HOW INCREASED DENSITY, RISING INFLATION, LACK OF PROPER COMMUNICATION, AND GENERATIONAL SHIFTS ARE FOREVER CHANGING THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY.

CRECo_RERT_11-03-22

[00:00:00] Andreas Senie:  Welcome back to this month's round table. Your all in one comprehensive view. What's happening across the real estate industry, Straight from some of the industry's earliest technology adopters and foremost expertss in technology, marketing, cyber security, government policy, capital, construction, brokerage.

This is a three-part show. Part one introductions. What's new for each of the Roundtable hosts, Part two, sector focus. We dive deep into the different things affecting. Sectors and part three, what does it mean for you as a real estate operator, practitioner, broker owner? How can you take advantage of the insight around the table and what's happening?

I'm Andreasen Founder CRE Collaborative brokerage owner and technology growth strategist for both the non-profit and for profit sectors.

Joining me this month, none other than Saul Klein, realtor emeritus, data advocate, futurist original real estate evangelist and good friend, as well as 

Anna Maria Kowalik, Director of Business Development Inland Green Capital, and the a recent inductee to the Lambda Alpha International ELI Chapter of Land Economic Society.

I hope I said that right, ? Yes, you did. . Uh, Darren, Chris and Becca could not make it this month, but I'm confident we can carry through. Uh, Let's start this show impact and importance of everything happening. Just before we started, Saul and I had just touched on this new technology, uh, landscape. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You're gonna go first go. No, Darren's here. Are you sure? 

[00:01:57] Saul Klein: Yeah, that's what I understand. 

[00:01:59] Andreas Senie: Oh, Darren and none other than Professor Dar. Uh, Professor Darren Hayes, top 10 cyber forensic specialist in the country. All things cyber security. Welcome, Darren. I see you solve the crisis at the polls. Just kidding.

Scratch that. Welcome to the show, . Thank you. Sorry. I'm like, uh, that being said, um, L Gate, uh, just this month I got to go to the Siri Tech show. We spoke about every month I saw some of the most incredible technology, new ideas, and more importantly, the culmination of, of a mission. That in 2015, we were on a mission.

Real estate practitioners, early adopters were on a mission to get and utilize technology like never before. The problem was it was not connected and nobody wanted to connect to each other. And today, that whole conference, 2000 professionals, bcs, and vendors, all want the same thing. They want interoperability because that's how we get to actionable insights and income.

Land gate, a service that has end to end data on, uh, solar value, lease value, mineral value, everything to do with your property. Except not, except traditional income. Now how much can I lease it for as a rental? No, these guys, every person in the US super impressed given the climate of going green, net zero carbon emissions and so on.

So I can't wait to hear from, from Saul and Anna, Maria and Darren. About this 

[00:03:35] Saul Klein: there, So I'll, I'll take a, a shot at that first. Um, many, probably six, seven years ago, a colleague of mine by the name of Luke Glass, who was the CEO of List Hub, which was a data syndication company, and I was at 0.2, created a company that sounds very similar to this.

Now the concept is that real estate is a bundle of right. Yeah. And so when you own real estate, you have the right to possess, to use, to encumber, to dispose of, to the exclusion of others. And there are all these associated rights and new associated rights. And so, But is there a secondary market? Is there a place that the question they're asking back then where we could create a marketplace to sell air rights?

Any kind of Right. You might have in the property oil rights, in a oil well in Oklahoma that's been passed down through your family because that's the method in which they invested for years. But there never was a secondary market for that sort of thing. So the idea of taking rights in property, the unbundling, creating secondary markets, that's not a new idea.

So what you're telling me is you went to a convention and you saw somebody that's kind of doing just this, and then they add to this, the fact that if you've got access to data, that's gonna help you make decisions around if you had two different things to choose from. What kind of insights could you glean from the data that would allow you to choose one over the other to increase your return by some margin, Right?

That kind of thing, right? I think, I think it's, Yeah. That's great. I think it's perfect. What's the name of the 

[00:05:09] Andreas Senie: company? Land Gate matter of fact. And this is why you, at conferences, you have swag. Land Gate was the company and it was just incredible to see. They had come from the energy sector primarily, and now they're coming in to sell to the operators and provide this tech direct to owners and brokers and developers to see the, the vision laid out.

Here's, here's everything to do from end to end on a primary market side. They might get to secondary. We'll see, that's not their mission. We've gotta talk about other platforms for that. But thank you, Uh, thank you Saul, for, for the insight on List Hub and Postlets. We'll get back to that statement in a moment.

Anna Maria, how was your month? Um, well first, and I know energy is keen to you. 

[00:05:54] Anna Maria Kowalik: Oh, absolutely. But first and foremost, I wanna say thank you, Saul, for that information because that was, you know, extremely beneficial, uh, having that history and background and, you know, for the moving forward. And Andreas, I'm just so sorry I couldn't attend that, uh, tech conference, uh, because it sounds like it was phenomenal.

Um, uh, so I can tell you that, uh, we do use in our own underwriting various data companies, uh, you know, sometimes we need a, a quick desktop, uh, appraisal or we need, um, uh, to do an environmental search. Um, so there are, uh, various different companies like this, uh, out there, or at least a lot of data sources.

And, and so, um, You know, I, I guess you had more of the front row seat to seeing, uh, precisely, uh, what was new in the industry and, and all the different companies maybe trying to bring in more and different information. And so it's exciting to me personally to hear about the, the energy portion of it.

[00:07:08] Andreas Senie: Well, and, and spot on there, there are so many data providers. We, Black Knight, CoreLogic, ice, the Ice Exchange, everything that's happening from different sources, the ability or the, the, the front end to see it in a front end. In a beautiful dashboard, which we're seeing more and more of where you can instantly understand what you're looking at as opposed to having a whole department building it out to get you to the answer.

Mm-hmm. , that's what we're seeing more of. And, and yes, it was exciting and to be clear, that company is, uh, they will get you that data. That's what they do. Mm-hmm. . Um, but more and more people are paying attention. What is that alternative value to Sal's point? How can I make money for that platform? They can value everything but the air rights above cuz we can't sell those.

