Real Estate Development, Affordable Housing Investing, & The Housing Crisis with Craig Livingston

started working as a consultant for Real Estate developers raising them Capital One transaction where I'd raise all the debt and Equity Capital I'm looking at the closing statement and there it was just me I was a little fee and I said wait a minute if I'm bringing all the money I'm a smart guy I want to be on that side of the table that deal closed and I stuck with that developer for a couple years for free just to learn because I understood that I could acquire a skill set that could make me a tremendous amount of wealth when I see people today who approach me hey man I'm going to learn real estate development give me a job that's not the right way right you want to acquire that skill set and if you can offer something bring something to the table and indoctrinate yourself into the real estate world you want to do that because that knowledge requires yours forever my graduates from my school being Forbes backdrop backdrop a mic drop backdrop [Applause] alright guys welcome back eyl today is going to be a very special episode we got Craig Livingston so if you were at invest Fest legendary investment legendary performance um you saw him on stage with Don peoples yes and moderated bar I got him you know mortgage guy yes and that was something that was a really dope highlight of investors very educational um and he works with dom we'll talk about that later on but that's the reason why they were on stage they were talking about the affirmation Tower they were talking about real estate development they were talking about real estate investing a variety of different things um so this is something that's extremely important because we talk about real estate investing a lot um but it's always good to talk about real estate development and on a larger scale um because it's important not only to be motivated but also to have the education to do it as well I think we've only we've had a like a handful of developers on a brand new rule was one obviously we had done but we always say that thing right you know despite to be something you have to see it and so having these conversations especially at this level like this is like we don't go higher than this you know I mean so it's going to be uh I feel like it's going to be a master class in a sense yeah managing partner for exact Capital um and has executed over 1.5 billion of financing for numerous transactions ranging from market rate to luxuries building a a condominium uh in Harlem yeah um properties throughout the United States working with Don peoples on the affirmation Tower I believe right that's right and Cheryl mckison and show them we can't leave out we leave out the queen yeah yeah if you're not familiar with the affirmation tower that is a project um that once it's built will be the tallest building in New York City correct Western hemis Western Hemisphere and the only Skyscraper with majority black team that's right right and that's intentional so so that's a historic landmark and um I know you guys have had some issues we'll talk about that but that's a Historic Landmark very important that we get that pushed through so this is going to be a very high level conversation to say the least but first and foremost thank you for joining us appreciate it my pleasure to be here again man great to see you guys you guys been real busy since we saw each other in Atlanta yes yes I'm extremely proud of everything you guys are doing likewise likewise thank you so we're going to get into it but first let's get some background how did you get your start in in real estate commercial real estate and in real estate develop development so uh let me give my background just do a little comprehensive review so uh I am the managing partner at exact Capital group uh we are a vertically integrated real estate concern we own develop and build for our own account so um I got into this because the last career that I had was actually in Investment Banking and to be a good real estate developer you need to have great financial acumen uh great communication skills and good presentation skills and and uh project management skills so it was a natural progression out of uh my last you know job at Goldman Sachs into becoming an entrepreneur when I was in business school everyone uh that went all the brothers who were my contemporaries read a book called why should white guys have all yeah autobiography Reginald Lewis and that was really a road map on how to be an entrepreneur successfully at the highest level and if you for those who don't know Reginald Lewis cop the book it's a really good book but it you know he was doing leverage buyouts in the 80s like in the Michael Milken era and there was practically no other black people doing it so it stood out to me definitely uh made an imprint on me and like you said seeing it right I was able to see somebody else doing it it encouraged me to take on Business and Entrepreneurship at the highest level so when I chose to leave investment banking I wanted to uh get into something that was transactional deal motivated and uh it just happened to be real estate um and you know when I was still working I bought a property and um I used I was telling Matt when I spoke with him through an FHA loan and so I put down my five percent I remember sixty five hundred dollars and we so we owned that property um I bought if it's like I said use the FHA loan spent 6 500 and uh it was a three family and every month that I owned the property it made between 800 and thousand dollars of income uh and so after six seven months I had my investment back in 18 months the realtor called me and said there's an offer on your property and the offer was for a hundred thousand dollars more than when I bought the property for and that was like when the first light bulb went off and I got really into real estate because I said if I could do that why the hell am I coming here every day so uh fast forward I ended up buying uh three more multi-family properties and cycled them out sold them but uh when I left uh banking I thought well how can I do this business at scale and I started working as a consultant for Real Estate developers raising them capital and I was in one transaction where I'd raised all the debt and Equity capital and I'm looking at the closing statement and there it was just me I was a little feed and I said wait a minute if I'm bringing all the money I'm a smart guy I want to be on that side of the table so that deal closed and I stuck with that developer for a couple years for free just to learn because I understood that I could acquire a skill set that could make me a tremendous amount of wealth right so when I see people today who approach and say hey man I want to learn real estate development give me a job that's not the right way right you want to acquire that skill set and if you can offer something bring something to the table and indoctrinate yourself into the real estate world you want to do that because that knowledge requires yours forever and you can monetize that for your entire life yeah so um after I closed that transaction I was talking about and I wanted to be on the other side of the table about a year later I locked up my first deal and it was a church deal a condo development in Harlem where Church owned property and this is you a common scenario in our communities we have churches that have been in the urban environment for a long time and they've weathered some bad times and now that all this gentrification has happened and the land has come invaluable they want to monetize that land uh but they um also want to continue to exist there so what a lot of churches do is they'll do deals with developers and well like the church will say Hey you know we need a new church facility uh we need some cash and you know the developer you do what you want with the air rights and it was that type of deal and we brought that project to Market in December of 2009 right during the middle of the financial downturn so for about a week I thought that the project was going to be a rental uh turns out we hit the curve pretty well and we had a fantastic sellout about 60 million dollars in 16 months and um you know we were very happy to you know repay our loan we made some money uh and that project went on to be very successful all the people who bought uh you know units there by 2014 all their units had doubled in value so they were very happy with the investment that's that was my first project which is a market rate development project and the other piece of intellectual Capital that I garnered through that was having weathered the financial downturn and all that economic turbulence I thought well how could we do real estate development and inoculate ourselves from the economic cycle right and the answer to that was affordable housing and uh which are public-private Partnerships where we are building housing for tenants rental housing for tenants who are uh you know you take your average school teacher married to a UPS driver who doesn't have four or five thousand dollars a month to pay for rent out here and that's that's our Market that's what we like to build for and uh those types of projects require the involvement and participation of governments who will provide certain non-conventional instruments like tax credits taxes and bonds subsidies Etc that made the capital stack work so you can produce the housing the the dirty little secret about affordable housing is the income you generate from the rents don't pay enough income to subsidize building it it's because government subsidizes it that it works yeah there's there's a there's a lot to