, work through the next few months.

Um, and, and, and if members of different associations, people involved with different associations want to sit back and just say, you know what, let's see what happens this winter. And, uh, we'll pick things back up in the spring where I know the members that I deal with, they're ready to go. You know, they, they, they expect, we gave them something to expect last year and we need to kind of repeat it this year.

It's making, it's making things fun. I'm glad, I'm glad. Um, you know, that you have to find the silver lining somewhere. So I'm like, you know what, let's stick back into the bag of tricks and let's see what else we could find. Well, I'm hoping you and I talk before the holiday that we're going to regroup in the new year.

So I'm, I'm excited to see where that goes. 

[00:15:32] Andreas Senie: Absolutely. And to your point, the, you said it very well. Uh, we did it. We made a plan in the rears last year, but now that plan has been done. It's tried. It's true. I think anybody in the C-suite or leadership position, whether it's an association or a corporation or profit, and not-for-profit, there's a plan.

They now know that the, that there was a plan or there's a best practice. And we talked about it in March. Throw your playbook out, write your new playbook. That's what you should be doing. A March flight. And those that did it now can just lean back and say, right, this is what we're going to do. We know how to handle this.

And if there's nothing new here, 

[00:16:09] Saul Klein: you know, and you got to look at it, Chris construction, you got to think that the future is bright for construction, because we don't have so much of what we need. Right. We don't have enough housing. We've got all kinds of stuff that needs to be converted. We need new transport and we got federal money coming down.

We don't know how much, but, so I got all kinds of issues to solve of which construction is the major part of the solution. Right. And so. Yeah. Can you find people to do the work? 

[00:16:37] Chris Able: Well, the two things, the, you know, we talked back in March, I remember that exact conversation about throwing the playbook out and come up, come up with a plan.

You know, what's interesting is some of the companies that I'm dealing with that really weren't prepared back then they actually are getting almost a second chance because they had that option. They had that situation in the summer where they kind of turned around and like, oh man, I wish we were doing this.

I wish we were doing that. I wish we were doing that. That was a tough winter. And now they're coming around and they're going, you know what? It's getting, it's getting a little rough out there. Let's, let's implement these things. So I'm seeing some companies improving. Hopefully they're improving for that.

Doing that money starts coming in. The other thing you just brought up, so. You know, I thought about this about two hours ago, I was with my daughter and we, I said, do you want to go through through the drive-through you want to go in to go pick out what you want at a coffee place? So I want to go in, okay, no problem.

Let's let's just do it. We get out of the car, go up, doors locked, go around to the other side, doors locked. We're not talking about the lights are on. There's a few people inside. It's kind of strange. I'm like had to go through the drive through, I didn't bother asking the kid at the drive-thru, you know, really asked the question because you could tell he was swamped, but this is a, this is an, uh, one of the most popular coffee chains that you're going to see out there.

And all I was thinking was like, if we can't get people to get out there and do you know, work the counter at a, at a, at a coffee place, how are my steel guys going to find people to. Go out there and work steel. How are the roofers going to find people to get out there in August and to still be out there in January?

Because up until, you know, maybe a little snow tomorrow, it's been, you know, fine weather. I might, my daughter almost caught me kind of with this look on my face of like confusion. I wasn't so much confused that it was closed. I was confused as to, oh my God, what's my industry gonna look like. Um, in regards to, like you said, saw, can we find the people to do the work, um, and that that's going to get, that's going to get very, very, very interesting, 

[00:18:55] Saul Klein: especially when you get into the skilled trades, 

[00:18:58] Chris Able: right?

Those weren't even really licensed trades that I just mentioned, you know, 

[00:19:04] Andreas Senie: unlicensed, labor versus skilled labor. That's skilled. Uh, 

[00:19:08] Saul Klein: what takes right? Skill labor. It takes a while to bring skilled labor back. And just because part of the skill is in the doing right. 

[00:19:20] Chris Able: And we have the, we have the, uh, uh, you know, we have the apprenticeship ratio here in Connecticut.

It's like a three to one ratio. So you have to have, you know, it's, it's pretty tough to, to, you have to have a license. That's a whole other ball game because these companies can't just take apprentices on. Left and right. Like they would, would like to, which is a whole other, a whole other animal. But so 

[00:19:46] Andreas Senie: I'm hearing is, is that if you're looking for work, you should be calling these trade properties and speaking to your association.