Uh, so it truly was an incredible thing, uh, to see, not to mention the, the prop tech and automation and interoperability, Mr. Professor. How was your month? Nice to see you back from the polls. Yeah. Good to see everybody. 

[00:08:12] Darren Hayes: Good to see Andreas. Um, yeah, it's, it's interesting because, you know, I've been seeing more companies in, in Europe for example, talking about trying to go to zero carbon emissions and, uh, like Air Lingus, which is the, the main airline in Ireland talking about, you know, using more fuel efficient aircraft.

And, and I kind of wondered, does, does that impact consumers? Will consumers one day favor one airline over another because it has lower carbon emissions? I, I, I'm not so sure yet. Um, but clothing is another thing. You know, I, I think I mentioned this before, that some stores over there talk about the amount of carbon that was used to manufacture, um, a particular item of clothing, for example.

And, you know, there are many. Very well known. Um, well endowed mutual fund out there that are socially responsible that Don, for example, invest in, uh, gun companies or, um, casinos or tobacco companies or things like that. I'm just wondering if, if they will think about companies that, you know, strive to have lower carbon emissions.

But one of the things that 

[00:09:29] Andreas Senie: I, Well, not to interrupt, but, and you hit on a point Anna Maria brought up, when we talk about quick underwriting and quick review and all and what's all brought up, all this data. Yeah. Uh, social responsibility. If I see that a development a property is going to be, have less carbon emission, that it's cleaner, that the air is healthier, all of these things, and I can see that online, I'm gonna wanna buy that property.

We're seeing that today, Right? Sauce chicken said no. Uh, well, 

[00:09:56] Saul Klein: so. So, again, remember, I, I'm a certified financial planner, right? So I had securities licenses and sold stocks and bonds and mutual funds back in when I was younger. And so we had with the time what we called socially conscious investing and it was kind of a new idea.

And while it was a great idea, when the people that I serviced at least looked at investment choices, that wasn't a high priority. Now, maybe that's changed and, and I don't know to what degree, but the idea, this idea has been around for a long time. Mm-hmm. , right? And so, and they even have time probably, I know this, to go back and look and measure the returns, and it can show that socially conscious returns are better than other returns.

And it'll take off. Right? It'll, it'll go. But that, and, and probably the more wealth that somebody has accumulated, the more they would sacrifice, return for. Social benefit. I don't know a lot of things to talk about when you, when you're looking at them. Yeah. Well, no, I think to both the 

[00:10:58] Anna Maria Kowalik: gentleman's points, Saul and Darren, uh, you know, there's always gonna be a certain contingency of people to whom that is more important than anything else.

And so, uh, you know, uh, definitely there's some merit to that conversation. But, uh, you know, likes all said, um, you know, it, it. Change with the times or with the level of, uh, uh, of wealth and, and, uh, you know, how one wants to see returns come in and, and, and, and it might, you know, uh, be based also, you know, there are some of us here who are aging, uh, faster and, uh, and, and so they're therefore, you know, might want a different strategy, uh, you know, for investing.

And so, uh, depending on what your situation is, I, I, I think there's a really a lot out there now and especially, uh, under the ESG platform to, you know, satisfy everyone's needs, 

[00:12:00] Andreas Senie: right? The, the aging, the, the generational shift that's occurring. Uh, saw that, you know, what we're seeing, what we're reading here, what I've seen.

The younger buyer. Younger investor does care if they have, if the return is nominal. The difference between returns is nominal. They're gonna go with a company that, that's being more impactful cuz they don't understand that in the background. In 10 years they're going to, they're gonna create this hugely impactful initiative.

They don't say now 

[00:12:26] Saul Klein: initiative, I would say maybe, but then I'd say look at the size of that market. Look at the amount of money they're investing. And it doesn't matter if it's a hundred percent, if it's a hundred percent a 2% as opposed to, you know, other generations that really have the bulk, it's gonna have a minor.

Role. Sure. Not to say that, Right? Lots of things to, to look at and, and maybe the younger gen, I, I have a hard time defining that. The younger generation, cuz there's like four of them look right. , Which one are we talking about at least, right? 

[00:12:56] Andreas Senie: Well, the younger they get the, Well, let's not go down this road specifically, but it, as far as ESG and the net carbon emissions, it's all along that same line as a, as a collective conscious, we're all trying to, to be greener.

We're all, we're all doing our part. And if you can invest greener, why wouldn't you? What the other 

[00:13:16] Saul Klein: thing is, Sorry, go ahead Darren. 

[00:13:20] Darren Hayes: Yeah, I was just gonna say one thing that struck me yesterday being in the city that I hadn't seen before was I'm talking about New York City. Um, every restaurant, as you know, they have kind of a out rating in terms of cleanliness and sanitation and that kind of thing, but they now also have a, um, energy efficiency rating.

And so there's all these restaurants that are, are up there with, with their a ratings and they get it. Most of 'em seem to get a D in terms of energy efficiency for their, their property. So I guess this is a new trend in New York City. I hadn't seen it before. 

[00:13:58] Anna Maria Kowalik: And, and so we, I've seen it more because of, uh, our work in the C pace industry.

And, uh, a actually, uh, New York has, uh, passed legislation has, um, also, uh, implemented, uh, uh, you know, uh, Various more extreme benchmarking and, and, and other programs, you know, uh, uh, to further, uh, the energy efficiency of existing buildings. And that's why that's a very, uh, important now and exciting C pace market because everything is game

I, you know, you've, uh, you've got, uh, a ton of aging building stock that requires improvement, um, and, uh, new construction is, uh, you know, is not failing, uh, even despite, uh, all of the things we've talked about in many other sessions here, uh, together, uh, interest rates and, and, and supply and, uh, uh, supply labor shortages.

Yeah, labor shortages and everything else. 