unpack but I want to go back just the beginning for a second because you made a very wise decision that most Americans don't make and you bought multi-family right away sorry um because you know most times in you know in our communities it's like we save enough money to buy the home that we can afford or the dream home that we think we can afford and we realize later that we can't but you started with multi-family right away was that the strategy all along that you had been seeing people do that and as that as a way of having passive income yeah that was definitely my objective in that we wanted to uh you know when you think about right the fundamental equation is this most people buy into that American Dream right where you know if you take a person they go out and buy a home they save all their money they buy a single family home they move into it for the next 30 Years mostly a disposable income is going to pay that mortgage that's it but if they just did something a little bit differently buy a couple of income generating assets first right in the case I was talking about uh when I bought my first multi-family I mean I was making me between eight hundred and thousand dollars a month so they're called a thousand dollars a month uh if you're making 60 Grand and you buy a multi-family house and you can make yourself an extra thousand dollars a month you've given yourself a 20 raise right and you can do that repeatedly and the more assets you have that are generating income for you the easier it is to buy your next one and your next one right it's like getting off of that point of inertia but if you choose to buy a single family home and move into it I think you know it's not as lucrative and it's not the wealth generating uh instrument that investment properties are so let's let's get into this real estate development conversation with somebody that's looking to become a real estate developer right now right what advice would you would you give them in order to because I understand that it's not necessarily easy to get into the game and it's all about relationships a lot of times so what advice would you get to somebody that's looking to become a real estate developer so the first thing is just learn the equation right because you could do the equation uh on a multi-family three family which most people can have a level of access to but it's that same equation that same the same mechanics that go into the development deal granted the variables change a little bit because if you get into development you have to take on some different risks uh but you're basically buying an asset uh you're investing money in it you're um starting with a multi-family like a three family You're Gonna Learn things like how to do maintenance right when when that toilet gets backed up you're gonna learn something about Plumbing you'll learn something about electrical and folks should not be scared to you know take on the challenge because everything you learn increases your knowledge base when you when the more knowledge you have the more you're able to monetize your situation so um you know I would encourage folks to start small so start with uh an operating property first right a multi-family learn the mechanics down the road you may want to say you know I'm going to buy a brownstone or some other home that you can actually renovate and reposition you I mean everyone watches HGTV and those kind of things you see people doing flips that's another aspect of you know uh in real estate investing real estate development that is achievable and accessible for most people but if you do that you learn how to you know contract with an electrician how to get the plumbing redone in the house how to you know put get a new roof put on all the things that you basically do when you develop but you're learning it in a little bit of a safer scenario and once you um you know you go from uh crawling to walking you can run yeah so that that crawling process I'm imagining now as you're interning well interning for free right you're saying can I help this firm take us through that process of what you're learning what are you seeing the negatives and positives of this space that you're now in and to that moment where you now see your name at the bottom of the of the bagging like wait my name needs to be next to be needs to be next to the bigger figures on this what's that process like for you you mean going from just like to starting to learn well it's really just desire man like you know really wanting to learn it you think about um what this opportunity represented for me was you know to actualize a dream and being an entrepreneur and so I was intent on learning everything so uh you know why I stayed with that developer for for free for two years because I wanted to learn and I wanted to soak up everything like a sponge so my background is in finance I have two degrees in finance uh bachelors and a master's and I worked as an investment banker so I came to the table with really strong financial Acumen so the um you know the math in real estate is simple math and this you don't have to be an investment banker you don't have to have an MBA to do it it's simple math because the income is generated from people paying rent you have operating expenses and you have cash flow it's really a simple equation um development goes a little bit deeper because you have to take something that's not generating any income and put it through a process where you're going to borrow some Capital uh both debt and Equity you're going to hire an architect maybe do some entitlement work so that you can have the right zoning or whatever you need to build then you're going to go through the process of actually constructing something a little bit more risky but once you get your wheels under you you can do this and so learning all of those different aspects you know the financing component uh being very uh focused on project management so making sure the um our plans are getting done on time and you know the legal documents that we needed around developments we're also moving along and are structured properly um there's a lot of Engagement in what I do now with municipalities because when we're developing affordable housing it can't be done without the participation and the support of government and so there's a lot of what I think is undo bureaucracy in some markets that you have to contend with but then there are other markets that are easier to function in and that is why as a company we chose to expand out of New York City into several other markets where there really is tremendous demand for housing both you know market rate moderate income and you know uh affordable housing as well so can you walk us through the development of of a building it could be in New York or out of New York I know there's rfps right and then you have to get the financing right then like you say you have to get the architect and you got to go through the permit process so yeah can you kind of walk us through step by so so let's start with a A blank piece of dirt okay so you have a piece of dirt let's call it in Brooklyn okay and it's in the neighborhood that's turning over and uh is improving and I as an investor believe you know what I can put a building on that piece of dirt call it 50 units and uh make money right so the process is first of all I see that piece of dirt the first thing I want to do is what's called a zoning analysis I want to understand what's the size of a building I could put on there can I actually put 50 units is it 55 units is it 60 is it 45 I don't know so an architect would be engaged they'd conduct the zoning analysis and what it does is reads the zoning code and every municipality in the country has a zoning code and it interprets the zoning code and it gives you right there in the two three four page report exactly what could be billed how high it could be where the setbacks have to be um you know how many dwelling units uh can be in that building the size of every dwelling unit so all these very technical features are codified in the document so you can take that zoning analysis now and now go build a financial model right and that financial model is going to say look I have these 50 units summer Studios some are one bedroom some two bedrooms and they generate x amount of income right um that the amount of income they generate has to also um be further reduced by the operating expense so the superintendent has to clean the building or you know service the residents the porters have to take the garbage out and shovel the snow off the off the front steps you have to pay for electricity in the common areas you have to pay your real estate taxes or whatever it is so you do a financial model and you see you know the revenue can generate the expenses associated against that project and then what kicks out of that is what we call Net operating income that net operating income is what is used to service the debt the mortgage on the building right so you can see just from a pro forma what noi the building produces and that noi will tell you how much debt you can raise so [Music] um you also want to have a a project that of course can support the debt so you know how much dedicate support now you look at well how much debt do I need to build it and you're going to say you know a 50 unit building um when you become a little bit more seasoned you kind of know what uh construction costs are but for folks who aren't you can literally take your plans talk to a builder say hey I'm building this building it's going to be black and plank or it's going to be poured in place concrete steel frame whatever construction methodology your structural engineer recommends and you