[00:19:53] Chris Able: Yeah. Quite frankly, like, yeah. Yeah. But you got people that you also have people out there that are just hurting right now and you know, you tell them, Hey, listen to me. Uh, apprenticeship program is four years or you tell them, Hey, you have to do this. Yeah. And even have some of the, some of the licensed people who have to come in for their, their, you mentioned continuing education, you know, they have to come in for continuing education or they have to retest for lessons or whatever the case is.

And they're like, you know, very have to reschedule it because they're sick or someone in their family. It's, you know, it's 

[00:20:27] Saul Klein: you look at this and this is like, that's exactly what that's 20. Yeah. What is 2022, exactly. Right. There's lots of variables. And so flexibility is key. We know the things that we're going to need, things that we needed before.

We're going to continue to do this. The question is how fast does it come back and it's, and there's gonna be. Uh, opportunity and the people that find the quickest way to write, to come back to get things done. So, you know, I made it like a list of things. I think, um, in 2022 people need to start to pay attention again to two generational attitudes.

And, um, because as people start to adapt and adopt to new things, they're definitely going to be some generational aspect to it. And so part of, and, uh, Becca's not here, but when you talk about the marketing side of it and right, talk about communicating messages that help move, uh, you know, society or industries in a certain direction, um, there definitely is going to be a need for people who understand the message to one group is not necessarily a message to the other group.

And so back to years ago, we kind of all thought about this, but I don't think there's been a whole lot of thought about. Lately. And I think now that we've got the time, we can't go anywhere anyway, go back into looking at some of the generational differences generate. And so people who haven't looked at it's very basic, right?

Look at certain elements that take place in every human being's life. And how did those types of elements affect her life? And so things like events, so major events during a certain generation's lifetime, those are bins left that Mark Good or bad on that generation and created a certain behavior. And then certain generations have heroes and those certain heroes had certain characteristics and right.

So people, scientists actually, you know, sociologists and psychologists sit there and put together these models of what we tease each other with, which are generational differences and gen X and gen Y and millennials. But the fact is if you paid attention to that, you could hone your message. And, uh, you know, for our associations, they can reach a broader, more diverse base of, of uh, members.

But, so that's a piece that I think over the last couple of years, we talk about it, but not as much as we probably should. And now with this forced change on everybody, I think it might be impactful to look at that. Just like, I think it'd be a good idea to look at how long-term leases people are signing.

[00:23:07] Andreas Senie: Well, that, that goes back to, you know, me content and delivery. How do I deliver my message, which is jumping into Becca's shoes for a moment? What, what is the, what is the delivery channel? We were talking before the show on Twitch. Most people don't know what Twitch is. And I used to say, uh, you know, Twitter was people that couldn't write and Instagram is for people who can't read fine.

Everyone is there today. So should you be as a business? So I think you're, you're spot on this generational. Switch stitch, uh, is something you have to pay attention to and hard focus in on because just like you can't get employees or laborers on the job site. Well, where are they? What about the new labor?

Let's look to the future. How do I get in front of them now? So I can fill a gap 12, 18 months from now because well, everybody models through 12 months. It starts over every day, but if you're not looking at the midterm and the longterm, then you're in trouble, you know, act today. Plan for tomorrow. Don't forget that.

Don't forget what you've learned truly. Unless you have a car wash like Saul in California, not in December. 

[00:24:12] Saul Klein: Here's the deal real estate. That's right. Yeah. So my, is that kind of like hone my theme for 2022 and beyond what I would like to see as I wrote this down, because I thought it was, I could actually figure it out.

I think that everyone in America should have the opportunity to buy a home, but then that's the goal. Everybody in America should have the opportunity to buy a home. And what, and why? Because I believe in home ownership, because I believe if you have a stake in the system, you become a better citizen. I believe that if you shoot the only way to build wealth and generational wealth is through the ownership of real estate.

So why in particularly in the age of watching and multi zillions of transactions and artificial, why can't we create programs that allow every American. The opportunity somebody say, I never want to, you heard, used to be right. I don't want to own it. That's your choice. But I know if you want to build generational wealth, want to build wealth for your family, you have to buy real estate so that my focus is everybody in America should have an opportunity.

And that means different loan programs. Right? And we're talking about major land use changes. We all know that's coming. We're going to see increased density. We're going to see more walkability. We're going to see less driving the writing's on the wall. It's been there for years. We're going to see more mixed use.

We've seen that for years, but all of a sudden there's going to be, and it's not all of a sudden, that's the point. All this stuff has been going on for years is to people are going to start noticing it. And they're going to start saying, Hey, look at that aid as it's been going on for so long. And so the, he won't remember, but when they built the, the freeway system, when Eisenhower built the freeway, And the fifties, it changed people's habits.