[00:15:08] Andreas Senie: So, Well, and, and certainly the, the, I love C Pace. C pace today is, is great, right? Uh, while not, while traditional lenders are pulling back, interest rates are too high, there's too much of a gap, C pace, as I understand it is not pulling back. So you can either go green and have a fair interest rate on your loan or you.

Be stuck with, with, uh, going to a private fund or private funds, non-bank funds at a higher rate? No, 

[00:15:40] Anna Maria Kowalik: I've always said that we're recession proof. And, and the thing is that right now, uh, the way rates are, uh, we're equal to and less then, uh, a lot of the mortgage rates, that are popping up around there and, uh, as well as, you know, uh, half or less than, uh, construction lending and, uh, you know, and, and, and then it's the only long term product going up against the shorter term mezzanine debt and, uh, and construction lending products.

[00:16:16] Andreas Senie: And, and you brought up a another interesting point. All this age, all these aging buildings in need of, of rehabilitation. Mm-hmm. , I would argue instead of rehabilitating, let's repurpose them. I mean, your class A offices, they will, they're fine. They're gonna make it, but. We are under housed, how can we repurpose them?

And that seems to be the big initiative everywhere I look, What can we do with that building and even tear it down and, and move it. And we've talked about this double density, uh, sa Anything new on, on North side? Well, so that's, 

[00:16:45] Saul Klein: so that, that piece is a piece of a much larger piece. And that much larger piece is how's affordability.

And so the fact is we have a housing affordability issue in the country. And so for many, many years, and we can go back and historically, actually it's a great study. We've, we have increased the price of the land and we've priced the properties out of most people's reach and the. And we've created this great problem with affordability.

The only way to really solve that problem and in solving that problem we will solve other problems, uh, is to better utilize the land, right? Under all is the land. So our wise utilization of the land. Uh, and in California, we talked about this with SD nine and 10 and a couple other laws where the state has actually said the local people, local authorities have always controlled, uh, land use through zoning, which is a police power.

And, but look at the mess that it is. And so the state has now said in California, uh, we're gonna supersede the zoning powers and we're gonna rezone all the property in California and Omar are no more single family lot. You can build two units on every one. And so it's a little bit more complex than that.

But basically, What's happening, The idea is to increase density and so, and to give density. And if you can increase density bonuses and you can get people living together and there's benefits to them living closer together, like uh, less transportation required, less burning of fossil fuels, you're closer to the things you need.

So the fact that if you bring people closer together, uh, you decrease the land cost, increase the density, decrease the land cost, make things more affordable. And as you mentioned earlier, Andres, you actually have generations of people that say they would like it that way and then getting the benefit and the bonus of it being beneficial to the world is on top of that.

So I think we're gonna see increases in density. It only makes sense. There's opportunity there. There's also funding. You look at the federal government past the what the CHIPS Act and. And, uh, the infrastructure bill. So we know all this money's gonna be spent. It's gonna be spent in the areas that fall in line with the policies and the directives of the executive branch, which is pushing people towards, and it'll bring down, you know, bring, make housing affordability a reality.

Again, higher density. Right? 

[00:19:08] Andreas Senie: Right. But how do you get in a time when a large amount of people have now moved to the sub or suburbs for affordability? They're locked in because rates have gone up. The higher density in the city, unless it costs higher, So higher density, higher density everywhere is where you're gonna end up, which means the city, you're gonna have a lot of vacancy in the city, or a lot of opportunity, Let me rephrase that, to repurpose those buildings into something new.

Repurpose 

[00:19:35] Saul Klein: the existing buildings and repurpose the properties. So I own property, I could put a second unit on my property. So the fact now they've got something, right. Two sides to this argument. One is we don't want more people living in our neighborhood. The, the other is people can't afford to live here, so we can do this.

And as an real estate investor, I always enjoyed the idea of the municipality increasing the utility of something I own. Because when I, whenever they increase the utility of something I owed, it increased the value. And so let me put two units on this property instead of one. You just increase my utility, you just increased my, Now, I might not do anything.

With it, but it's just increased. And that's the other thing. These kinds of changes don't take place overnight. So just because the zoning, just because everybody could put another unit on their property, doesn't mean everybody is gonna put another unit on their property, at least over time. And we've actually seen this in neighborhoods where this has taken place 40, 50 years ago.

It takes times, uh, time for these neighborhoods to transition and remember, I, I believe that the impetus is gonna be pushing people to want to do more of this because there's, the affordability issue is so, Well, 

[00:20:49] Anna Maria Kowalik: and then Andreas, you were talking about, you know, the, they're being comfortable in the suburbs and, and whatnot, but, um, you know, empty nesters, uh, and, and we see it here locally in the Chicagoland area.

Return to the city, uh, uh, new, uh, College graduates, uh, come to the city for, uh, work opportunities. And, and so that's a, another class. And all of these, uh, do re some of them do require some affordable housing options, you know, as Saul was saying. And, uh, you know, and others come to pay the prime, uh, rates for the, uh, the prime experience, you know.

So, uh, again, it's, it's quite the general conversation, but there are two sides to, you know, every story. 

[00:21:41] Saul Klein: We've been looking at some properties, some areas in some cities where there's actually this halo effect around the appreciation of properties that are located around walkable neighborhoods. Mm-hmm. . So, so there, there is this kind of movement toward, it might be a generational thing, right?

But there's this desire to, to do 

[00:22:00] Andreas Senie: that. Well, circling the wagons has been around since we've made, since before humankind made fire. Right. So that's, that's walkability, it's gathering together. If we can do it in the city, great. But it, it seems to me with such a housing crisis or an under house society, let's in, let's increase the, the affordable housing requirement and start converting those spaces if we can.

Those buildings, those properties, those uses overall, 

[00:22:27] Saul Klein: you know, something else, Andreas, what, when we talk affordable housing, what are we really talking about? Right. Because there are different ranges of what is affordable housing as opposed to low income housing made. Sure. And sometimes all these things get lumped together and so we don't delineate, I think 

[00:22:42] Andreas Senie: well enough.