get a cost right a cost projection for building the building so that building we'll just use some numbers right that um let's say acquire the land and to uh build everything's gonna be 10 million dollars and let's say a 10 million dollars is at six percent interest rate so you know every month that's how much your mortgage payment has to be on that asset so the noi has to be in excess of that that coverage that that debt number we call that a debt service coverage ratio so that um dscr probably needs to be minimum about 1.25 so meaning you want to have 125 percent of that mortgage number in your noi so you can comfortably cover the debt service and then when you pay the debt service the rest of it and yours to cash flow so when you're looking for let's say that plot of dirt what like are you doing a market analysis to see like all right we're actually looking for a place to invest in this Borough in this city prior to it or are we you know looking at past Investments that are going up in the neighborhood to say all right this is an opportunity for us to now create no that's actually a great question so what you're really doing is you you know when you're looking at that particular opportunity you're doing it so you're looking at it because there's probably something else already going on in that neighborhood right and what we do is what's called a comp study so I can call a real estate broker and say give me a com study for this ZIP code so they're going to say Craig I'll email you this report and it'll have um you know five buildings ten buildings that are ending up in and around the neighborhood and it'll show me what the rents are in those buildings so I can have a reasonable expectation as to what types of income are generated off that off that um asset now in some markets uh that we call transitional markets you know it's not so clear but you're taking a bet because let's say something fantastic is going on in that market like they're bringing in new trains you know train station or uh they're building a new stadium and there's a reason why I believe there's going to be a lot of demand for real estate in that area so we will um you know make an analysis and do an investment based on that but in my business since we do affordable housing here's the thing affordable housing is real estate it's actually it's real estate but it's really a hybrid it's really structured Finance right because we are offering units to rent at below market rate so it almost doesn't matter what the market is because the two bedroom is say 3 000 in that market I could bring it to I could bring it to market for like say 1600 1800 tremendous discount to make it much more affordable and the demand for affordable housing is insatiable we cannot build enough of it I have to tell y'all right now in 2022 almost 2023 we have a 7 million unit housing deficit in this country seven million units that means we could build for the next 10 years we'd have to build for the next 10 years across the country just to satisfy that demand and guess what in 10 years we're going to find out there's even more demand that that occurred and just to quantify that seven million uh hop units of housing is about two and a half three trillion dollars of an Economic Opportunity that's why our community has got to get on real estate because you know you could get your feet in not all of it's going to be you know thousand unit portfolios that are built in public-private Partnerships a lot of it will be people who choose to um you know buy a plot of land in the city or take a vacant land that the city is rfping and you know build a three family or four family home on it there's a lot of opportunity there so all right let's talk about this um there is a housing shortage yeah in America right um so what does that mean for the average person and how does that affect the real estate market over the next five years well that means that you know it's like anything else supply and demand the supply is low the demand is high so that's why rents go up so why is there a housing shortage though man there's been so much politicization of Housing and real estate and it's difficult to build like you look at some of the markets where it's most pronounced uh New York California there's this thing called NIMBY you ever heard of NIMBY not in my backyard people say yeah we need affordable housing but don't build them don't build it on my street right and so um what that does is it disturbs the real estate market for that particular City and we just by and large have not built enough moderate and middle income or affordable housing so you know millionaires don't have any problem they could buy whatever they want to buy right or live wherever they want to live we're talking about the rank and file public um workers you know teachers ambulance drivers so um sanitation work sanitation workers the rank and file public will have good jobs they work hard but there's been such an escalation in the cost of rents because of the supply and demand disruption that these rents are off the table I mean if if four million units of housing hit the market tomorrow all rents would drop but it takes years and years to build it that's why you know we have this condition because it's hard to just increase the supply quickly you have to have an alignment of politics of Market forces like real estate uh um excuse me like uh interest rates you know interest rates are out of control right now so it makes it very hard to build sometimes you have construction costs going off the rails like you everyone heard about you know what was going on with supply chain disruptions you know last year so you have all these things that can throw that equation off and make it hard to produce housing so you know right now it's come to a critical point and you know particularly elected officials have to get off of the rubric where they want to you know almost politicize housing make all real estate developers Evil all real estate is bad we have a lot of that uh narrative coming out of certain communities in certain cities but it doesn't help to do anything because people still cannot find good housing and the only way to get it is to build it right we have to up Zone a lot of communities don't want to go through rezonings and up Zone they say oh that we don't want that high building here well okay that's your opinion but we have people sleeping in shelters right we have people who really need uh housing and I firmly believe that housing security for most families is Financial Security because if people have a roof over their head there's more money they have to dedicate to health care to education to other you know well-being of the family taking care of the elderly everything else that families have to deal with but if 60 70 of your income is used to pay rent cuts out a lot of options which you can do otherwise yeah when you talk about up zoning I was immediately thinking a city I used to work in the New Rochelle we're seeing a lot of towers go up there and I'm wondering when when you're building units and you're adding that to the portfolio what's the allocation that has to be affordable housing and and you're obviously your expertise in the field are you seeing people just meeting the minimum or people exceeding the amount if there isn't a certain allocation you have to have well first of all let me say this uh the mayor of New Rochelle and that Administration has done it absolutely correctly they have embraced real estate development and they've used Market forces and capitalist forces and real estate developers to help bring that City into the modern era and the wave of development that there is impressive right um but in other areas it's not so easy because you have a lot of differing opinions a lot of you know just fights over what should be built could be built we don't want that Tower here um I think to answer your second question generally depending different municipalities have different requirements about how much affordable housing should be built and usually what happens is it's tied to some type of tax abatement or some type of government funding that will be provided to the project to build it we had a scenario recently in Harlem right where you know we're very active we do a lot and a city council person turned down a developer on 145th Street who bought land and only was required to do 20 affordable housing but he wanted to up Zone uh the the project and do 900 units he went as far as 50 affordable housing she still voted it down wow politics so you think about that's a that's the wrong move right I mean that's 450 families we're not going to have clean decent energy efficient affordable housing for themselves right it's an absolute loss but we see too much of that these days so let me ask you this well two questions how do real estate developers get paid last one word answer so what I mean by that you paid like twice though right well no real estate developers take all the risks so what we do what do you mean twice so you get all right well you can explain it better than me obviously but from my understanding you uh you get a part of the development fee yes right and then you have if you have equity in it then you can get that as some level of compensation as well right so the equity the equity that you invest would just be returned to you right the equity is so when you do a project let's say you know like when you buy a house right you know you go to the bank and the bank says Okay um uh you know I want to buy this house they'll say okay Mr Livingston you know you have to put down 20 that's your Equity same thing when you do a development deal the bank is going to give you 100 of the