A MIDYEAR LOOK AT IN PERSON EVENTS, INFLATION, CYBERSECURITY, AND INDUSTRY UPDATE

[00:00:00] Andreas Senie: welcome back for this month. Real estate round table. You're all in one comprehensive view of what's happening across the real estate. And. Straight from the industry, its earliest technology, adopters and foremost experts in technology, marketing capital and cybersecurity as is always the case. This is a three-part show.

First introductions what's happening in each of our respective sectors, followed by a deep dive in industry news and membership. And sector shifts part three, bear with me. We're just having some interference here from the storm part three. What does it all mean for your real estate business? How to adjust and adapt over the next 30 days.

I'm Andreas sunny, founder, CRE Collaborative brokerage owner, and a technology growth strategist for non-profit and for-profit businesses joining me this month is,  Saul Klein, realtor, Ameritas, futurist strategist trainer, and the one of the founding members, realtor.com. What was to become realtor.com. So I miss to see you again, is my audio picking up? Yeah, you sound like you're in a closet, but I can hear you. Well, yeah, you guys sound better than me anyway.

So now at least I have an excuse. Uh, also joining us this month, Rebecca Carlos. CEO calls to integrate past president of the unite car association and owner of her own brokerage there in Illinois, as well as professor Darren Hayes, CEO, co detectives, top 10 forensic computer examiners and the review editor news, a new position review editor at frontiers.

And cybersecurity lastly, and certainly not least Anna Maria, joining us from inland green capital over 20 years in property management and twenty-five years, property management portfolio of over 30 retail properties, 3.4 million 500 tenants. Welcome everyone. 

[00:02:59] Bekah Carlson: Hey, so good to be back on. 

[00:03:03] Andreas Senie: Nice to see everyone.

I'm going to let you guys lead for a moment. If you would, uh, Becca, talk to us a little bit more about what's happening on your side of the business and the, in the marketing world. And I'm going to reset my audio while you do that. 

[00:03:16] Bekah Carlson: Alright. Well, I just got back last week from ICSE, so I had a great show and there were some takeaways that I thought I might share here, because I'm sure some of our, oh, sorry.

What's the 

[00:03:29] Saul Klein: acronym. 

[00:03:31] Bekah Carlson: Innovative commerce serving communities. Whoa. I know it took me a while to get it. So for many years it was the international council of shopping centers and they broadened their approach to make sure that we're including governmental agencies and municipalities. I think in some ways, because of all of those things, Saul has advised on in the past.

Right? So I'll use you frequently talk about how important it is to follow the money and the government supplies a lot of the money. So I think ICRC has understood that vein and the importance of. And they were, uh, it was a really great convention. So there was a ton of bustle in the halls. And I was trying to think of like one word I could have to capture what the convention was like.

And what I came up with was traction there's traction in the industry. And people have been talking about the challenges in retail for a long time. I see retail responding and with evolution, which retail always has done. Retail has always evolved. I've talked to many people who are working in revitalizing major malls and retenanting redeveloping and really aggressive buyers from domestically and internationally who want to buy giant model portfolios even, and commence some really substantial redevelopment campaigns.

I thought that was fascinating. So I don't know. So have you ever been to 

[00:04:55] Saul Klein: ICRC? No. No, but it sounds like a lot of fun, a lot of great information and, you know, and the shopping center thing has always been kind of fascinating particularly now, right. With COVID and everything and people's habits. And, you know, we have a big regional shopping center had in downtown San Diego.

So right in the middle of downtown. On Broadway, Horton Plaza is big shopping center. It was state-of-the-art in its day and it's abandoned. This is in the middle of downtown. It's been abandoned, homeless folks have taken it over. And so in my mind, I'm listening to that. I'm going to be looking for, you know, people coming in, maybe to reposition, maybe to bring back, um, the old merchants that were there.

I don't know, but that's great to hear because I noticed that there's always traffic when. Down towards the major shopping centers, regional shopping centers in San Diego that I can't believe all the lineup of the traffic getting off the freeway. Right. I don't go, I'm fucking on my way. I can just see it.

And I'm amazed and I go, no, you go under the overpasses. You can see all of this traffic. And it's like all going into the regional malls. So 

[00:06:04] Andreas Senie: amazing. And I'm hopefully back in clear, clear audio at this point. Thank you guys for that. Uh, if I may, speaking of traffic and where things are moving, not just in California, but the rapid rise in mortgage rates, what you pointed out just now saw on repositioning and investors coming in and picking up those assets.

It's actually something I wanted to ask the group about. I mean, hotels, apartments, self-storage demand. They're all going up because the rental rental way it's much shorter. You can adjust for this. But at least here in the Northeast, what I've noticed is there's a lot of developments that have stalled that are now coming back on the market, fully approved science, looking for new investors, looking for new partners.

And I don't know if it's a it's, I'm just seeing it because I'm here on I'm hyper-local, that's what I'm looking for from my investors, or if it's happening everywhere, you've got your shopping center. That's already been taken over by you and Becca. You were at ICRC. You've been for many years with your.

What was the inventory? Like? What is the mood of people right there on the floor? 

[00:07:09] Bekah Carlson: Very positive on the floor. So it was a smaller show, meaning there were only about 20,000 registrants. Typically in the many years I've gone and I've gone. I've been in the industry for 19 years and I have gone to ICRC, you know, 18, 17 of those 19 years.

COVID being the only years that I haven't had. And it's been as small as 10,000 on the, uh, um, when the crash happened for the recession to as large as 35,000. So there really is a big, um, swing as far as numbers of attendees, but the sense of community and comradery was palpable. It was, everyone was very excited.