It changed that this is a big thing. It changed the value of real estate. And so if you're going to change transportation and transportation habits, you're going to change the value of the real estate around. And if your business is real estate, you need to know this. And I'll give you an example here in San Diego, we have a combined government called SANDAG and they've just allocated $150 billion over the next 10 years to change the transportation in San Diego hundred and $50 billion.

Well, that means more light rail, and we know what the programs are. More walkability, more bike lanes. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but Mike, the government come up with a solution. That's not right for a particular neighborhood, but when the government's put now pushing us out and just got passed in San Diego, They said, we're going to come out with this plan and this is what we're going to do.

And this is how we're going to begin to spend this money. And we're going to do this with data driven facts. So they're pushing data-driven data-driven. Now, if your job is real estate, you want to have a place at the table and you want to be able to talk back. If you don't have data-driven yourself, then you're not going to be able to sit at the table.

It's like, you've got to trust the science where the government, this is what you have to do. The data tells us that the trolley best goes through here and says, no, well, you're just the neighborhood, but yet we're the neighborhood. And we've got a software and the technology and the companies that tell us that the path that the government wants to take us a different path.

So date we'll get back to this data thing and it's all going to happen. And I hope for the good, because I want every American to have the opportunity. To buy real estate and to get the change, the loan criteria that they put together in the 1940s. Right? So that to get people to cooperate and go, we could spend forever talking about it.

So 20, 22 is a year to get them done things done. Right? I 

[00:28:01] Andreas Senie: think that's a, that's a great example. And it's slowly harp on a lot is where's the money and having being invaluable in whatever you do. And a big part of that is knowing your market, knowing where the money's going. And that's another way to say data.

The there's a, there's a very large developer in Connecticut. Uh, one of the third largest actually. And he told the story. This is before computers were reasoned. He got it started as he was at town hall. He noticed a bunch of permits going in. He looked at the permits, said, wait a minute. They're building what is called bridge port out.

They're building a route one, a highway right along this route next to this other highway. And he. Promptly took all the plans and stuffed him in the ceiling. Cause he had seen them. No one else had seen them. And that corporation is now, uh, over a million square feet along this highway. Cause he went and bought it up.

Uh, Chris, I'm sure you know who I'm referring to. And 

[00:28:57] Chris Able: he did. Yeah, he 

[00:28:59] Andreas Senie: did some time, not for that for other things. And he's here, he's one of the biggest tax contributors for the state, but that's him with the data, with the knowledge and applying that knowledge. Now you don't need to stuff it in the ceiling.

You need a computer to tell you ahead of time and then to be able to act on it. So spot on, on all accounts and as real estate professionals, knowing what, when and where our market is, it's kind of the bread and butter of it. She was like Chris in the construction world, knowing what it's going to cost, how to build it.

And if you can build it, I'm sure you'd agree. Uh, so regulation and future, future look and outlook. What can I do? Because a lot will get done. People have a lot of money, burning holes in their pockets and a lot of energy to do something. I mean, we saw that over the holiday break, people were itching to get out.

Now, here we are. So that being said, uh, it's, it's going to be an exciting 20, 22, the S the markets are a little light, but there's money coming down the pike and there's going to be a lot of things. 

[00:30:01] Saul Klein: So it's the one on the one hand you say there's a lot of private money, huh? A lot of money out there, then the other, and then the other hand you hear that interest rates are going to go up, right?

So that's going to have some effect. Then the other piece you hear that there's inflation is going to stick around and then the other year there's going to be more money, supply, more money buy. Right. And then you got, COVID put it in oven 360, right. And so people have to be real flexible, real flexible, and then throw this in it's an election year.

Well election year critical election year and throw that in for now. You'd see that, you know, 90% of what you see in media is probably not going to be true one way or another. Right. It's so, so that complicates things even more and everything has to be taken with a grain of salt and looked at politically, and it's going to be an interesting year.

Uh 

[00:31:01] Andreas Senie: that's I haven't even, I'm too early into January to have gone there, but you're spot on a question and come to your own conclusions in many areas. Absolutely. And they're probably wrong. So adjust be flexible, but that's very true, Chris, as far as, uh, you rebooted you're settled back in, uh, it sounds like your association is, it is ready to go.

We're going to be offline ish moving. And as far as the supply chain, you're saying that's not existing, it's been. They figured it out in time for Christmas, she had his back to talk yet. 