deal you have to bring some Equity usually depending on how large the project is you get into a scenario where the equity is coming from a third party investor a limited partner which is usually a real estate private Equity Fund it could be an insurance company or some just investor that has a lot of capital and they have to invest it because they need to generate Returns on their Capital to pay pensioners or to pay out insurance claims or whatever it is uh so the equity gets returned But to answer your question specifically a real estate developer will get fees right so you get a developer fee uh there you could get distributions based off of refinancing the project because let's say you know like um you have a project you do it after 10 years or whatever rents go up you have one level of debt you've been paying down that mortgage you can refinance put a new mortgage on take some cash Capital out but but uh more regularly what happens is once you put the building into service every month is cash flow right remember you remember noi you have your noi you pay your debt and what remains is cash flow that can be distributed to Partners so okay now let me ask you this when New York City rent prices have gone up some cases 100 and since covet um I think it's the most expensive rent right now in the country um how is this sustainable and what is the solution or is there any solution or Wolverines just continue just well no that's that's not sustainable and what what you saw happen there was a situation where um there are a couple things happen there have been a lot of pressures on operating expenses for years if you look at the Curve of inflation I mean and how Insurance how oil how labor all the inputs to operate a building have gone up tremendously so think about this right you've heard of uh the fight for 15. okay so we wanted to pay workers more so this bill came out of the state legislature to say you know we're going to pay everybody 15 an hour and I believe it was a needed Bill we should have done it was the right thing to do but we pay people 15 000 an hour we took the labor the minimum wage from seven or dollars or whatever was 750 eight dollars whatever the 15 in two years you doubled the cost of Labor everywhere uh then insurance goes up 30 a year you have um you know uh all your supplies uh water gas everything goes up so much so what happened with those big rent increases is there was an opportunity again very short tight Supply and folks were out of the city for a while everyone came flooding back at one point in time and just the market demands uh caused you know just the economic equation to ensue supply and demand the you know the man who strong Supply was low rents went up that's not sustainable you'll never see 100 year over year or 30 year over year rent increases what compounded it more in my world is that uh when you own affordable housing assets like I do particularly in New York City those rents are governed by the RGB the rent guidelines board so they set the rent increases on rent stabilized units every year and again the politicization of real estate those RGB increases had been artificially low for you for like throughout almost like the whole de Blasio Administration and they were lagging um the increase in cost of operating building so you know there was a RGB increase this past year I think of earlier this year like four or six percent and people were up in arms but it still didn't even really um catch up with what you know inflation and operating costs had had uh you know demonstrated over the past few years so you're gonna see you know and so what I'm doing is making differentiation between what happens in the regulated world like regulated real estate and unregulated real estate unregulated real estate is where you had those huge dramatic increases regulated real estate is not gonna you're not gonna see those types of rent increases year over year yeah one of the things around real estate is the education around it and so most people think they can be an agent or they can be a realtor or obviously in your case a developer but just doing the research on it you realize there's so many other things that could be involved and obviously what you're doing now I mean I wrote down a list of things and you can enlighten me I wonder what you see on the landscape looking forward for the space Architects accountants attorneys plumbers electricians Masons painters competitors all these opportunities we're missing the opportunity to be involved in in the process what what do you think we need to do to Enlighten the education around it no I mean this is a great Point you're bringing up because um like I just talked about you know building um seven million units it's a two and a half to three trillion dollar opportunity and that's not all going to developers right you have Architects and engineers and Masons and plumbers and accountants and your attorneys and so many people involved in and around real estate and so there are a lot of different career paths that are available we talk about like when we do affirmation Tower and other projects that we do you know there's power and ownership so as a developer what we do is we are intentional about making sure we're spending money with minority and women-owned companies um our Harlem Project the Victoria tower that is operational now on 125th Street next to the Apollo I mean in that project alone we spent 35 million dollars contracts with minority and women-owned companies and in affirmation Tower which is going to be a um two and a half billion dollar project we're going to spend over a billion dollars with minority and women-owned companies but again that's because you have ownership that looks like me making damn sure that we're doing it we're not looking to you know figure out how to gain the system and not do it get the credit you know give to somebody's wife who started company that none of that nonsense we were very intentional about making sure that the economic multiplier exists in our community so um let's talk about this Harlem Hotel it's going to be the first luxury hotel yeah in Harlem yeah we're really proud of it man so uh they'll be opening up in February and it'll be a renaissance by Marriott so this is the first full-service hotel in Harlem in 80 years what is it going to be it's right on 125th street oh right the Victorian the Victorian yeah the Victoria Tower so what it is is um back in the day you had Harlem's Opera row and there were four performance Halls you had the Apollo the Victoria the Alhambra and the Harlem opera house uh only the Apollo is really functional right now as it was originally built but we uh got involved in this project uh years ago and it was an Adaptive reuse so we've kept some of the original historical features like the facade the Marquee the blade when you go into the development you know when you walk in off of 125th Street you're walking into the original 1917 Lobby we hired um historical preservation Architects and we restored it to the T perfectly and then um the rest of it is all brand new so we have two 27 story Towers uh the tower on 126th Street is a residential rental building that was done in the 50 30 20 configuration so this 50 market rate 30 percent low income 20 middle income and we did that intentionally to make sure we could create opportunity for people from all over the income Spectrum to live there right and so it wasn't just going to be a bunch of you know folks paying for five thousand dollars six thousand dollars a month for rent but we have affordable housing tenants paying a fraction of that living there and enjoying the same amenities everyone else is enjoying then within the hotel uh there is a um uh 210 rooms we have a fantastic uh Lounge Bar Lobby it's amazing definitely you guys might want to film this uh easy that's too easy yeah we have we have a ballroom because we want to create an opportunity for you know institutions from our community Harlem to be able to have events there so you know um world class ballroom and then on the first well before I get there we also created a cultural arts facility with two black box theaters so there's a 99 seat theater and a 199c theater that will be occupied and operated by the Apollo Theater wow so they'll be doing programming and uh creating um Arts programming from other local uh groups in the community who can't you know afford to do it on Broadway because it gets prohibitively expensive but they could do it here and then we have you know a couple retailers but you know it's a a long time coming we're happy to be you know at the end and put it into production yeah so we got the hotel in Harlem but there's also affordable housing that's going on in Harlem I know 140th there's a project in 115 let's talk about the importance of I got almost restoring that that feeling from the Harlem Renaissance you you talked about the four pillars that were there but there's like a Resurgence and it's happening obviously with you guys I mean there's a lot so let me so here's a dirty little secret Harlem is no longer majority black right so what is it majority what it's not majority black I mean you have it's a big just big uh Asian population big Latino population big white population but do you know the numbers or uh I don't but we can get them to you but but you look at um what we should be doing is preserving our cultural institutions and Harlem is a cultural institution and one of the things we've done you've mentioned 140th Street so we owned some property on 140th Street and 150th Street so we're rebuilding uh on those two vacant Lots we're putting up two affordable Condominiums so it's home ownership where we want folks from