Ca Yeah. California affordable and, uh, South Carolina Affordables, it's certainly a different line. And low and low 

[00:22:51] Saul Klein: income, right? Affordable might be a police officer or school teacher. Um, As opposed to a low income situation 

[00:23:00] Andreas Senie: of, uh, no, it's, it's interesting to see, I think because of Covid, what would've been an entire generation was all set to live in the city until Covid.

Now they're out here in the suburbs, so it, it was a reset to figure out what people would do and how they do it. Time will tell, and, and that's capital markets is, is excited that the housing market is still hot. The public storage market is hot. There's, there's definite moves to make right now that we're seeing, especially here in the Northeast as inventory starts to trickle it.

That all being said, what does all that mean for, for us as sec insecurity, Darren? I mean, we're, we're sitting here, we're going denser the closer we are to others. I notice now that I can barely get my Bluetooth and anything to work when I'm at working real estate because there's so much signal interference.

I mean, is is anything coming to help us there any. 

[00:23:55] Darren Hayes: Yeah, Unfor, unfortunately, cyber crime is, uh, still making lots of money for people. People are, are gainfully employed and, uh, you know, I I, I just got back from a conference in Edinburgh. It was with Compliance Week and, uh, it was a great conference. One of the things that, that they had on there that I was very interested in was they've run a series of, of talks about, uh, different whistleblowers and they're talked about the s e C program that offers whistleblowers a percentage of the fines that are levied against publicly traded companies.

Uh, in one situation, I think a whistleblower was paid a hundred million. Maybe it's with a, a Deutsche Bank whistleblower or something like that. But wow, it's, uh, it's, it's big money. And basically, you know that the person who was kinda advocating for this and trying to change the law in the US was talking about other countries don't want to embrace this.

And she was talking. the importance of this because for many whistleblowers, their, their career is over After they, they become a whistleblower. 

[00:25:04] Andreas Senie: That's fair. Well, that's right. You know, you get involved in a, in a lawsuit or today's world, whatever you do is there forever. So as a whistleblower, that's not a secret.

I imagine it's hard to get hired afterwards, although a hundred million's not bad. I'm, I'm try, I'm gonna think back through my notes now on companies I've come across to see what happens. 

[00:25:25] Saul Klein: here, The image I got in my mind when you said that were cyber bounty hunters. . 

[00:25:32] Darren Hayes: Yep. 

[00:25:33] Andreas Senie: Yeah. Well, they already have the, the hackers that do that, right?

Yeah, 

[00:25:38] Darren Hayes: absolutely. Absolutely. So, so there was, um, at a previous conference, it was, uh, the, the whistleblower at, uh, Theranos and wrote a book called Bad Blood. That's the company. That did the blood testing, that was all fraudulent and people went to jail over that. And, and this person that was speaking was Xavier Andre Justto, who exposed, uh, Petro Saudi, a company that, you know, claimed to have all these oil fields.

I, I, I forget whether it was Stan or, or one of those Eastern European countries. Uh, and basically the US Bank that, that looked at this deal, um, you know, approved that they had these oil fields without a actually doing their due diligence. And the Malaysian government ended up losing billions over this scandal.

And, and this person never actually got paid anything and is still looking for a job ends meet, but it'll be very interesting. And then the another piece where they interviewed, uh, sorry about. You know, counterfeit products and how a lot of counterfeit products, Gucci bags, which are the most counterfeit.

I, uh, you know, Louis Vuitton bags, which are, are the most counterfeit products out there, How they're used to fund terrorism because many of where, where terrorist are allowing these counter goods to go through and end up in countries like the US or, or in Western Europe and that kind of thing. And it made you think about, you know, you know, the, the idea, obviously it's, it's not good to buy any counterfeit products, but that the, a lot of this has been used to fund various, um, terrorism, acts of terrorism across the world.

So, so not very cyber. I, I did speak at the conference about cyber attacks and, and ransomware and, and kind of what compliance need to be aware of. But, but I also got a lot, lot out of the conference myself. , 

[00:27:44] Andreas Senie: well continued, continued awareness. And the there, I love the joke. Uh, if it's, if it's free, you can't afford the saying, If it's free, you can't afford it.

And if it's technology and it's free, then you are the product cuz they're taking whatever you're doing and selling it elsewhere. Just things to be wary of, truly. But let's, let's, let's circle back onto CPAC and actually what you brought up, the, the, these counterfeit products. Here we are, we're going green.

There's a lot of new products out there, there's a lot of new incentives. How do owners, operators, brokers, people know that they're getting the right, go ahead in the right direction. Solar panels, uh, updating or upgrading hvac, things like that. Is there any protection from C PACE as you're getting those funds for those upgrades?

Is there any policy in place? Well, 

[00:28:37] Anna Maria Kowalik: hopefully, uh, capital providers such as ourselves are doing the appropriate due diligence, uh, and taking the time to do that. Uh, I, I'd probably like to say that I think in the ESG world today, everything's moving a little bit too fast. Um, how can anyone possibly know everything and catch everything at, and especially if they're doing it at, at these rates of, of speed, uh, you, you really need to consider something, do the appropriate, uh, underwriting, the, the appropriate, uh, research, research and reviews in order to, uh, come up with the, the right response.

And, uh, Proving, you know, and also getting out there and, uh, all I can tell the commercial property owners out there is to do your own due diligence and to align yourself with the experts in the industry. And, uh, if someone is truly expert, they will admit when they are not, don't know. So, In, in certain areas and refer you, uh, in turn to those people who can assist with incentives and, uh, other things, you know, that, um, I personally may not know, uh, a lot about because I'm, I'm not dealing in that.

I'm, I'm doing something else. And so, um, you know, at taking that time, and, and I know all of us, you know, I speak to everyone in the audience and even in our industries, particularly all of us here, I'm sure we're juggling a thousand things at once. Uh, who has kids and now everybody seems to be sick these days.

You know, everybody's catching flus and viruses and, and all else that had been put on hold when everybody had been locked out for so long. Um, but, you know, so having, um, uh, The opportunity to just slow down a little bit, uh, you know, not to try to juggle too much, focus on what you're doing and, and get to that end product that you wanna see.