And I spent a lot of time in the south hall with the near a number of retailers. They doubled their boots from past. They had tons of interests. Everyone was smiling and happy because they were doing deals. And I ran into a number of owners, developers, brokers, everybody was really happy because they are doing deals.

So those pieces are good, you know, and I know that's so it's so subjective because that's how I'm reading the room. But I do have a number of contacts in everyone has come back saying that it was a great, great show. 

[00:08:25] Saul Klein: A where was it? How many people. 

[00:08:28] Bekah Carlson: So Las Vegas and 20,000 registered for the conference.

Great. 

[00:08:33] Andreas Senie: I'm to stop. I did 10,000 last show I attended, I went, oh my God. That is exactly in line. What you're saying about being upbeat and positive, especially the retailers. I mean, Marcus and Millichap just came out with a study, said there's a 25, 

[00:08:49] Saul Klein: 20 7% increase in they 

[00:08:52] Andreas Senie: retail savings compared to last year, same beer.

So there's money there, all that savings, extra income, so to speak. So it looked like we've got a thought there where he can't hear me. 

[00:09:04] Saul Klein: It's an academy or, you know, you're fuzzy. I can barely hear. Right. 

[00:09:10] Andreas Senie: So, uh, every month we touch on your car wash and I've got to ask it again. How was, how were things going there?

Are there 

[00:09:18] Saul Klein: drugs, you know, because you've been asking me and because I've been thinking about it more than I would normally think about it. I I'm actually starting to believe that maybe there are patterns here and. People are creating indexes and trying to judge where things are going, volatility, indexes, appreciation, indexes.

I think that the carwash index could possibly be, you know, one of those pieces of data that fits into some other overall scheme of data that, that gives the, the hedge funds that, that extra leg that they need. So the carwash, and I mentioned this to you a little bit before we started, and that is we've.

We've got the. And we own this property. That's got real estate in a business. And so a lot of people have that situation. So if you're in that situation on real estate, any of the business, there might be tax advantages to structuring your ownership in different ways. Years ago, we structured the ownership in different ways.

And so we also found that we, when we needed capital for the, either the business or the real estate, we could loan the money personally, ourselves to entities. And so the owners of this business we have with. Three checks a month. We get one interest payment. We get one rent because we, one of the entities, we owns the real estate and we get one for the business of the carwash, five bay, local carwash vacuums.

We're going in since 1979. And so the last two months, and part of it is seasonal, but the last two months, that third check didn't come in. Well, that's kind of, it tells me that people not, as many people are washing their car. Maybe five bucks is five bucks a month to pick it out of your budget. So that, and this is kind of a blue collar neighborhood.

So, you know, there, I think as I start to think about this there's value in this data. So the carwash business has slowed down. That means that people that live in, at least this neighborhood aren't spending that money are not looking at it as something that's discretionary to them. And, um, that might have, that might have some reflection on.

And I'm interesting to watch us where we're really. What's really happening with inflation. What's really happening with loan portfolios. What's really happening with the GSEs. What's really happening with treasury. What's really happening with the fed dumping assets back into the market. I mean, what's really going on.

Are we getting too rosy a picture? Are we not looking at it seriously enough? And I think the car wash indicator is going to be something that. 

[00:11:46] Andreas Senie: Uh, under, under all this data, as you've said many times, and that just might be the next index that nobody knew to watch, because liked enough that I have a feeling that car is a bit more, I love in real estate in many aspects without your water boat downs and what's going on.

So it's, it's, I, we just about it, but I love talking about Chicago because it's the simplest business that mirrors. Can they afford is the discretion or are they coming in? What can we do to do better? And the fence doing their part? I mean, we're, we're inflation is hedging is to slow down and, but not kill it, just slow it down.

I mean, you're right. Uh, depending on who I talk to, there's a lot of, uh, negative energy out there, but those aren't people I want to talk to that often, but it's scary. Um, and what people are doing and how they're doing, how's it going about the next six months, 12 months from those. But I've found everyone's positive for the next in real estate anyways, for six months where, okay, 20, 22 is going to continue to be a great year for those movements.

And those who have set themselves up to me in a place to, uh, to jump in on this reposition on companies, uh, for the institutional real estate companies that are out there with their DST products, securities products, they're still making moves and there's positive outlook. Uh, Darren, what about you offer on the cyber security side and congrats on that new position, which I did mention.

I tell him if anybody. 

[00:13:10] Darren Hayes: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Great to be back here. Great to see everybody has good health. Um, I just, just a quick point, when you were talking to Saul, I was just going say, uh, don't forget. Inflation's not always a good indicator cause it's not including energy and, and soul.

I, I, I'm hearing 70. Bucks a gallon for gas, right? Is 

[00:13:33] Saul Klein: that correct? Sure. It's six 50 thereabouts. That's bad enough, 

[00:13:37] Darren Hayes: right? Oh yeah. That's, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Um, things, you know, I just cut back from a conference compliance week. It was at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC. Um, there were some great speakers there from the securities and exchange commission.

Um, the author of, uh, Very interesting book, bad blood was one of the keynotes, uh, John currier, bad blood is about Elizabeth Holmes and thoroughness. If you remember that scandal involving, uh, that large detection system that was fraudulent and that kind of thing. So, you know, great talking to people and learning about the importance of compliance, ethics, you know, um, facilitating whistleblowers.

This has become an even more important theme for the sec recently is, you know, this idea of, of ethics and reporting and, uh, you know, that kind of thing. But we also, I was on a panel talking about cyber security and we were asked those of us in cybersecurity to talk to compliance people because the big fear out there is ransomware.