[00:31:39] Chris Able: It's still in, it's still in one thing, it's still an issue, but not to the, to the extent that it, that it was, you know, a couple months ago.

But again, it's always, what's the next, what's the next challenge. What's the next problem. What's the next biggest thing. So, you know, all of a sudden, you know, COVID kind of ramped up and now it's, it got back to the testing and it got back to maintaining and all that sort of stuff. So you really didn't hear much of the, uh, the supply stuff earliest.

I haven't gotten the calls. Um, you know, one of the issues. When it comes to the public, you know, when it comes to this, uh, this public work, it has to do with the idea of, you know, 18 months ago, certain dollars were, were put out there and the bids were all taken in and all that sort of stuff. And now all of a sudden it's time to get to work and the prices have gone way, way up.

So the, the issue is, um, you know, these contractors basically trying to, trying to not only not lose money, but just be able to make anything. Um, and, and they're working through a lot of things with lawyers and they're working through the contracts to try to get, you know, to get some of the general contractors in the CMS to, to, to have some wiggle room there.

And, uh, It leads me into something I was going to mention before Hassan was mentioning all those things completely spot on all of those things going on. I see 20, 22 being a situation where a lot of people are going to dig back to what they, what they know also, and what they know is going to be some of the relationships, some of their strong relationships, and going back to the people that they've had success with in the companies they've had success with and saying, you know what.

We've done this before we could do it again. I've had success with this person and building, um, in, in, in, in challenges that we've had in the past, you know what I got to see what they're up to and just having conversations and keeping their personal relationships and the professional relationships strong.

Um, you know, and that even goes into some of that generational stuff. Some of the people who have worked together for years and years and years, and maybe some of the family ties and the generational tie saying, you know what, I need it. And I'm seeing this right now where some people are saying, you know, I need, I need a job.

I need a little bit, you know, I need to, I need something to get us through the winter. What do you got? And they have the conversations and maybe, maybe it works out. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it says, you know what, I'm not really doing much. We're pretty good. But I do have a, another GC that, uh, is a little bit smaller that might be able to.

You know, keep, keep you busy through the winter. And then all of a sudden that that subcontractor or that, you know, specialty contractor, I may not hear from them again. And then, you know, a few weeks goes by, oh yeah. I met with so-and-so and it's been interesting. Cause my, I love Don connecting over networking.

So to see these little relationships kind of taking people through some of the slower months, um, some of the people who might've been stressed out at this time last year, aren't as stressed out. Because again, they've kind of gone back and said, you know what, let me, let me dig into my pockets and see what I can, uh, you know, see what I can come up with.

So I think the relationship side of things is going to be, it was always strong. I think there's so much, I had a conversation with someone today where they are in a little bit of a contentious situation with someone that they're really close with and they need to almost get away from. Situation to keep the personal relationship intact.

And it means that much more to them to keep the personal relationship intact this time around than it might've meant two years ago, or three years ago, where people were willing to say, you know what I'm done with you? I can't, I can't do now. There's so much natural kind of divide and natural challenges going on that people are more apt to say, no, no, no, no.

I need you. You are something that I need because you are someone that I've dealt with prior to what has gone on the past two years. And it's, it's, it's interesting. It's interesting to see the, the dynamic of how people are kind of interacting with one another. And that was, uh, again, that was an interesting conversation today to see someone say, you know what?

I can't lose that for. And personally, I need them in my life professionally. I'll deal with that later on. It's interesting. It's a, it's an interesting, um, world out there right now as to what people are willing to tolerate, walk away from and stick with in regards to who they're dealing with and what companies in, in, in contractors they're dealing with and just people they're dealing with, quite frankly, 

[00:36:26] Andreas Senie: that's back to Saul's point about re-evaluating what's important.

[00:36:30] Chris Able: Yeah. That's exactly what, what sparked me to think about that? It's exactly the conversation I had today. I was like, I could, I could almost between the two of us over the phone here, both of us thinking like, so we're looking at what's important versus, you know, What's what's gonna keep me employed for the next couple of, you know, the next year.

[00:36:52] Andreas Senie: So that, that brings up an interesting point that we've never touched on it. At least I don't recall touching on it in our calls, but this, the speaking of generational shifts, the next generation has a more transient flow to it. Even in the jobs they undertake. So to go into a skilled labor, which takes years of training, I mean, I can see any of those areas being less attractive without COVID just on a generational standpoint, um, because they're hard to escape.