Uh, because there's a lot out there to consider and there's, there are a lot of nuances to programs in the C pace industry to, uh, to the actual product itself and how it's implemented at the state and, and local levels. And so, um, Uh, aligning yourself with experts who know how to navigate that is very important 

[00:31:33] Andreas Senie: in all things.

That's why I ask, staring about my cyber, cyber security needs, I ask you about C pace. And speaking of alignment and bigger things, I ask all about community building and the few, and you mentioned something, uh, interesting. Uh, and Maria, it's things going so quickly, right? Saul, you've been through an evolution of so quickly and, and in our prior conversations, we, we've always said it takes 10 years for anything to happen, but the internet, Internet has changed that the internet has, has made this a much faster revolution, evolution in stages.

What do you see, or, or what are your thoughts here in 2023? We've got C Pace. Anna Maria pointed out that you've gotta surround yourself with smarter people. How do you find that right community, the right people, the right data out there? 

[00:32:24] Saul Klein: Wow. So, uh, I have no idea. , 

[00:32:28] Andreas Senie: you go to the data advocate and you use correct ai, but I wanted a shameless problem 

[00:32:32] Saul Klein: where you're really talking real big question, right?

Mm-hmm. , particularly in 2023. And so it, what it really comes down to for me is being able to look at a number of sources of data and being able to curate that data and curate that information, make decisions. And that's more and more difficult today. Cause there are so many sources of data and you don't know all the time what's accurate and what's not accurate and what point of view are you, are you receiving?

And so broad look at information and being able to curate that. And so who do you go to? Yeah, you go to Andreas because he can curate a lot of this information for you, right? , But no, but it really is, that is the key. There's so much. Who do you go to when, what do you look, I remember years ago, I subscribed to a newsletter and it was called The Kiplinger Newsletter, and it was like a double fold, four page, just one little line on different things.

And I subscribed to that for years and the Kiplinger Tax letter and it, they came once a week and just by reading those I was. A month, two months ahead of most of my contemporaries. Right? Just real easy, brief information in context. So contextualized information, and so look for information in the context of what you're doing in Anna, You mentioned that, right?

And there's so many choices. You have to look at it within the context. Of what you're 

[00:34:02] Anna Maria Kowalik: trying to accomplish. And also I think, uh, as we say in real estate all the time, you know, it's a relationship industry. And so, uh, you know, you, you go with people in the industry whom you trust, whom you've, uh, either worked with before or, uh, you've heard, uh, good things about, uh, you know, nurturing relationships and, and bringing them to the point of, uh, you know, understanding you and your processes, you know, really helps develop, uh, a good foundation for finding the appropriate information and building it from.

When you 

[00:34:42] Saul Klein: mentioned something, Ann Marie earlier you said, uh, but you talked about due diligence. Mm-hmm. about due diligence. One of my favorite expressions has always been there is no substitute for your own due diligence. Right? And so we just need to re keep reinforcing that with people. Right? There is no substitute for your own due diligence, and it's possible to get through the right information, get the insight you need to make the right decision.

But remember, in the end, you're responsible for doing that. 

[00:35:08] Andreas Senie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, 

[00:35:08] Darren Hayes: I would spot up add to that. Uh, no, I was just gonna say that, uh, there's a lot of companies out there such as Lexus Nexus, uh, Risk Solutions. Uh, there's leads online, there's Rooster, there's Thompson Clear. All of these companies provide background information on both, uh, companies and their risk metrics as well as the individuals.

And, and sometimes we don't often think about the individuals running the company or maybe who their top security people. How seasoned are they? You know, lots of questions arose with the Equifax breach, for example, and who was running the show in terms of computer security. So in terms of third party risk management, we need to think about not just the company and the customers we're dealing with, but also the individuals who are leading teams such as executive management, but also the security personnel as well.

So I would say that they are important factors. I think a lot of companies today are also very concerned about not just, um, regulatory risk, um, but also sanctions. And there are so many different shell companies out there that are operating on behalf of, of China or Russia. And so that becomes, you know, also a big risk for, for companies out there today, 

[00:36:35] Andreas Senie: right?

If we expand the, your network is your net worth. The people, right? The people you know, the, the deals you can get. To include the, the technology and the vendors and so forth in a remote world or mostly remote world where we're not shaking hands all the time. To Anna Maria's point, and its all your point Darren, how do we know that we're dealing with the right person that we didn't stumble upon?

A bad actor That looks good because it's incredibly easy to throw up a fancy looking website, but you've gotta get under the hood with people and that takes time. That takes two diligence. 

[00:37:08] Saul Klein: Um, and Elon Musk is gonna charge a eight buck to everybody. Eight bucks a month for that. 

[00:37:13] Andreas Senie: And I, I was gonna say, and then it's, then you want to be very careful.

You don't end, end up in an echo chamber. Right, Exactly. So, cuz you can fall down a rabbit hole of, of, of, bad, of, and that's not too slight. Elon Musker Twitter cause nothing. weekend. Let, let, let me not end up there. I'm not paying eight bucks. We're, I'm waiting for the next. Uh, to, to pop up. Well, 

[00:37:36] Anna Maria Kowalik: I think these gentlemen can, an, can address that question a little bit, right?

Better than, than myself. But I, uh, uh, would like to say that, you know, uh, one way that I, uh, personally when I'm doing some due diligence, uh, get, try to get past that is by having multiple conversations. Because when you have multiple conversations, uh, you, you get to the bottom of a lot of things, and, and, uh, there's gonna be some slip up somewhere or something that, you know, uh, uh, just, uh, doesn't seem right.

Just sit well, Yeah. And, and, and so, you know, the, so from a relational, and I always bring in the relational aspect, you know, that's, that's one of the due diligence pieces that's important. But then, you know, there's, like you said, how do you do that on the internet? And so, These gentlemen might have a better idea of how to present that.

Certainly 

[00:38:38] Andreas Senie: the, Go ahead. 