the community to be able to buy units in the community at affordable prices so you're talking about like a three-bedroom condo in Harlem for like three hundred thousand dollars right unheard of but we could do that because of the participation and the support of you know Department of housing preservation development you know New York City's housing agency and um some other funding that came from the state but we need a lot more of that that we need to have home ownership opportunities in Brooklyn you know uh in in the Bronx and Harlem a lot more of it and so I think this city council and this legislature in the assembly in the Senate has woken up to that and have has created Financial Resources to go into funding that type of development because we you know we we were asleep for a long time while Harlem was changing over yeah so let me ask you this because you're still a business man and you're in it to make money right so when you're doing these projects and 50 of the housing is going to a low or middle income or you just talked about where you can buy and it's based off of your income so how are you making money off of this the the city gives you subsidies to subsidize the price of like if somebody should be paying 4 000 but they're only paying 1 000 is the city subsidized that three thousand dollars absolutely so what will happen is uh you there's two types of subsidies Capital subsidy and there's rental subsidy so uh so Capital subsidy works like this like you know we're doing a development and it costs 10 million to do the development right uh but that development can only support six million of uh debt or six million of capital because of the depressed costs the city is going to put in the additional subsidy it's a very simplistic way to look at it but it's kind of how it works and how we get paid is when you create that uh that budget our fees part of the budget so it's like it's right it's baked right in so it's a it's like a building costs 10 million you have 6 million the city will put the other 4 million in for you but for them putting 4 million in for you they're going to say we need 30 of the market rate so then the math it works out where it's kind of like an even exchange almost that's right right right right right they subsidize the city has to subsidize the uh building and the operations of affordable housing because otherwise it wouldn't work what's the what's how much do you need to have an affordable housing building like 20 30 like a percentage I mean we do some we have a building that we're bringing to market right now in the Bronx up on Union Avenue to 95 unit uh building it's 100 affordable but that was done from the from the Genesis with the city with the intention of doing an affordable housing building and by the way that's also a joint venture with the church where we did a deal with the church they owned the land and they had aspirations I mean it's a really good really nice Church they had aspirations to um stay there they wanted a new church facility and uh you know a lot of their members have passed away or retired moved away and the congregation uh dwindled so when we were introduced to them we had an idea listen let's work out an affordable housing deal we brought them into the partnership where they are 30 owner as well and they get a new church facility but all that was done under one budget and that includes a developer fee so we're able to do you know do good help this church create affordable housing but we make money by doing it too it literally is what's happened to my church in New Rochelle right we're going to be on the the bottom floor it'll be retail space but you know there's going to be a tower above it right you said something about yeah we were asleep for a while but now we need to be woke and part of it is seeing people like you but we need to see more people like you and I know you're on uh the the board uh for the New York real estate uh n Iraq so can you talk about your role and the importance that that that organization plays in that that process of developing more developers that look like us yeah I mean so nyrek is the New York real estate chamber it is the leading advocacy group for all the diverse developers in New York state so if you're you know anyone doing any project of scale and note that's a black or brown developer or female developer is a member of this organization and um you know 30 years ago you wouldn't see anybody like us doing real estate right we just it was just been a a very undiverse industry no diversity and uh so I'm on the board I'm actually chairman of the board Cheryl mckissick is a board member with me Don Peeples is a board member with me but we have a bunch of other board members uh and developers that are for-profit and not-for-profits but we all work towards the same thing to increase access to Economic Opportunity and capital for uh diverse developers and we've been making a lot of noise we've been I think achieving a lot of success we are looking to recruit and bring as many folks who are interested in real estate development into the fold as possible because of the knowledge that we have has to be shared it's the only way we're going to grow our ranks right and I like to borrow you know rubric for my Jewish brothers and sisters I see so much collaboration in synagogues you go to any synagogue you're gonna see five or ten businessmen who work together uh and we try to do the same thing Don Peebles always says you know when he sees another black developer he doesn't see a competitor he sees a potential partner and that's how you know we look at it in Iraq we are doing a lot of deals uh that are larger because we collaborate with each other like affirmation Tower uh you know the people's organization my company um the bostero uh in Atlanta and third and urban won an RFP last month to develop a huge site next to Microsoft's 90 acre campus right it's just going to be you know 1.2 million square feet that will develop which will consist of 495 units of housing um an office building and uh a hotel that's going to be done right at the Bankhead train station we're gonna build a platform over this channel in Atlanta go vertical we're getting busy in Atlanta anyway we love that market we want to do as much as possible it's a growing markets flourishing the government is super supportive of these types of public-private Partnerships they're aware of developing Assets in an economically diverse way so that we could create some affordable housing and in combination with commercial and market rate development just makes a lot of sense so collaborating together allowed us to win that and there's we have a lot of instances even amongst other narric members where you know other members have collaborated or winning there's a there's a you know group on a great project up in Boston um associated with the train station not not too long ago they're winning deals with nycha the New York City Housing Authority where we have our members taken down you know five six seven eight hundred units that they're going to renovate and put back into service and you know help improve the overall um physical condition of those those buildings so they've been so dilapidated for so long but again this is all being done through collaboration so we want to work with as many uh folks who are interested in real estate development and we welcome people into the fold and we want to grow our ranks it sounds like you have almost right if you're talking about Iraq that's obviously here in New York but working in Boston having development in Atlanta you're working with other municipalities domestically is there one or is there a thought of this creating one that can create on a national level we we'd love to man I mean I think when you look at what's happening again that seven million unit Housing Opportunity right I would like to see a lot of minorities and women take advantage of it right nationally so I look at direct as being a model what can happen through collaboration there's also a lot of um advocacy that we do with elected officials right we have to spend a lot of time with not only elected officials but government agencies on the state federal sometimes and City level trying to make sure Economic Opportunity is awarded fairly because for a long time you know we were Persona non-grata there was nothing coming to us and it's a shame because you haven't in most Urban environments in most cities around the country no mayor gets elected without the black vote so we're going to put people in office we need to make sure we're getting a piece of economic pie so we'd love to take nyrec or an organization like nyark nationally and have the same type of uh contract and the same type of mechanisms we use here replicated around the country so what's the deal with the affirmation Tower last time we spoke to Don I know it was some issues but I think there's been even more issues right since then so what's the what's the latest update for the affirmation tell and explain it to affirmation time for anybody that might not be so affirmation Tower is a project that was conceived by Don Peebles uh probably you know year and a half ago maybe a little bit longer in response to an RFP issued by New York State's Economic Development agency called ESD Empire State development and it leverages site K and say so explain what an RFP is and RFP is a request for proposals so when the government wants to do something uh they have to spend some money on the on a project or they want to develop a site they will put it out to the public and ask for requests for proposals of like how would you develop it and so don came up with an idea leveraging a concept that he thought