You can't jump to company to company, it's it doesn't give you the growth. So maybe it is a part of the labor shortage. A contributing factor, but this generational shift will change the face of work. I don't get on the phone as often as I'd like to maybe that's just me being traditional and liking, you know, I very much like to be on a phone call as much as I like a zoom meeting or in course, but I'd say a majority is email today.

All the newer companies, I speak all even, 

[00:37:54] Saul Klein: uh, Chris, just to kind of summarize this point about relationships. And it's been one of my major themes for years in business. And the real estate business in particular is don't burn any bridges, right? Sometimes you want to, and sometimes you get really pissed off and sometimes, and you know what, if you don't burn any bridges, you just never know.

And I've been in business long enough myself to be I'm 72 years old to know that you've come across people again, and you might even come across some beginning. Yep. Right. And so you just don't burn any bridges and that's relationships. And even when they start to go awry, if you think that if you don't burn bridges around them, then that's the best piece of, of a business advice I could give to people.

I think. So you hit it right on the nose. 

[00:38:46] Chris Able: Sometimes it's about putting, like I said, a conversation that we had today, it was more put some space in there if you need to do, instead of going off the handle and risking burning that bridge that, you know, you're going to need to cross at some point instead, you know, put some space out there separate a little bit, and then, you know, and then come back, um, you know, come back when for lack of a.

You know, term cooler heads prevail or, or when the climate isn't as naturally tense, it's just naturally there's. I mean, I mean, you see these signs in these restaurants a lot now, um, uh, the whole world, is it a whole countries out of hiring shortage, please be kind to the people who showed up and not everyone's being kind to the people who showed up.

We see videos all over the internet, but it's, it's this naturally kind of tense atmosphere, uh, sometimes. And there's, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of, you know, kind of good to give that, give that space or, or that benefit of the doubt, depending on the situation. So, you know what, let me just, you know, not everyone is thinking myself included, not everyone is thinking the same way they were thinking.

Two years ago, almost on the dot almost on the, on the, you know, what was it? February, February, March two years ago. Um, in a lot of ways the time has just screamed Dubai. It's just flew by. Um, so, you know, just not everyone's in the same, you know, the same, a lot of people have even 

[00:40:32] Saul Klein: doubt it's this major generational effect, right?

You taking kids almost there, high school away from them, their ability to play college or prep football mean or whatever. Right. And whatever we've taken away, these opportunities that past generations have hat and that's going to have an effect going forward for generations. Just like you get into a certain things that happened during people's life and my parents' life.

The thing that affected the way that they were just the way they were, the things that affected them was, um, the great depression and the results of the great depression world war II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They were both there. World war II. My dad was so those things affected their entire life.

And there were major things, just like people who were there, 2001 in New York city and the world that affected certain people at certain ages in different ways at that point in their life. COVID now, again, I'm 72. So COVID came around two years ago. I was 17, right. And for me, the deers are like dog years now.

So it's like, well, I'm in a different position to where the effect that it has is more of just a restraint, but other people it's much greater than just a restraint. And it's like, and so what happens is there's a lot of stress. There's a lot of pressure. There's, there's an added financial pressures, all of these different things that put people, maybe not in the frame of mind that we would expect them to be in by the look on their face when we approach.

Right. Which is how we judge typically, right? 

[00:42:19] Andreas Senie: Yes. Uh, well, and only cause Darren couldn't make today's call and bring it up. Speaking of approaching people and stressors, the scams out there are immense people taking advantage of other people, approach, you know, housing. I'm going to find an apartment, meeting them online, talking, not using a realtor, which was the first mistake.

And then, then it turns out it's a scam and taking your money and you're not paying attention because you're cause you need it. And you have a. Stressors to your point that are affecting you greatly, that you didn't think to connect a, B and C. He didn't meet the person. So I'm not going to bend them that money as a deposit.

Again, all things are real, so I would've stopped you from, 

[00:43:01] Saul Klein: um, well, there are a lot of scams, many, many scams, and they're in all different areas and they all breed on certain things. And so, you know, so you bring up some really good questions then about where are we today as a culture, as a society where we hit and what are our values, right.

Big questions that, um, social media kind of distorts things for us. A great book. I think I've mentioned to you guys is the hype machine. And so there's this distortion of reality, but certain generations, they live in a distorted reality. And by that, I mean more people look at, uh, apple chain or apples have Facebook pages.

Right to Metta because it now is going to push what everybody thinks is new. It's been around for a long time. And then you look at the XP real estate. They like almost to me, like they were way ahead of the game because they got into this idea of, and you didn't hear people talking about, uh, selling virtual real estate, which sounds unbelievable.