[00:38:39] Darren Hayes: I was just gonna say, I think, you know, and I tell is, I said this at the conference is, you know, some of these cyber incidents could have been prevent. You just picked up the verify somebody or verifi verify some something. And I think it may be even a bigger problem with the next generation.

You know, I, I have my kids and, and you know, I've asked them to contact somebody and they're saying, somebody didn't text me back, they didn't get my text, or they didn't read. I said, There is a call feature on that phone. You know, and we gotta, we gotta think about that, that, that verifying, using the old fashioned method of a phone call is sometimes more.

[00:39:16] Andreas Senie: Well, and that's, I, I was gonna highlight the fact that everywhere I look, it seems nobody wants to talk on the phone. They want to text an email and, and you can't truly understand how someone feels through a text or an email. Even if I know you, I might not, I might mistake a tone in what you're sending me and I'm just shocked, uh, in that regard online and everywhere.

[00:39:38] Saul Klein: Here's the thing. I think about that, Andreas, and that is that, that, yeah, there's a lot of nuance to human communication. And the more time we spend with people in a communicative situation, the more we start to understand, be it, uh, subconsciously or otherwise. The new one. 

[00:39:57] Andreas Senie: Yep.

[00:40:01] Anna Maria Kowalik: Hmm. Oh, we lost his audio. 

[00:40:03] Andreas Senie: We lost his audio. But this is a lesson in 80% of communication being body language . So Saul, we know you were saying something important. Go ahead. Are you with us? Uh, Nope, he's coming back. . Well, we wait for him to jump back on. It's, yeah, a body language. The new, um, emotional intelligence.

All these things seem to be lost. I see it less and less in business. Emails are much shorter. Uh, and the, one of my, the newest trends I've seen in Anna Maria, I, on the CPA side, on the financing side, bots taking my in. Do I know that's a person or not? Totally. You're texting. I don't know if that's even a person.

Totally. Uh, Saul, you remember where you were because it looked, your body language was communicating important. 

[00:40:51] Saul Klein: No, I think I was talking about nuance. And so no matter, no matter what environment you get into, be it this new medic kind of. Web through you. It takes practice. And in the beginning it's tough when somebody puts a smiley face on a post, what do they really mean when somebody, But if I've, I've, if I've seen 'em post a thousand times, I'll start to understand what they mean by that.

And so there's, you'll become better at engaging the more you use these different medium, the ones that, in your point, is the one we're most used to is either face to face or right phone. And that's the easiest way to get the most direct because we are, we adjust more to the nuance because we have had more practice doing it 

[00:41:35] Andreas Senie: that way.

Mm-hmm. , Well, we around the table. Absolutely. I phone is, I would love to and, and I don't know where to get the data. I'm sure it exists. The population is growing. Right. More and more a cell phone adoption. Where, where cell service is available. What do, how in the last five years, how. Far down has the, uh, is is the number of minutes, I mean, what is the trend and, and the decrease in actual talk time compared to text correlating the two together?

Oh gosh. 

[00:42:06] Anna Maria Kowalik: So I, I can, I can tell you some, uh, some figures that are, uh, non non professionally oriented, . Uh, but we have a family plan and have, uh, several different generations on the family plan. And, uh, the older generation, uh, has 20 times, 50 times as many phone. Call minutes than the younger ones. It, it's, it's a progression downward as you go down in age and, uh, and then the text messaging, uh, goes up or the internet usage is off the charts and, and, and so I can just give you that personal insight.

[00:42:55] Andreas Senie: Well, and that just brings us back to a lot of buildings that were fit for purpose then before are no longer fit for purpose. So how do we push them and move them and adjust them for, for these new mixed use walkable cities, um, or urban design, 

[00:43:12] Anna Maria Kowalik: hope, energy efficient. And we hope they're using CPACs. . 

[00:43:16] Andreas Senie: Let me, They have 

[00:43:16] Saul Klein: to.

Yeah. Another variable in there on your, on the family playing Anne Marie, is that older people might have more. Right. And they have more time. They spend more time on the phone. They have more relationships. Yes. Okay. So they spend more time. I mean, a lot of, but, but yeah, generally for sure. Right. The kids doesn't see me wanna 

[00:43:39] Andreas Senie: answer the phone at all.

And not just kids, it's, it's, uh, young professionals coming his face brokers. I mean, ask a 20, a 20 year old broker, how many phone calls he makes, Ask a 30 year old, that's, and so on and so forth. When I say kids, 

[00:43:53] Saul Klein: that's kinda like a real generic term. 

[00:43:55] Andreas Senie: Oh, well no, this is for the audience, not for you. . This is just throwing it out there.

I mean, uh, Jim Free said it once. I'll never forget it. Email. Email is emotional comfort food when you go to work. Cause all you do is click and and hit right? You don't respond. So if we're not talking on the phone and people aren't answering phone calls and they're not looking at emails, we're, we're stalled as a business unless we go 

[00:44:19] Darren Hayes: One difference.

One difference I notice in in Europe, uh, compared to here, is that a lot of businesses in Europe use WhatsApp and they'll actually post their WhatsApp number and they'll answer that faster sometimes than sending their customer service an email or, or texting them or something like that. So, so WhatsApp is used by a lot of businesses in Europe and I haven't seen it be adopted as much over.

[00:44:48] Andreas Senie: Well, is that, and not to dive down this road, but is that because in, you know, China for instance, you can pay through the, through the app you pay for cab rides for instance and such. There's the, the cell phone is entirely different. Animal, it's your wallet more so than here in the states where everyone uses cards.

I dunno, I, 

[00:45:08] Darren Hayes: yeah, I think maybe because you have so many, maybe more tourists and foreigners and, and that kind of thing who maybe don't want to use regular text or make a phone call. They have an international number. 

[00:45:22] Anna Maria Kowalik: Sure. Definitely cost. If you, and I've traveled, uh, all of my family in order to connect with them in Italy, um, we all use WhatsApp and we still do, We, we do chain texts and send photos to each other and, uh, that is the way to communicate.