The multimillion dollar fines associated with the general, um, GDPR in Europe. For example, if you suffer a network breach, or if you're sharing information with EU citizens, with people you shouldn't be doing, uh, um, but also talking about supply chain. So supply chain is a really, really hot topic at the moment, um, because a lot of these breaches are coming through one of your vendors.

Um, people who have credentialed tax associate system, it could be one of your cloud storage providers, for example. Um, but a lot of, kind of what we're talking about, what I was talking about was actually born out in the latest, um, Database data breach investigations report, which was just released by Verizon.

If you haven't had a chance to take a look at it, please do, because they've been doing this report for years and it has so much credibility because. It also involves and includes reporting from different agencies, such as the us secret service who are at the forefront of financial crimes, especially credit card debt, uh, sorry, credit card fraud, and also network intrusions.

They do a lot of work in that area. But also involves Europol and law enforcement agencies all across the world. But, you know, so ransomware attacks are up in a very, very big way. Uh, everybody's still talking about those. You've probably heard a little bit about credential stuffing. So credential stuffing is, uh, is where people look at these data breaches and people clean up all this information from these data breaches.

They repackage it and sell it on the dark web sometimes on the regular web so that you can, and you don't even need to test it out yourself. You can buy tools. Automate this process to, uh, try and get into different accounts using these stolen credentials. So if you have an iPhone, for example, and you get those alerts, you know, this, your email was part of a data breach, uh, go change your password.

Don't ignore those. That's that's what credential stuffing is relying on, you know, Taking care of those alerts and doing the right thing. Um, but just getting back to the supply chain, um, in this report also, they just mentioned that the majority of these intrusions are now happening through your supply chain and people getting access to your network that way.

So this came up with a conference of more and more. We need. Have a more holistic approach to security and not just develop cybersecurity planning for our own organization, but having our vendors and other people at the table there to talk about what their policies are. Um, talk to their cybersecurity people, what their protocols are, uh, making sure that you have this, this bigger picture of your cybersecurity strategy.

Rather than just being internal looking. And also the other thing that comes up again and again, is that a lot of these data breaches are reported by somebody else outside the company. That's usually how it happens. We don't know that our company has been breached. Somebody else tells us. 

[00:18:16] Saul Klein: So Darren, you said like the, with the people that have networks or vendor networks, it's like the weakest link in the chain kind of thing, where everybody gets burdened by the weakest.

[00:18:28] Darren Hayes: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because, you know, we do use small businesses who, who may not have the same kind of resources for cybersecurity and may not have the same protocols as us. And sometimes unfortunately they can be the weak link into a big company, but that's not always the way, you know, these managed service providers, those who give us the cloud storage.

You don't have tremendous resources in terms of security, but they can also, you know, the bad guys know that if I get access to one cloud service provider, I've got the credentials for maybe a thousand different companies. I know have access to all those networks. It's an easy way in. 

[00:19:10] Saul Klein: They become the weak.

They are. They are the weak link in that 

[00:19:12] Darren Hayes: case. Yes. Yep. Absolutely.

[00:19:18] Bekah Carlson: So, did you learn some tactics or did you guys talk about tactics for educating people in increasing their cybersecurity awareness? At your conference. I know that's what you do anyway. 

[00:19:32] Darren Hayes: Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I talk a lot of, a lot of companies are hesitant about involving law enforcement, uh, during or after a breach occurs.

For example, they're afraid of being held liable, you know, or, or damage, or they don't want the PR and that kind of thing. And I mentioned to people about how they should establish connections in the Intel world, in law enforcement, so that they know who to call them a breach happens. And sometimes when you're picking a provider, it's really, really helpful to know who the people are, who are running that company.

Everybody wants to talk to, everybody wants to look at the functionality of, of a cybersecurity tool. Everybody wants to know who their customers are and talk to them. See if they're. But you got to go beyond that and see who's actually running the company, you know, are they competent? Are their staff qualified?

Are there there security people that got good certifications, good training? What kind of churn rate? Because there's a lot, there's a big problem with cybersecurity. And so much demand for positions is if there's an unhealthy culture there and a lot of churn that can impact, you know, your support in terms of cybersecurity as well.

But the, a lot of the talk at all these conferences is, you know, how there's a lack of people and, you know, and then the other thing is artificial intelligence and machine learning and how that's going to help us in the future, because we don't have the people we're going to have to rely on this more and more.

Automated responses and this artificial intelligence to react when we can't react fast enough. 

[00:21:11] Saul Klein: No, it's interesting because, uh, at least my whole life, we were brought up to think that we're going to overpopulate the world. And then we couldn't have a lot of children that it was irresponsible to have a lot of children because we're going to overpopulate the world.

And China even instituted a policy where they didn't even let themselves replicate themselves. And here we've got these aging populations and it's, we're surprised that there's not as many people to actually work to support or to know the whole system as a think we would have thought through it. But don't you, I mean, we thought we were starving.

We were just having too many. We thought, and maybe we are, but, and maybe resources are not where they need to be, but, um, it seems like there's not an, we can't find the people we need right now to fill the positions that are there to be 

[00:22:00] Darren Hayes: filled. Well, I think one of the, you know, I haven't heard anybody talk about this, but this is just a theory that when I go to these to a lot of conferences today, especially security conferences, I was just at one yesterday.

Um, and I see. 2030 security companies that I've never heard of before. I didn't keep seeing all these new security companies that are offering consulting services and I'm thinking. These are people who worked internally for a company. Now they're setting up their own shop, um, because they can make more money doing this.