of a while ago called affirmative development which is proactively doing development in an inclusive way and affirming that uh folks like me and him and Cheryl and others can participate in real estate development the highest levels so we put together an RFP to build you know one of the tallest buildings in the world definitely the tallest in the Western Hemisphere uh by floor height but we our Spire is below the Spire of of the world of World Trade World Trade wrote the Freedom Tower because you know what it represents but the idea is you know in 2022 we should not be talking about this as a first right um there's been no skyscraper uh in New York City built by black folks or owned by Blacklist we've we've probably toiled on it and spent a lot of time working laboring but not owning and not doing it as a developer so it's time you know to have that um barrier broken and what we're looking to do there is to build uh like I said the tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere we're gonna put the offices of the NAACP in there uh Civil Rights Museum as well uh there would be all kinds of great features of Ice Rink on the on the roof there would be a public atriums and you know we want young black and brown children to be able to come to New York City and point to that and say Hey you know somebody looks like me and my father built that project right just because like I started by talking about Reginald Lewis right and what that inspired in my life we need to inspire the lives of these next Generations and they need to understand that they could do it too so what's the issues right now the issues are some political issues yeah political I mean the um Governor hokel rescinded the RFP uh when she why did she do that I'm not really clear I think it was a bad move I don't think it was wise at all because um you know what what the reason she said was um they wanted to rescind the RFP to uh re-examine it so that it could align closer to her priorities whatever that means it was previously approved by Governor Cuomo it wasn't approved it was issued by Governor Cuomo and we were doing fantastically well okay I think the public response to the project was amazing and um you know I think a lot of times in uh Democratic strategists underestimate how important Economic Development and economic empowerment and wealth generation is to our community right they tend to want to dangle the same old poverty politics in front of us that we've experienced for the past 50 years that haven't gotten us anywhere right I mean government programs government programs you know social programs you look at you know there's been a there's tons and there's billions and billions of dollars spent just in this city in this state every single year on social programs and we're not moving the needle but if we spend half of that in Economic Development and investing in Black companies I guarantee the needle will move let's talk about the collaboration obviously we spoke about Don working with Cheryl McKesson on this project together I feel like this is the the Avengers of real estate for our community for sure what's that been like how did you all come together to say all right this is what we're I'm bringing this is what your team's bringing here's what we're going to bring let's combine efforts and build something that's going to be legendary in this story yeah again I have to compliment Don for his vision of being inclusive and collaborative and setting a standard of how we should be doing business together right and you know Don and Cheryl had known each other for a long time going back to her days I think at Howard when uh they used to hang out and party and everything and you know we knew each other from our work together at nyrec and you know um I joined the board and we got along very well and we have our own momentum and what we do we're you know very very active and very efficient in the capital markets and so we're able to bring that Acumen to the project in terms of raising capital and and project management and the like but um the I the a the opportunity to collaborate with them I mean Don is the most successful African-American real estate developer in the country right so he brings a whole different level of uh this business and a whole different level of development to us because we would not have been trying to build a skyscraper absent being invited into this project and Cheryl is you know she is the owner of the oldest black construction company in the country started by her fifth generation grandfathers who were slaves I mean you can't have a better story than that so you have this team to come together and to put together what should be a barrier-breaking project uh and for us to change the skyline of New York City and to say it was done by a black team is an amazing opportunity so we we remain Vigilant and you know we talk about affirmation tower all the time I think Don just got a grill award a couple days ago which is you know big you know shout out to Don um and you know we we're looking for the RFP to be reissued not that Governor hokel has been re-elected uh that should be happening soon and when it is reissued we'll be all over it you know we're we are determined to Win It so that's um the city owns the land the state the state owns the land yeah and okay and it's right in is right in uh you know uh Hudson yards right so Java the site K is right across the street from Hudson yard so you think about it right they gave a tremendous amount of land to relate it and then gave them billions of dollars in subsidy now they're talking about you know giving 18 million square feet of land around Penn Station to Ronaldo right we just want the opportunity to buy site case so we could do um affirmation Tower and we're not even looking for public subsidies so since the city owns the land will they have ownership of the land or will you buy the land from the city we'll do like a uh like 100 Year ground lease which is basically the same as buying it what does that mean a ground lease so ground lease is like you know um we have the we we pay a ground lease rent on an annual basis but we get to own and operate the improvements on the land for that hundred years so we'll build you know uh so you're leasing the land for 100 years yeah so so the city still owns it right the state disabled you have control over we have control over we just pay the rent so the thing about this so you you guys have spent time down on Wall Street right so there's a little church down there on Broadway Trinity Church Trinity Church owns a ton of the land that those skyscrapers are built on they've owned it for hundreds of years they just lease it to different developers and and financial institutions who build uh what they build and they're just collecting ground lease rent it's a really good business model so who owns most of the land in New York City like the land no not not a lot of land is ground leased most land is owned fee simple but sometimes folks will choose to structure ground leases for whatever reason if you want to really you know high demand area that's super valuable why sell it you can ground lease it in 100 years from now your heirs could still be collecting ground lease rent so most skyscrapers that are being built the developers don't own that no not most but there's just that that's just been the model that I said Trinity Church did some some do some and they just buy whoever owned it previously they would sell them the land as part of the deal right or like if somebody's building a skyscraper yeah they're buying the land most of the time most of the time the more common execution is people just buy the dirt right from whoever owns it from whoever owns it in some some instances um maybe a family a trust whatever they don't want to sell it so let's say well lease it just collect income so that Church Trinity Church you said owns a lot of land in Wall Street area yeah and how long have they had that land since I mean like when there was no buildings there yes when it was Farm it was dirt when I just took it from the new Asian Americans pretty much basically back to New Amsterdam right this is what I mean I don't know the source of how they acquired it I mean not like the church took it yeah they might have who knows what I'm just saying eventually that's what happened right like it was here they got controlled it and it's they got control over kept it and then they just kind of ciphered it off to whoever the new landowner was right but they didn't they didn't Own It originally no somebody yeah right because back in the you know when the Indians are here they didn't believe in ownership of land right it's everybody's land exactly right but now it's worth more money than anything else in the world it's worth a lot a whole lot a whole lot Barry part yeah I want to now like going through this process obviously seeing the politics of of of the space does it discourage you or are we looking are you now looking as a firm right where else are we going to make a statement right like New York City is prime because of what it means to the country's Financial capital of the world but are there other places where we're looking to make just as much of an impact with some of the developments that you have in mind so you know there's only one New York City right right and I've lived through two worlds coming to an end scenario 911 the financial collapse well now three coveted and I'll tell you I think we're still bouncing back from covert there's been some other issues that are creating headwinds for us like like the crime and some other stuff but um with 911 and the financial collapse I mean New York City bounced back it's super