[00:45:42] Darren Hayes: Yeah. And I think because, so yeah, so many people there would have different international numbers or people are traveling around and it's, it's, you know, the US is a much bigger country and, and people generally have that, that plan that covers no matter where they go. So maybe it's, I'm assuming it's probably because of that, but I wonder if businesses adopted that kind of thing with a WhatsApp number, if that would bring any more customers in or, or help with communication?

I don't, I don't know. 

[00:46:11] Andreas Senie: Well, I, I can't speak, um, across industries, but I have noted that a lot of vendors in commercial real estate. Many of their websites or some websites now, don't list a phone number. It goes back to that chat bot, Oh, sorry. It goes back to a chat form that may or may not be a real person, an email and, um, you know, automated search for questions, it's actually rather hard to get someone on the phone everywhere.

And whether it's CVS or the, like, deals just got done when we were on the phone, I, I get more, uh, I get more information out of standing up at a, at a broker luncheon where people just say, This is what I have and this is what I need. Then I can get online in many cases, because it's responsive and it's intuitive.

To Saul's point, the nuances are there. We're meeting each other WhatsApp. Um, I, I am on WhatsApp, but , of course, everyone here is probably on WhatsApp, but it's, it just seems, seems like the world is, is shifting, has learned some bad lessons out of Covid. Let me say it that way. Let's get back to the phone.

Uh, we have these labor shortages, we have all these shortages and, and there are a lot of problems that can be avoided if you got on the phone, these misunderstandings or miscommunications, especially as you're out there doing deals. That all being said, and I, we've jumped around a bit today, the conferences.

I'm headed to Texas. If anyone wants to join me for the 16th, the SIR tech conference was incredible in New York, as I mentioned, and we have many more to come. Anybody had it anywhere else, any big news in your local area? Local sector, As we come up to the end of the year, it gets easier. 

[00:48:00] Anna Maria Kowalik: Well, uh, besides some usual events, uh, we have our, uh, local chapter of C C I M, uh, doing, uh, uh, their annual, uh, diamond Gala.

And so, uh, I'm attending that next week. Uh, but I am, uh, speaking on a panel. Uh, In Minneapolis, uh, under the Biznow Group, uh, on December 8th. So I'll be traveling for that. Um, you know, but, uh, just a lot of local, uh, kinds of presentations and, uh, education on C pace. So, 

[00:48:37] Andreas Senie: So you're still educating All education is the primary.

Those are the events primary. They don't, people don't understand or getting it. Although the one other thing at this event for you specifically that was fantastic, I have it here somewhere, uh, was, uh, grid credits are big thing. You can get in, buy in and be purchased back credits, uh, they were pushing to the commercial owners.

Uh, all of the ESG was probably 40% of a 2000 person. Event. So I, I don't think you'll have to educate much longer. It's the point I'm 

[00:49:10] Anna Maria Kowalik: making. No, And, and, and, uh, I think a lot of the education too that, um, I'm doing lately reaches more directly to certain property. Oh, I, I've heard about it. I, I'd like to do it.

I don't, you know, I, And what if, uh, I have this situation and does it work in that situation? And so it becomes a little bit. Personal education too. It, I've always said, you know, this isn't the kind of, uh, product or program you advertise on a billboard or anything. You know, you, you just have to have that, uh, relationship.

You have to talk to people and, uh, it's a contact sport. It's 

[00:49:50] Andreas Senie: a contact sport. Real estate is a contact Yes. in every instance. And, and Wow. We're at six 50. I did, uh, speaking of contact sports, I'm hearing a lot of news out there with the different MLSs and, and what's happening with n ar sa. Have you, have you heard, uh, Rezo, the big things coming, Any update there on your end?

What's, what's the big shift? As we come 

[00:50:19] Saul Klein: to the top the hour, n ar conventions coming up, there's the two big lawsuits that, uh, uh, sensor and molar and the class action 

[00:50:27] Andreas Senie: activities, BYSIDE commissions, variable commissions, Yeah. The 

[00:50:30] Saul Klein: whole thing still is out there. That could, that's got huge potential damages, um, if it, if it goes the way of the plaintiff.

So, you know, that's still there. Those, these types of cases are a long time coming and it will be sometime next year before we get anything definitive. Now, in the meantime, there are behind the scenes conversations taking place, other suits lining up, but I think right now MLS is still fine. Uh, right, It's, it will not have a problem until these lawsuits heat up and, uh, nothing really.

All that definitive right now, Ken. Ready for 

[00:51:10] Andreas Senie: Thanksgiving. 

[00:51:11] Saul Klein: Close. Yeah, exactly right. It's the time of year. Well, . 

[00:51:15] Andreas Senie: Exactly. And, and it's, it's a great time of year overall, but we have to be hyper aware of our hypervigilant for cybersecurity, which I'm gonna get to with Darren in a moment, given the time of year.

Uh, hopefully I'll see it the next nar event as, So Darren, you're back from a conference. The holidays are here as real estate professionals, as people. What should we be focused on? Don't click on the, on the Turkey. Jiff, That's cute in your email, I'm guessing is the big one. 

[00:51:46] Darren Hayes: Just don't, just don't ignore those updates.

I've seen recently some, um, big vulnerabilities associated with Chrome and then any connect, uh, which is a service that creates a, uh, a tunnel to your. Organization. Um, just make sure that you continually update everything, see what needs to be updated through your phone. For example, those alerts that you get.

Just make sure you update the latest apps. Um, I'm gonna be attending a conference in Jan. So all of those devices in your home are become very, very valuable in terms of evidence in, in, uh, investigations and prosecuting criminals such as your speakers and your ring and, and your thermostat wear devices.

Yeah, and your car. Your car is a big thing. The, the vehicle telemetry because it's continually pinging your location, knowing what speed you're going. Um, every car out there has a sim card as well, which connects to cell towers, and that information is, is. 

[00:52:54] Andreas Senie: 2016 or newer, mind you, right? Yes. Yes. If your car's older than 2016, you can speed.