And so the companies can't have the, the internal staff that they need for their cybersecurity needs. So it seems like. There's this big shift away from trying to do this internally to just hire consultants, to run their security operation center, do all their incident response to, and you know, that's one thing I mentioned as well in the panel is I said, you know, make sure you have people lined up who are.

Work for you and consult for you when you have been breached because in a pinch, you're going to pay top dollar rather than having that contract in place where, you know, your fixed costs. Yeah. 

And 

[00:23:11] Saul Klein: for small companies, you know, it's, it's a matter of priorities, right? And it's a matter of spending the money and if get your small business and you haven't had something like this happen to you where it costs you a lot, you're going to prioritize and you might not put data security or, or security as you know, where it should be.

And, um, and you know, you might be one of the lucky ones, but you might not be 

[00:23:34] Darren Hayes: exactly. 

[00:23:37] Bekah Carlson: Well, Darren, do you think that that's also a push towards entrepreneurship? Because I do know that entrepreneurship numbers dramatically increased during COVID. So the number of businesses, the number of business buyers, I have a client who's a business broker and their buyer pool just increased.

He had been almost like a sellers broker before, but he almost transitioned to a buyer's broker because there was so much interest in people buying it. Buying a car, buying a company, buying a business so they can have a new job. And I think we see that in all sorts of fields, but I wonder if that pushed that, that desire for entrepreneurship and to be your own boss, it's probably somewhat about money, but probably also about wanting to build your own business.

And I think a younger generation likes 

[00:24:24] Darren Hayes: it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it is definitely pushing to, uh, you know, pushing entrepreneurship, uh, It's a big drive. Um, but also it could no data on this, but just people wanting to work remotely and not go in and go into the city or, right. So I think that's, that's a big driving force as well.

And I'm seeing more and more people looking for cybersecurity people, but saying, don't worry, you don't have to come out here to our state. You can work remotely. You can go, you know, we won't make you fly anywhere and do anything. 

[00:25:00] Saul Klein: You know, if that trend sticks and that changes real estate use. And there's great conversations around that and around, around value.

But did you hear the other day, you know, on Muskie says everybody that works for 'em Teslas coming back into the office. Did you see that? 

[00:25:14] Darren Hayes: Oh, I didn't see 

[00:25:15] Saul Klein: that you want to stay home and do nothing at home. Do it for another. 

[00:25:20] Andreas Senie: Well, there's plenty of us that aren't doing nothing at home.

It's a great quote. And Elon Musk is doing incredible things. If we're going to talk about where we're headed to work, let's talk about the spirit going into space and all the legislation they're now starting to talk about, uh, gentlemen, handshakes. Aren't there. We can go far here. I love this topic, but I haven't spoken much and I'm visibly.

Coming back into it here. Uh, Darren, you did point out something interesting and solid and Becca, Becca, you pointed to entrepreneurship, Saul, and Darren, you mentioned lack of educated workforce or skill or willing workforce. I think people have gotten used to being home and there've been a lot of shifts in policies that really affect the masses.

And at least from what I see, there are a lot of positions that need filling. Supposedly need filling that just aren't aren't happening. It's just the other day I had, uh, Darren to your point, a cybersecurity Fern, call me trying to sell my self services. And they said, well, oh, well, we're new. Who are you?

We're brand new. We just split from so-and-so really. Cause you know, so-and-so's a big company and I don't know who you are. What do you do? Um, and in that instance, same thing with these contractors, developers, the there's a lot of upstart, which Becca to your statement. Entrepreneurship, this, this next, this transition to the new generation, that's a go generation.

They don't stick around to build big companies. They're just hot potato positions. I mean, that's where, that's where I fall in on that, on those lines. We, the skills, the skill force is there. It's just, you can't get to it because they're, they have no upward mobility or pathway, a career path that gives them the time they need it in a, in a bigger company to then be exposed to.

Brokerage is a real estate businesses like ours. I mean, Becca, you hire five new people three months ago, brand new weren't even marketing. I believe so. Hopefully I covered what I couldn't hear during your lips. Yeah. I,

[00:27:22] Darren Hayes: I would just, I would just add one small thing to that. So one of the points I made was people who work in incident response, they get really well paid and that doesn't, you know, sometimes people have this feeling that.

Well such-and-such is making 150 200,000. He should be happy. He shouldn't be complaining. But I said the point that's that's really important here is that they're working seven to seven and they have to work at least one weekend. Uh, you know, away from family, you know, for incidents, I said, they worked very, very hard.

And when you have like a company policy of no new hires and there's churn and people leaving that policy really, really impacts those people down in incident response who really, really work very, very long hours. And if they don't like working there, they're going to move on. So it's, it's not always a case of, um, just, you know, They feel that they can always hop around.

It's it's a very, very tough, tough lifestyle 

[00:28:25] Bekah Carlson: employee experience. It matters. It really 

[00:28:29] Saul Klein: matters. So you just made me think of putting these three things together and that the three words, more than three words, entrepreneur, what is an entrepreneur? Really? When we get down to it, self-employed. That's kind of in the same mix and innovator that's in this same kind of mix.

Right? So some people are not necessarily entrepreneurs, but they are self employed, I guess that makes them an entrepreneur, but they did it maybe for a different reason. They did it. They wanted to go out and do it, but they couldn't do anything. Yeah. They couldn't go to work for the company they wanted to.

So they said, I mean, there's different, right? So when we talk about this, it's kind of like a big, my, my way. We got a lot of, if we're going to use the data, it's kind of hard. Cause we have, we use these different words in different ways. Right. And. Entrepreneurship is a great thing. It's been a while since I looked to define it specifically, self-employed I know all my real estate friends for years, you know, whether or not they consider themselves entrepreneurs for you.