Ridiculous until you start looking at NFTs and right. And I said, wait a minute. Different people in different generations have different hold value in different ways. And so things that we might rule as a nonsense might not be nonsense at 

[00:44:19] Andreas Senie: all. It's bankable almost, which is crazy. And then of itself, it's a crazy 20, 22.

It's really the overriding theme I'm hearing from this group. Although I'll, I'll sell you a car wash in the metaverse. 

[00:44:36] Saul Klein: And they have a lot of people who can afford to buy cars in the mid rivers.

Now I'm stuck with this property. I need to reposition it. And then the question is, what is it zone before? 

[00:44:51] Andreas Senie: Well, I told them my pain. That's the, yeah, who's collecting the adults, probably not 

[00:44:56] Saul Klein: going to be done for residential. 

[00:45:00] Andreas Senie: Um, speaking of zoning are you last time we spoke, you mentioned that they rezoned your car washes neighborhood and you were looking at maybe.

[00:45:09] Saul Klein: So we were, I was involved in that years ago. And what we're seeing now is across the country is this opportunity with increased incidence. And the push by the government to increase density is to reduce driving, to help the environment. We're seeing more and more of that. So in my, when I'm thinking in my neighborhood, the highest and best use based on the projection that land use will change is that more people will want walkability and live in that that carwash property highest and best use is going to be an apartment building where the city gives us a huge density bonus for building, right.

And so that'll be would, that's what we'll do. Now. One block up to block two major streets up in San Diego. If you're familiar with San Diego, you get up above downtown and you've got these busy, busy, long streets, university avenue up on Boulevard, Adams avenue, just busy, busy decade over the years that have come back, uh, pieces of it.

And, and they'd been brought money is spent there federal money goes there because the city ones. To increase the value of the property increase the tax base. And so I was driving on one of those streets two weeks ago, and I noticed that they were actually digging the middle of the street up where the trolley tracks were seventy-five years ago.

And so part of the stuff I've been studying about going in and revitalizing and redevelopment areas is determining where they call the bones, where the bones of the city are. And then if you're going to rebuild your city, you're going to rebuild. Types of uses around certain bones of the city and doing that, you could increase the tax, right?

It's this whole story of smart growth. I've been reading about it, read it back. There were parts of the country where they do it and I'm driving. And I see they're digging up the track right down the middle. And I think what are they bringing back the trolley, right? Because they are bringing back these light rail things and bring it back the light rail things for years.

Right? But now people are starting to use, why are they starting to use them? Because they're closing down the driving lanes and making them bike lanes. And so if you want to get around that, all of a sudden mass transit looks more convenient than it ever looked before. 

[00:47:22] Andreas Senie: And I'm great on a bicycle. I can get there 

[00:47:26] Saul Klein: scooter.

Right? So you take the mass transit, you get the scooter, you take it the rest of the way and people they can understand what's going on is that they're eliminating the internal combustion engine. 

[00:47:37] Andreas Senie: That's right. Going great. And net zero carbon emissions 

[00:47:41] Saul Klein: and we'll California, I think after 2028, maybe they can't, you can't sell new internal combustion engine cars in California.

So the future's already here. Right? It's just takes a while to get there. But if people look out ahead can see what's coming, can determine where the opportunity is. My grandfather used to say to me, find the direction of growth. He's a fireman, but he also sold real estate on the side. Right? Cause you had to work 24 and then off 24 and he was a contractor and he would, he said, find the direction of.

As far as you can and buy whatever you can. My grandpa, when I'm like 16 

[00:48:21] Andreas Senie: and it works well, you have that carwash. He was right. 

[00:48:23] Saul Klein: We bought that in the middle of town with, 

[00:48:28] Andreas Senie: well, I location, location, location, middle of town. Um, so that is, that's your advice for the listeners this month is look out as far as you can, to where the growth is and by, 

[00:48:39] Saul Klein: well, no, not anymore, because remember the trends and part of it's generational is walkability and it, you can, and we can actually show you where those neighborhoods that have redevelop that are walkable neighborhoods have premiums on the values of those products.

And so if you're a real estate investor, you want to invest in areas that are walkable areas, because we can take you to Dallas and use, they get a bunch of different cities and show you the premium you get. So now that's changed. Why? Because the big override that used to be the case, my grandfather's story used to be the case because we believed we could just, you know, drive to you, qualify, drive, and drive.

And, but now we figured we found out we can't service all of this. We can't police it. We can't fight the fires. We can't house. All the people. We can't provide all that. We can't do that anymore. And besides the environment's getting dirty because we got all these cars and the people that work downtown got to drive for two hours to work at their minimum wage.