resilient there's one New York City it's a global uh City and I wouldn't bet against New York ever however what we're doing is we're diversifying as a company and we love some markets in the Southeast and out west and the Midwest so we're really heavy in Atlanta I mean Georgia is amazing what's going on there we you just you know we want to continue to invest and help that City transition and grow uh we're doing uh stuff in Columbia South Carolina we're in Oklahoma City Oklahoma um we did deals in uh Indianapolis Indiana there's a lot of uh opportunity everywhere and by the way not every type of deal is right for every type of Market you have to do the right deal in that market right so you know we wouldn't build affirmation Tower in in Indianapolis Indiana it's not the right Market but it's the it's the right uh project for New York City so we're doing a lot of things and you know our number one market right now for investment going forward is Atlanta why are you so bullish on Atlanta it has all the right demographics so you know population growth um a lot of companies are moving there when you look at the the um the amount of new job creation a lot of companies want to relocate out of the Northeast out of California these heavy tax states uh these heavy uh bureaucratic States it's so much easier to function some of these other markets like you know there's a reason why Elon Musk moved Tesla to Texas right there's a reason why you know GE left Connecticut went to Boston that you know companies have options they can choose but the southeast is really uh just a great Market has created the right type of atmosphere you have good educational institutions uh you have great infrastructure a government that's supportive of development and understands the importance of doing it the right way and is working collaboratively with the business Community the four is the right type of development I think you know everything that um mayor Dickens is doing in Atlanta is 100 spot on he's doing the right thing so um the affirmation Tower what's the financing for that like how to download oh man that's about uh I've looked at in a minute well you know we've I'm sure we have to reprice everything at this point because the escalation and construction costs but that was a project that's going to be uh uh 1.6 billion dollars so 1.6 billion dollars and who are you getting the money from private Equity Firm right so we'd have to raise uh limited partner LP equity from investment funds or you know uh insurance companies you name it but this that's an Institutional asset where you're going to generate you know that I mean that Equity check is 600 million dollars how much money do you need to raise so we'd have to raise I mean none of us were rolling around with 1.6 bill in the pocket so we're gonna raise all of it so all you need to raise all of it we're going to raise all of it so I mean there's a there's an amount of GP Capital that has to go into so like fidelia writes you a check for 500 million dollars yeah you know somebody Fidelity I'm just saying yeah hypothetically right that's how so so we'd have so we have the capital stack would be like a billion in debt and that could come from and we've had I don't want to say here but we've had uh interest from some of the largest lenders in the world and some of the largest uh investors in the world too and then for them obviously like a bank they get a return on their investment right so the debt is you know you just pay interest on the debt right so we get a billion dollars in debt uh you'll be paying your six percent interest rate on that okay until it's repaid um and it gets repaid the construction loan gets taken out with perm financing when the when the project is done so you have construction finances which is where we used to build it right it's just a construction loan so it's here's you know a billion dollars six percent so we're paying them 60 million dollars a year on the capital uh when you get the project finished we put permanent financing on it so like a 10-year Term Loan that amortized some amortization features and we're just you know we're still making monthly payments but those payments are really coming out of uh the operations of the building versus being financed as part of the construction loan so for even from the construction standpoint I'm looking at at the trio of you guys obviously you um Cheryl and Don the construction pieces is that where you lean on her for the expertise absolutely all right yeah because I'm like combining forces that's our expertise absolutely so mckis Nick will be in charge of the construction as far as all those loans they'll be knocking that out right but as far as all the other opportunities inside there where we talked about are we looking to hire people that look like us to fulfill those roles 100 so our commitment is to spend a billion dollars uh with minority and women-owned companies so um okay now this is going to be office space it would be office and hotel a hotel yeah so the office like we probably have a life science user which is a big growing area um and some two hotels actually what hotel uh we haven't chosen them yet but we have you know so we have a idea of the type of Hotel so we do like a full-service hotel and then maybe like uh uh uh what we call like a value hotel what is a full-service Hotel something like you know the Four Seasons or uh you know where you have all of the you know you have all the amenities you have um a certain level of um operation and just you know standard in terms of um you know concierge and spas and other things that are available who who would fit in the category of value hotels something like a uh like a I'm not saying we're gonna do this would be the hotel reviews but something like a like a pod will tell or something like the smaller hotels have some smaller rooms like boutique hotels well smaller rooms but just not as many or many amenities okay okay small rooms less amenities but also lower cost so like no restaurant they don't have a restaurant right yeah he's right there's no like 24-hour room service right so that's that's what we call Full Service Hotel you have restaurants room service concierge service Spas those types so for office space are you concerned that the office space might be an issue going forward into the future when people might not be working from offices no because I so I think you know um what happens is there's always a new user one two [Music] um when you look at offices they're not all the same it's like you know they're not monolithic you have buildings like one Vanderbilt that's leasing up at incredible record setting numbers but there's building you know 20 blocks away they can't at least stop that I have vacant and if you're building you know the the whole movement with ESG right now is that companies really want to be in buildings that are green that have the right type of environmental footprint that have been built a certain way and are responsive to what shareholders and their customers are demanding that they'd be responsible corporate citizens so to be able to offer you know Fortune to 500 companies the opportunity to you know take space and a remarkable new tower like uh affirmation tower that has those types of features you know we've seen it work repeatedly but it's because we're building the right type of building not just you know the old you know stale type of skyscrapers that have been built or office buildings that have been sitting there that you know just aren't interesting to you know the architecture choices the architecture looks incredible um and you said that you know you have to reassess obviously with supply chain issues and construction costs changing I'll imagine now like what would be the timeline to complete a project by estimate what do you what do you think we would spend uh once awarded we're going to spend about a year maybe 15 18 months in pre-development and then we'll take you know three years to build it pretty quick yeah are you finding a new affinity for the skyscrapers obviously you're doing affordable housing this is obviously something that you said Don had a vision for is that something now that you're looking like you know we I could do more of this well you know what uh our firm is really multi-strategy so we have our uh our business models where we do probably 70 of what we do is affordable housing but we do other things we we do hotels uh we um we do market rate projects we do condos right so well how our business model is morphed is we're doing a lot more place making now so less individual buildings we still have a pipeline of buildings that we're completing but we're doing less of that and more place making like what you see in Marta in Atlanta where you know there's a whole opportunity to develop a large tract of land but to do a where there's office there's Hospitality uh there's housing mixed income housing and it's also adjacent to public transportation so you it's like a destination and it's like a live work Play Type Community we really like that uh Model A lot more and ahead of us you know we're going to be doing deals that look like that which are much larger in size so we'll have the luxury of doing fewer of them and still putting a lot of capital to work oh just came back from Dubai and Abu Dhabi and uh the architecture out there is amazing all modern buildings but um they're very it's like art as well right but in New York I don't really see that level of inspiration it's not as inspirational with the architectural design of the landscape where they have like the sailboat building even the Burj Khalifa like how it's designed the colors on it is so I say I have to say just