I don't know. Right. And then there are those that are self-employed entrepreneur innovators. 

[00:29:40] Andreas Senie: They fill the run, the whole thing, uh, trail. I believe they're called trailblazers on that, on the last one. Um, well, and, and Becca. Back to your marketing people. Is that still the case is, is, has helped resurfaced, are they, would you call it?

I hired 

[00:29:58] Bekah Carlson: two people this week hired two people this week. One is an intern and is actually one of my daughter's friends from high school. And he is just starting at Indiana university this fall, but he. Loves business and he's obsessed with it. And he knows way more than I do about all sorts of different topics, because he just it's very much his passion.

And so I'm bringing him in to do a major job costing project going through all of our hours for an entire calendar year and, and really understanding more of the, you know, the real big, deep numbers of our business and doing some serious number crunching. I'm really excited. He's really excited. We had coffee, we had lunch Tuesday.

We had coffee today. He asked really smart. I'm like, I've never been more excited. And I will tell you, I never thought in a million years that a brand new, fresh high school graduate would be a right fit for a job costing analysis intern. That's crazy. It is. It's absolutely crazy, but I, I wanted him to go work at a real estate firm and nobody would to get back to.

In my network because they weren't ready to hire somebody fresh out of high school. Not even, not even a semester of college under his belt, nobody was willing to take the risk. And I was like, man, this kid is good. I've got an, I just had this really good feeling that he's going to be great. So he started this week and then actually my, my other new hire starts next week.

And she's a new grad, she's a new grad with some great experience, hungry to learn. So she has great experience in one aspect of marketing. And it really, I think the only reason she came with us. Oh, you want to learn this? You want to learn this? You want to learn this. And she was like, really? Yeah. Yeah.

And we're like, okay. Yeah, you can, you can, you got 12 teachers on my team. We're all feel love sharing our knowledge with people and helping them learn. So. I'm very excited. 

[00:31:47] Andreas Senie: Well, and so that took a long enough. So you're, you're hiring new talent, fresh talent, and I'm going to, uh, parrot somewhat what Dan Wagner said at his sector interview.

We were talking about 10 30 ones in DSTs and he referred to them as the 401k of real estate. So Saul to your point about the three words and more than three words, you've got your, your 10 90 nines, your independent. People on a 10 99, you've got your W2's Darren, those people in that company, collecting that big salary and benefits, mind you, and then your K ones, the trailblazers.

If they get that far, that gets to be lucky enough to collect three checks or four jacks. They own it. And they built it and they rent out a portion of it if possible. Um, and that, that DST conversation in that 401k just clicked for me. So is that, is that. That's, those are the metrics we're looking for.

How many K one employee, how many K ones? How many W2's how many independent contractors? That's the new metric indexed against the current. 

[00:32:44] Saul Klein: We have them in fuzzy metric right now. Right? We, we almost use them interchangeably sometimes. Sometimes. Well, for the purpose of, if we're going to study this, looking at it right then you're right, then there's the tax.

The way that you report this revenue that you receive and that's distinct. Yeah, well, 

[00:33:05] Andreas Senie: that's exactly right. There's the, the draw to going with Becca's from, for these two employees is, is, is coming out of high school. They know it, you saw it and you hired them. I'm surprised one's college. Um, and Darren, uh, on the cybersecurity side and, and Chris spoke about this.

He was at a hiring event for construction. It's not a problem of fresh talent, as I understand it, new talent, high school, college graduate talent it's as you pointed out, it's those guys with the experience that are working in that salary position, those W2 cybersecurity specialists that have been doing it a while that may feel overburdened by what's happening now, because I assume most companies, when looking at their it budget, aren't increasing the budget because the threat levels going up, or at least not correlated in.

No threat level increases by X let's increase our budget. I assume that the it budget like many and I'm a smaller company, right? The it budget, timing, and time out people go. Why do you spend there? Why do you do this? Well, because you have to, but. And one of the unfortunate ones in my past most companies, they don't want that line item.

It's like, it's like the opposite leaf office lease. If you're a broker, we don't want to pay for offices, which Rebecca, as a brokerage owner and saw, uh, your brokerage peel is probably a pillbox. If you still have one sitting out there with your license, uh, is that a fair statement? Yeah, 

[00:34:31] Saul Klein: no. I mean, we don't need a PO box in California, 

[00:34:33] Andreas Senie: so 

[00:34:36] Saul Klein: I still have my license and, um, 

[00:34:40] Andreas Senie: I'll keep it forever.

You have to, at this point, no reason not to, 

[00:34:47] Saul Klein: particularly in California. Cause once you get past age, 70 and more than 40 years license, you don't have to take continuing education anymore. So I have to take the CE. So there's no reason not to keep renewing that broker's license. So after 

[00:35:00] Bekah Carlson: 40 years you've figured it out.

[00:35:02] Saul Klein: Well, I don't know about that. I wouldn't say that, but that's why I'm still trying. 

[00:35:08] Andreas Senie: The, uh, and I know we're a bit choppy here. It's 20 to the hour. We talked about a few macro things, a few micro things affect the industry, and I want to get us back on our normal trend. Um, big news items, Darren, you pointed out, hit it on the head.

It budgets it personnel not available. Anything else? Major, um, outside of the ransomware, which is an ongoing threaten you. I did hear you say, uh, make sure you check those emails that say, Hey, your password has been breached. Please update it. And you've met. In that light you were saying, make sure you check that it's not a spoof email, right?