Right. So it's this whole idea of, and it's going to it's happening. Land use policy is changing. And how different is it going to be of difference? Was it before there was a freeway system in the United States? Vastly do. Have different, is it going to be in the future vastly different, but the trends are already there.

People are already doing it. I know Chris, you know, people who are building these kinds of things mixed use has been around for a while. It's all revolves around bringing people closer together, not extending because you can't can't afford it. So how do you get the, how do you most effectively manage the government resources?

You have to take it. You start looking at new ways to use the land. And they'd been looked at the, government's been looking at this for a long time. You know, the future isn't created the day. The future is created 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And we see it manifested becomes visible to us today, but it didn't get created.

So these things are happening and you're in a, to your point in dress. Yes. I think people should start to look at and then look at what they're strong at doing and look at where they think things are going, not going out to where the property, you know, going out as far as you can and buying, but looking at where the opportunity now is going to be drawn in.

Because the trend is going to be, to draw and to come in and to do infill and that sort of thing, I think. Well, 

[00:50:51] Andreas Senie: so there's a, there's a saying circling, the wagons humankind has circled wagons. Since before we had wagons. If there's a threat, if, as a community, we circled together malls, we, we come together to access things, to protect things, to work better together.

So to both of your points, Circling the wagons strengthening your relationships, identifying what within your network is that long-term growth opportunity. And then going after it, I think is, is my advice to people. But Chris, would you reaffirm for our listeners? We're coming up on the top of the hour.

What should they do for the next month? 

[00:51:30] Chris Able: So I don't know if I've shared this one, if I've shared this one yet, but even if I have, I want to kind of go back to this to tie in a couple of different things in regards to the relationships and, um, Andrea, something you mentioned, um, kind of sparked sparked to tidy things together.

You mentioned being on the phone, having the phone conversations. This is so something I did a long time ago and I still try to do this. Um, the best I can. Uh, usually it's, it's more dealing with membership and things of that nature, but setting a goal five might be aggressive, but I used to call, I used to go into my phone.

I would call five. On my drive home, which was a little bit longer than it is now. So it might be two, it might be three, but I would reach out and I had some ties into, let's say ESPN. So one day I didn't want to lose my ties to ESPN. Um, I didn't want to lose my ties to certain facets. So one day I'd say, you know what, let me give so-and-so a call.

Let me give so-and-so called. And it was literally just to say hello, just to check in, just to say hello, just to see how they were doing. It was really honestly, just to say hi, and you know, now there might be a little, little bit more to talk about cause people, you know, you know, they've been kind of cooped up, so that might be a little more conversation and you might get one call in or you might get two calls in, but I used to shoot to make five calls, say hello to some people.

And it ties back to not, these are bridges that were never burned. These were, these are bridges that you're probably going to have to cross again at some point. Um, and they do every single, every single day, every single day. Um, and it makes people feel comfortable in a good way. It makes people feel comfortable to reach out to you when they need something, when they want something, when they could use your help.

Um, and it just develops conversation that can lead to good things. One thing I put when I do an intro between people, uh, and you may have seen this a few times, I'll say, um, you know, this may be a fit. This may not be a fit. I'm not too completely sure. I'll let you connect. But in my eyes, there's no such thing as bad networking.

If it involves good people, let me know if you need anything, whatever. And if it rings true every single time where. If it works out, it works out. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but it never puts puts me. It never puts that person in the middle, in a spot where, you know, someone goes home and being scammed here, or I got this or so that, that's why I would say pick up the phone and reach out to even a text.

At this point, when I was doing that text wasn't as big shooting the text, just to see how somebody is, can, uh, can be powerful. Um, so that's, I mean, it's simple, but it's how many people get in their car and just want that quiet ride home. Or I want to listen to the music and shut it down. If you don't shut it down and you make a couple of calls and see how people are going, you might end up feeling even better than, you know, the quiet ride.

So it's simple, but I know it's effective because it's theirs. It doesn't hurt 

[00:54:45] Saul Klein: main point, which is. It's engagement. So the telephone is a form of engagement and there are many other forms of engagement that people have at their fingertips today. Simple things that they don't think about cause they don't think about like, so we talk in social media and so, you know, you've got all these buttons and icons and things and people like it and they're there all the time, but believe it or not just to something as simple and you can do it in an instant as to like somebody's, uh, posts.