I mean, you don't have the same car . Yeah, 

[00:53:02] Darren Hayes: exactly. Exactly. And, uh, and if I could, if it's okay, maybe I could give a shameless plug for a book that I just published last week, 

[00:53:11] Andreas Senie: AB please do. 

[00:53:13] Darren Hayes: Uh, C I S S P certification. So if you're a security professional, um, just co-authored a book, uh, with, and it was published with Pearson um, Publishing.

So, 

[00:53:26] Andreas Senie: Love it. Congratulations. And, and before we, before we part from, from your wisdom on the, the not speeding, which is important, , , the, uh, you, you, a thought popped in my head. I was at this conference and they offered wifi. There was a, there was a password. But the wifi was there, and you have all, you have all of these people hopefully heading to their families, joining other networks everywhere they go.

Any advice for everyone as they're movement about on the holidays or even going to their Starbucks at this point when they're, when they're thinking about joining wifi networks or connecting their devices via Bluetooth? 

[00:54:06] Darren Hayes: Yeah. Don't do it. . Uh, and I, I would also say, you know, you don't know who manufactures those charging stations at airports, and you see so many people and all those cables coming out.

It's very easy to put malware on those, and especially you don't know who's manufactured those kiosks, what country they've come from. So, uh, just, you know, I would avoid those two public wifi and charging stations. 

[00:54:32] Andreas Senie: Bring your own toothbrush and bring your own charger. Exactly. I love it. I love it. Well, as, as Saul pointed out, we're headed into the.

Holiday season. Everybody's slowing down. Some deals are getting done. Taxes are in from my side of the fence. You know, specific to the brokerage world, holding the deals together. Many deals have fallen through because of funding changes, loan to cost, so forth. But more and more opportunities are coming.

You just have to find them. Stay ahead of your, not ahead, but stay in front of your market. Being hyper, being a hyper sniper, I'm gonna borrow a VC term, Be a hyper sniper on the deals you want to go after and network them and prepare them. Prepare to do them in January. That's where I'm at. I want to thank each of you for joining us for the Crackle AI round table.

As always, this is my favorite time ba, my favorite event of the month, to get a picture from each of you and get the most robust picture of the industry. I'm looking forward to next month. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving in the interim. And because Darren brought up a book, so I gotta ask you, do you have a book to recommend as well?

Although you may not have published it, you know, 

[00:55:45] Saul Klein: I don't, but I got a, a podcast that I would like to recommend and, um, Go ahead. If, if you, uh, wanna send me an email, it's actually by Y E S H A, Yeshe yev, Y A D E V. And it, one of, is probably the most interesting podcast I've heard in the, since I've been listening to podcasts.

And this woman is the most incredible. She's a professor of, um, at the, at Vanderbilt, uh, around, uh, centralized currencies, digital currencies, and. Just a, a fascinating treasuries, really. Your thing is treasuries and the treasury. Just, you know, I have an understanding of the treasury markets and kind of how that, and after listening to this woman speak, I was totally amazed and I would say to you, listen to her and don't listen with the intent that you're gonna understand everything she says, because you won't.

But you'll come out with this really great perspective around capital and how capital works in this country and how it makes everything that we talk about in real estate possible. Um, so not my book and, but the best thing I've seen in 

[00:57:06] Andreas Senie: a long time. Listen to Fantastic. Anna Marie. I would, I mention a book , Only if you can Top Saul's book, 

[00:57:16] Darren Hayes: Top Sauls book, but I'm reading a really interesting book.

It's called The Islander. Uh, it's a biography of Chris Blackwell, and you may be one. Basically, he brought, uh, you know, U2 and Bob Marley and other famous artists to fame. He produced their records and it, it's a fascinating book about him growing up in Jamaica and interacting with lots of people such as Errol Flynn and, and other great movie stars, and Ian Fleming, who is friends of his family.

So if, if you're interested in that kind of thing, it's, it's a fascinating 

[00:57:50] Andreas Senie: book. And, and Anna Maria, if you had to point someone to a resource, A book, Where are you pointing them? Either personally, as professional or professionally? Uh, cpac, uh, 

[00:58:02] Anna Maria Kowalik: C Pace? Personally and professionally? No, I've gotta tell you, uh, you know, so, no, you know, major works have been written on CPAC that I could recommend , uh, uh, you don't.

Although there have been a couple of white papers put out, uh, recently and you know, one could easily look those up on the internet. Uh, unfortunately, uh, due. Personal circumstance and, uh, and professional, uh, just, uh, being so occupied lately. People are trying to get deals in before the end of the year.

This happens inevitably every year. And, and so you've got this, you know, whoosh of, of, of, uh, different, uh, transactions coming in. So between those and between, uh, you know, caring for my elderly parents, it's, uh, and then visiting children in other states, , it, it, it really begins to, uh, you know, I don't have that reading time, so my apologies.

I used to be such a big, huge, avid reader, and one of these days, I'll get back to 

[00:59:04] Andreas Senie: it. Oh, it, it's okay. Saul started this years ago. Early on the show, he, he would pick a book up from a shelf in a way it went. Um, and so that, that's, um, bringing back the old throwback. But for those of us, if you can have the, if you'd find the time, the, uh, zoning meetings, planning and z.

Most of the time now it's on Zoom. Just go figure. Literally tune in, have it in the background, and learn what's happening in your market. Cuz it's that easy. You don't even have to go there and sit in a room anymore. As far as books, um, I'm still a huge fan of Blitzscaling or The Lean Startup. Those are both great books to, to help you grow your business.

But in life and in business, my number one today would be the unofficial project manager. Uh, it will help train you in all things including real estate. And I see there, uh, Saul, you sent the link out. We're gonna pop the link up in the recording when you talk about it. With that guys, I want to thank our listeners as well as our, our producer, Mr.

Mendoza, in the background. Don't forget to download our show anywhere. You get your audio, your pod, uh, podcast. Alexa, Google, Stitcher, or just ask your Alexa device to tune into the correct way. I round table. Subscribe to our YouTube channel where we host great content, including sector interviews, past shows, as well as take the time log into the CRA collaborative platform.

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