Nobody has faked that email in to get you to click. Cause I get those constantly. Uh, anything else on your side of the phone? 

[00:35:54] Darren Hayes: Um, well, I had just mentioned before about the Verizon DBIR report that everybody should, should read that. I mean, uh, th there's there's four key paths that they mentioned, um, in reference to getting access to your network, you know, credentials, we talked about credential stuffing and people not changing their passwords.

These data breaches that are used to try your, your passwords and logins. Other websites phishing, as you mentioned, is the, is the big thing as well. Um, but ransomware attacks are up 13% and you know, the, the big thing today is. Supply chain breaches. Um, somebody comes in through one of your vendors, one of your suppliers, um, that's responsible for 62% of, uh, network intrusions today, which is pretty bad, um, and errors, just human errors, 13% of breaches responsible for that.

So, you know what I mentioned before, just to reiterate it again, is. Having meetings and bringing in your vendors and those you deal do business with and having a more holistic approach to cybersecurity is really, really important. So, 

[00:37:11] Andreas Senie: uh, on the, on that, the cybersecurity infrastructure supply chain. Is there a, uh, a non hardware solution or are there more solutions coming online that bypass the need for firewalls?

And now it's all on your computer and it can be managed remotely. Is that the trend to buy, to reduce some of these costs? 

[00:37:32] Darren Hayes: Sorry, can you repeat 

[00:37:33] Andreas Senie: that? So it's, it's my understanding. A lot of firewalls and different services to protect your business can now be done remotely. It's it's on the perimeter. It's not a perimeter firewall in actual device.

You have to buy with chips, but it's a managed service. Is that something you're seeing an increase in companies going out? 

[00:37:52] Darren Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. There is an increase in people outsourcing a lot of their, their security, uh, alerts, for example, like the security operation center. Cause it's hard to get people, you know, skilled workforce.

And so people are relying more and more on these, you know, entrepreneur companies and other companies who will provide that service for them. But you know, that's not always the best approach either. You've got, you've got to look at what's right for your company as well. Are you really the priority?

Being a small business or is somebody paying a multi-million dollar contract a year, going to be more of a priority for you when some, for them, when something goes wrong. So, so that's, that's something to keep in mind. 

[00:38:35] Andreas Senie: And they, and as far as insurance and who pays for something, once it happens, who I'm a small business, what happens to me versus a multimillion dollar company?

And where, where do you draw the line? What should, what should our listeners and those kind of going, wow, what do I do? Where should they look? Could do they come look at code detectives? Do they, they, I know you mentioned the Verizon report for the layman out there. What's the, what's the easiest path to start.

Finding their way forward here. Second half. Sure. That 

[00:39:03] Darren Hayes: people can definitely contact me. I can definitely give them some, some good advice on this. Um, you know, I, I, as I always mentioned, it's not all cyber, as people were walking into company. Picking up a box of paper and walking into your loading dock and going into an office and taking information from your network or installing something on a computer.

So, you know, the name cyber doesn't always, you know, apply. Um, and then, you know, just, just think about it. It's always important to think of. The global issue of malware, for example. So what a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of malware that Russia, for example, even developed years ago for, for use against Ukraine, because this cyber war has been going on for years with Ukraine, right?

Black energy happened quite a few years ago and brought down the power grid for 700,000 people in Ukraine long before there was kinetic warfare. And so. The, this type of malware, sir keeps going around the internet and around the globe and companies are being hit by this politically mode developed, motivated, and developed malware.

It comes around and it hits companies and energy companies here, you know? Uh, a year later, a couple of years later, and this is one of the things that I thought was really fascinating that this representative from Verizon mentioned one time is he said a lot of people don't think about malware. That way, that malware that was developed years ago, it's still out there on the web.

It's still out there in the wild and people are being affected by it. And it's not. You know, it didn't just hit a few companies and went to, you know, people haven't patched, everything and patching is really, really key. And it's not done as, as much as you might think. The other thing as well is, um, I would say when you, when you think about bringing in consultants to your county, And this is something that came up in a conversation yesterday at this conference.

Um, people create these credentials for consultants and they give them the king, the keys of the kingdom very often, especially if you're in cybersecurity, you're gonna have access to a lot of sensitive information and resending that access after they've left. And they've completed that consulting.

Doesn't happen as often as you would hope it would happen. And these people are out there. Who've come in and done consulting for your company who have access to your network and sensitive information years and years later. So, so that's something to think about. You need people to do auditing on these.

[00:41:48] Andreas Senie: Uh, so auditing and back end, don't forget the basics. In fact, audit your systems. I know we did a, I think it was last January. Last year, we did a rewrite your, your how to do business manual. And especially now with Ukraine and cybersecurity, malware, and the increase in attacks, audit your people and audit your business credentials, passwords, and how you're handling that.

And I know we're, we're choppy here. Um, and I hope I still sound good. My speakers are perfect. And Becca, on your side, you're coming back from ICRC. Last month we spoke. Well, we spoke about your different investors and you had a few people raising funds to deploy those funds. Now you've heard Darren speak on the fact that once they're in there there's offices, these plans are all at risk.

Let's pause that for a second. Did you raise or are those funds being treated? 

[00:42:43] Bekah Carlson: Funds are being raised and deployed. Everything's going according to plan, actually things are going very well. I'm very surprised at how quickly, uh, one of my clients saw a lot of opportunity in the market and raised a two-year fund.

They typically would do a three to five-year fund. They raised a two year fund it's over it's I think it's half deployed already and it launched. So, uh, it it's about twice as fast as they thought it was going to be, which was definitely a surprise, but they're finding good opportunities and, you know, that's, that's one thing about real estate is that uncertainty brings opportunity no matter what.