That alone is a major engagement. Now nobody else will see it, but you know, who will say it, the person who, who you'll like, or you really want to get their attention, share something that they do. So these are little things that you can do. They don't take a lot of time out call. When I went away to college, my dad gave me the Naval academy.

My dad gave me. And he said to me, when I joined the Navy, my dad gave me a pen and he said, write your mother every week. And I went away to college and then every week I would write my mother and sometimes my letter would say, hi mom, nothing new love, salt. That's all I would say. And I would mail it to my mother.

Right. And it wasn't getting you think about them. Think about world war two, where people maintained relationships and marriages through letter writing that was, was censored and scanned by the government before they even got it few and far between. And yet those little engagements were enough to keep people in relationships.

So depending on the part of the time and the circumstance, Chris, you're right, it's all about engagement. So find the time to do those little things that nobody else does. And, uh, you know, you'd be surprised the reward that you get at the other side might not be immediate. It's a long-term game, right?

[00:56:34] Chris Able: Yeah. Even even the, the small acknowledgement of, uh, the, maybe think about something today is, um, you know, I saw a couple of people's birthdays came up on Facebook, one person I talked to all the time, one person I used to work with 10 years ago, haven't talked to her and probably nine and a half years.

Um, one's a family member say happy birthday to my family member real quick. And then I'm like, why, why, why, why come off that screen? They're right next to each other, all I have to do is put a quick happy birthday. The letters are going to pop up. As soon as I put hap the whole thing's going to fill out for me.

All I have to do is hit enter. And an hour later, you know, she, she, you know, hearts and I'm like, you know what? That replaced one of the five. No phone calls that I would make to, uh, it's just, you know, or seeing it someone's birthday, but you know, you have their phone number in your phone. You may not have talked to them for six, seven years, but instead of making it the public acknowledgement, Hey, I saw you had a baby.

Hey, I saw happy birthday, whatever shooting the quick text and saying that I did that the other day with somebody, they didn't even know I had their cell phone. I found out they had a baby. I said, can you get it? Give me their cell phone real quick, reached out. And you know, I can only imagine they're smiling on the other side.

And if they're not, they're not, I mean, that's not, well, 

[00:57:56] Saul Klein: it gives you those kinds of opportunities and it's great. And I do that every friend of mine on Facebook and LinkedIn for the last 10 years, 15, I don't know every one of them. I wish them a happy birthday. Every, I don't miss an opportunity. It's a free opportunity to engage and I use a copy paste, right.

So it's, and it can control control V and then I type their name in and put the exclamation point in there. I give them a little harder, depends on where they are in my world. Right. That's a whole nother subject talking in emoticons. Right. And you're right. It's all about education. 

[00:58:33] Andreas Senie: So stay so, so is it fair to say that staying engaged with an eye on the future is the take away and what engagement means to you?

It's all about touches, but going back to sales, being in touch, multiple touches with your network to make sure that it is your network connectivity at the end of the day. So a recurring theme as you. With our group, uh, looking forward to next month's call, of course. And I want to thank you both for making time joining the call, being a part of this call.

We continue to grow your and bring great advice to great listeners all across the U S so how so, why do they reach you? How can they reach you? If they want more advice, the data advocate, 

[00:59:16] Saul Klein: the data, and we can come the data advocate.com it's growing and changing. We're having a good time with it. And it's where again, where our vision is.

Everybody in the United States ought to have an opportunity to buy a home, whether they do or don't it's up to them. But somehow there ought to, because that makes better citizens. That gives people a stake in the system. The best way to do this, to understand what's going on around you. So the data advocate that.

A lot of it and 

[00:59:42] Andreas Senie: crust, if our listeners want to reach out and connect with you, learn more, how do they reach you? Why do they reach you 

[00:59:48] Chris Able: email? You know, uh, if not LinkedIn, email's probably the best. It's just the last name. A B E l@ctabc.org. And, uh, yeah, no, I'd love to hear from, uh, from anyone who wants to, uh, wants to reach out.

[01:00:04] Andreas Senie: Fantastic. And I got, and I want to thank all our listeners first Thursday of every month at six, join us for the next real estate round table. You can always find me Twitter, LinkedIn, as well as on.ai. There I am on Twitter and Greg and I add, thank you so much to our show host, sorry, show production. True.

The one man show back there, Regan ion and his backup crew, his daughter. Cause I just heard her in the background. You just heard it right yet. So she's making a surprise visit. Yeah, oversight is here. I got it. Join us again next month, everyone. And, uh, stay safe. It was poorly 2022. I've been 

[01:00:51] Chris Able: here two years. .