And, and I think that's probably true in. Economic sectors and market sectors that uncertainty does bring opportunity. You have to be looking for it. You have to not be, you know, penny, penny, the sky is falling and hiding from everything. You have to be out there looking and finding those opportunities and clinging to them.

Um, and that's very much what we're still seeing. And I. It's like, it's really fun to watch. It's really, really fun to watch. And I actually have been talking to some other clients that we just finished a couple of more pitch decks for clients who are raising significant capital. Like they may, at first, they thought were good.

They were going to syndicate and just do one deal. And then they're like, okay, we'll do a series and do two. And then they're like, screw it. We're raising a fund. We got like six deals in the pipeline that are ready to go. We've got to move. Those sorts of things are so exciting. And. 'cause they're in like TIF district and opportunity zones and solver recognized very quickly that smart investors who are taking advantage of.

I'm taking advantage of, of government opportunities. Yes. 

[00:44:29] Saul Klein: Um, government can't do it by themselves. It takes the private sector. And now the money's there from the government and the government, uh, you know, has policies that it's going to implement. They do it all the time. Create, uh, fill out a tax return.

If we itemize your property, we're taking advantage of what the government offers, because we want to do what the government wants us to do. And the government wants certain things to happen in real estate and people who are in real estate, who looked at this, they'll see the opportunity it's there. And that's great, but it's good to hear people are actually getting involved and taking advantage of 

[00:45:01] Darren Hayes: what's there.

One thing I was going to add to that soul, I don't know. They've seen part of I bonds. These are these government trends. 

[00:45:09] Saul Klein: Yeah. 

[00:45:10] Darren Hayes: 9.3%. Now you could use your money is safe unless something happens with the U S com 3%. Yeah. 

[00:45:18] Saul Klein: Yup. And there's some, I think, I thought there's must be some limitation on how much you can buy, but that just shocked me when I saw that.

Right. I'm thinking, 

[00:45:28] Darren Hayes: yeah, it's a good place to put it. 

[00:45:30] Andreas Senie: Yeah. Not in Bitcoin, but we're not going to go down that route because we don't have enough time and FTS and the different scandals that go. Um, so speaking of government programs and subsidies, there was something that caught my attention just this morning.

They were talking, you know, everybody's been talking about the metaverse what'd you can or can't buy, as I understand it, real estate has been purchased volumes of. Yeah, the acquisition of the assets that were acquired are worthless. And now they're talking about lending in the space and you're following ice and all the other macro economics here.

What, if anything has come up since we spoke last month, briefly on it in your mind for this virtual real estate, are they going the way of in, at T's let's just not even go there. Some space. 

[00:46:20] Saul Klein: Right now everything is on hold. And so I'd be real careful about looking at the whole concept of virtual real estate, still for this whole big boomer.

And I'm pretty open-minded about things, but let's say somebody does have a metaverse and then somebody creates their own what's to stop somebody else from creating their own closed network and somebody else from creating their. Closed network and somebody else from creating it. Right. And as long as they're not interoperable, which is a circumstance right now with, you know, you can't take your Facebook friends and take them over to Twitter, as long as they're right, then it might be worth something as long as there's only one.

But what happens if there's another place or not? So, um, I'm not, I don't know enough about it and I'm an old real estate broker and I would take the opportunity if I thought it was worth the risk. And at this point for me, it, the most important thing is to spend some time to learn about this because there is application, there is benefit as to whether or not there's going to be a, you're going to be able to make many tens of millions of dollars buying virtual high rise buildings in somebody's metaverse, I'm not sure of that.

[00:47:23] Darren Hayes: Well, well, the other thing is as well, you know, I, I, there's been a huge uptick in hackers looking to hack into crypto wallets, and I could see there's, there could be a similar trend with metaverse and NFTs as well. Yeah, so, 

[00:47:40] Andreas Senie: and, and you hit on it. So you said interoperability. So the more interoperability that exists, as I understand it, the more vulnerability can occur.

One of the things that can get lost more passwords, unless you're using the right software, Truett's software that down to your point, depending on vendors. Right? Go ahead. So, 

[00:47:57] Saul Klein: and that's kind of the, part of the appeal of blockchain and. Yep. Is that the main things interoperable because they need to be, cause if you don't, you've got walled gardens and while there's benefits there, if you can create an interoperable systems with security, that's ideal because you've got these big monopolies, you've got I'm on Facebook and I got 5,000 people and I want to move them over to some new platform.

I can't. I can't take them. I got to start all over again. If I got 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, I can't move them over some, but they're not interoperable. And so when you hear about these big companies and litigation and potential outcomes of monotony, of a violation of antitrust of these, the big social media platforms, one of the solutions that you hear people talk about is forcing them to be interrupted.

And somebody other day, like into too, there was a time when you couldn't take your phone number with you when you went from one carrier to another, you had to, you had to, right. So that kind of kept you with that carrier. And then they came up with this. Some at Congress passed something and you could the portability of your phone number and that.

So I think, um, all of this bears, uh, you know, future study and, um, it's all gonna take place. It's the right track. But, you know, jump on Darren's bandwagon and say, you just gotta be careful, you know, 

[00:49:15] Andreas Senie: I, 

[00:49:15] Bekah Carlson: oh, can I jump in here? Because I think one of the small print items with social media platforms in particular, They own your data.

It's theirs, not yours. It's very much like the MLS and realtor.com of us giving people data. And then they sell it back to us. It's the same thing. We don't own our contacts 

[00:49:37] Saul Klein: on those platforms. Yeah. This is interesting because other damn street and something, and so I was very active in web one or internet 1.0, what was, and so there's a sequence here to follow.

It's pretty interesting internet. Point. Oh, then the browser can get web one point. What was it based upon it was based upon retail. It was read only, but you really had to be a programmer to interact. And so it was read only the, the, the tech stack was like HTML, HTTP. And DNS. And then, so that was web one and right.

You had websites and you had email pretty much. And that was what you had. Then you had web two and that's when this new stack of technology, right. They called it the lamp stack Linux, Apache, my sequel and Python. Pearl. Right. So you created this new tech stack and what did this allow? This allowed people to engage with?

And now you didn't have to be a programmer, which you did a web one now, and then you have the new platforms train up like Twitter and Facebook, but you're right. Becca. They own that content. You don't own that. That's the thing. If it's interoperable, you can, but they own that context. So you hear people talking about web three and in my mind you can't really understand web three, unless you went through what we just went through.

Right. And so there was a product web 2.0, what was the product? Social media and blogging it. Web three, that's kind of where we're headed. And people say we're really at web 2.5, which is where you can start to own your content because web two, the platform was. And then this idea of web three is more blockchain, more closed, right?

And that's the, where people are looking at easier compliance with, um, the, the new privacy laws and more security. And, and that's this thing called web three, but the first person I was listening to said, well, we're really a web 2.5, because what we've got is we've got people owning content and even said that at some point here in the, and there might already be doing it, Facebook's going to start paying people for their content.

And so that's the first step. Right? And moving towards the platforms, they see the inevitability of the next phase. And what's the , what's the underlying technology of web three where web two was the lamp stack and web one was web three. The underlying technology, I think, is. And on that, you're going to build all kinds of other things and they'll run into problems, but, and that's where we get into this crypto conversation, which is to me, it's like a payment system, but it's where everything's going.

It's the next step? 

[00:52:02] Andreas Senie: Well, and so Becca hit on at the MLS, uh, other data providers. Web three is coming. What should we as real estate professionals, young, a little bit, middle, small, big, it doesn't matter what size business you are. What could you be doing? What should we be thinking about as you go forward back you, I know you said you have your investors all subscribed over funded deals and they're deploying.

Are they shifting how they look at their, their data a bit? Are they trying to keep more, uh, to the closer to the vest and then the same token solve with the molasses? Are they gonna pay us after Facebook? As brokers for putting that data in. If Facebook starts to pay me as a consumer, I mean, the vendor less is going to pay me as a broker.

I would hope they made me 

[00:52:41] Saul Klein: king, you know? 

[00:52:45] Andreas Senie: And then Darren, is that any of this not make sense because you're there to fact check us on all of the tech and cyber's. 

[00:52:51] Darren Hayes: It doesn't makes sense to me. Yeah. 

[00:52:56] Andreas Senie: Well, I love it. The, although off to a Rocky start, like web 1.0, then 2.0, we seem to come back together here on this call, at least from my headset, as far as, uh, part three of the show every month, we talk about how to reach us and why to reach us.

So let's go around quickly, uh, saw. Why and how data advocate, where are we and why should they reach out? Yes, they can 

[00:53:24] Saul Klein: reach out to the data advocate, the data advocate.com and all of this conversation about data, about privacy, about security and. Um, the future of real estate and what's happening with the major purchases of something like a black Knight by ice.

Just about anything you'd like to know about real estate and technology in the world of data, we try to give us a lot to keep up with, we do our best to keep up. So if you can't keep up on your own, that's a reason to come to the data advocate because we try to keep. Content look at content, right content so that you don't have to run all around to try to find what you need to know, to be able to move the next step in your business.

[00:54:06] Andreas Senie: And then, uh, Becca reaching out to Carlson integrated. What's what for the next 30 days, how do they reach you and why should they read. 

[00:54:14] Bekah Carlson: So Becca Carlson, Carlson integrated. We're a small marketing consulting company. We work with clients all over the country to help them define their messaging and then to share their messaging throughout whichever marketing channels that they are engaged in my office.

Number 2, 2 4 3 3 8 9 8 5 5. And I'm also available. If people just have questions about marketing, I spend a good deal of my time, just trying to help people. Through what they're facing in their challenges in their businesses. Uh, I don't know everything, but I'm always willing to lend an ear and see what I can do to help.

So thank you. 

[00:54:52] Andreas Senie: Love it. And, um, professor Hayes and now editor is the cybersecurity. You have to run me through the title. I don't have it here, but uh, why should they reach out and how do they reach out? 

[00:55:07] Darren Hayes: Sure. So, so people can, uh, send me an email D Hayes, a pay study to you or haze@codedetectives.com. And basically I work in a lot of different investigations, a lot of.

Litigation, for example, you know, sometimes it's a case of an employee moves to another company. Maybe a senior executive takes clients, takes intellectual property. What exactly happened? Companies will bring me in. Sometimes it's on the incident response side. So I work on a lot of data breaches and that kind of thing.

Um, and I can also consult on cybersecurity issues. So being in the trenches, working on these investigations, you know, I know a lot about what companies could have done better to protect their systems, who they need to be in contact with in case a breach occurs and what should they do. And also red team testing, you know, how to run different.

Exercises kind of military drills on how to bolster your cyber defenses 

[00:56:10] Andreas Senie: and that's companies of all sizes and all stages of life. It's better to be preventative than trying repair based on everything that we've said today. And with that, we're at the top of the hour, as far as Mr. Mendoza, are you still with us?

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