like when I look at the architecture it's art as well right well that would make sense because the architecture is some level of Art in there but I don't see that here so when you're developing your buildings do you have that level of art or is that something that you can't do because the city puts limitations on it why don't we see that same level of creativity here one weird building then when we then we see over there yeah well you know historically architecture has been very artistic if you look at some of those older buildings like the Baroque style or Renaissance Revival or some of the you know French Colonials you have all this uh you know ornate um features that are in buildings you know a lot of sculpting gorgiles all those kind of things it used to be very artistic I just think from a design aesthetic we've gone away from it unfortunately just as a culture as a culture yeah and and the other thing about when you're talking about the Middle East and some of those other areas I mean they can you have those type I mean like Dubai right that's a city that came about the sand because they had a vision and they were like listen we have a blank canvas we want to be world renowned and they intentionally uh aims really high here it's a little bit more difficult because if I want to build you know a building the size of the Burj Khalifa there's going to be protests it's gonna be politicians there's going to be a lot of opposition to it we just have a Freer Society where people have the opportunity to you know have their voices heard and you know whether they have a dollar in it or not uh they still have the opportunity to you know opine on it and sometimes consensus or opposition is built around the project and just creates a lot more difficulty so are you looking to develop anything overseas yes we are that was gonna be my next point right like you're bringing that up like we're actually um uh uh we're actually I can't get too much into it but we're actually uh negotiating with the government to start building some transformative real estate in the Caribbean country ah makes sense yeah a lot of sense so we we got over 3 000 units of housing in New York City I wonder if there's a goal or if there's a number of housing opportunities that you want to create as a firm you know see that's the thing right the the beautiful thing about see I'm a uh I love sports and I love competition right and what goes with that is a scoreboard for me the scoreboard is how many units we own so we'd like to have fifty thousand how many units do you all know uh about a little over five right so we have some in other areas of the country but you know we want to have 50 000 units and so a lot of work to do yeah so when you watch the scoreboard there's obviously somebody else that's out there on the board not just you that's right so who are the people that you're looking at not as competitors but as inspiration to say all right we can just further to go I mean like the company that when we when I formed this company um I always thought about related right related as a company owned by Stephen Ross who owns the Miami Dolphins right uh but they were primarily an affordable housing developer for decades and the AOL Time Warner Center is kind of like you know they when they did that they flipped the switch it started doing these you know Mega huge projects that are more like that place making idea I talked about you know you know they have Hudson yards they have other projects around you know other areas of the country but um but they still do affordable housing too right so you can have a model where you can do uh projects like you know Time Warner Center or Hudson yards but still do affordable housing that's what we're going to continue to do but we're going to try to do it in more scalable projects where we can deploy more capital and create larger assets with the same effort well Craig it's been an honor very educational episode anything that you want to leave the people or let them know before we wrap I mean without this I'd say is listen get involved in real estate there's a three trillion dollar Economic Opportunity for young people uh for for minorities and women-owned companies whether you're developing doing Property Management uh you're an electrician a carpenter an accountant uh an architect you name it it's a great industry and once you're involved it leads to more and more opportunities so let's not miss out on this three trillion dollar windfall is about to happen yeah that's something I thought people said on MSG where he said that um you know there's a lot of opportunity for for investment into black business no like real estate developer stuff like that because uh get like less than 1.3 percent of funding um and that's like all minorities and women combined yeah uh it's it's crazy yeah I mean it's so imbalance on imbalance that it needs to be addressed yeah well best of luck for you if you guys need anything from us you need us to put eyo headquarters in the affirmations just let us know let us know that's easy you know we can feel the theaters up at home if you need yeah whatever whatever listen when we open up man I want you guys to come up there and see the place and you know for sure all the access you want to it for sure for sure yeah I'm gonna see you in Atlanta again too oh below that's like our second home so that's what I said when you were saying you're pretty big in Atlanta we know we're pretty big out there too yeah yeah so we know exactly what you're talking about the Microsoft Center we uh it's that's right by OTE right where we actually uh sat down did an interview with so a lot of development is happening out there so that's encouraging I'm sure people that are there hearing this are like all right we need to stay here and make sure that we plan our season now absolutely is Atlanta a place where you think black people should focus all of their energy on not like every single person should come to land but it's like all right it's beneficial to have a central Hub and Atlanta obviously has stood out as the mecca for Black Culture in business in music and a variety of different things for the last 20 years so like when we do invest faces in Atlanta you guys are building in Atlanta do you think that that's something where it's like all right we should really focus on Atlanta um yes but Atlanta's not the only market right so I mean DC is a great Market um the fundamental principle for Real Estate is Buy Low sell High Atlanta is like in motion bro I mean it's like it's ascending quickly but there's other markets where Charlotte yes absolutely Charlotte um you know uh stuff in the in in the midwest I mean like look at areas in and around Phoenix and you just have the the equation Works in almost every municipality you shut let me ask you a question right here's how I answer that question if you could buy real estate in anywhere in the country at what it cost 15 years ago you can do that today would you do it yeah then why wouldn't you do it now so 15 years from now you can say look what I did well yeah the real estate I'm just saying because you always hear about Black Wall Street right but Black Wall Street was more than just Tulsa Oklahoma's a variety of different places so when I look at Atlanta I look at it from a from a opportunity of investing but then entrepreneurship as well it's the only place in America that I've ever seen where when we most of the businesses that we patronize or at least half of them are owned by black people I've never seen that anywhere else yeah well you have I mean right like Maryland maybe some areas in Maryland yeah um but but there's been a historical um lack of access to capital economic opportunity for us right for sure our community and that's why that happens but the entrepreneurial spirit is strong and look you know it's not like what we do in our culture is invaluable because everybody's monetizing it right but so but if we have access to the capital we can monetize it for ourselves I mean like hip-hop is a perfect example we have a you know a lot of artists and a lot of black folks doing well there's a lot of people who aren't black who did really well in hip-hop because they had Capital to begin with so you're saying just build other Atlantis yeah don't just depend on one city right make other cities the equation works this and it works and you know like there's a thing about a place like Overtown in Miami right I mean like look at that I mean like it's that's that's fire 10 years from now you got y'all be our basil right so yeah you know just 10 years from now look at what over time it's gonna look completely different I feel like Detroit has some of those characteristics too Detroit too another place same thing exactly yeah but but you know um it comes you know you we focus on it and um you know we are in the urban environment like we we kind of shape the urban environment our culture right and there's a reason why folks you know like you know when I was growing up there was uh music that people listen to is all different there was AC DC there was you know uh Guns and Roses there was Run DMC but now everybody is on that Urban hip-hop stuff especially the same she's the same language it's the same music we can continue to evolve this culture but put ourselves in a position where we have access to Capital so we can monetize what's being involved that's the rubric man that's what we want to do not only with and particularly when you're talking about um developing new hot spots in the real estate that functions around that well 80s you you congrat yeah you can okay I don't know if you watched that game the other night uh yo who they play oh we handled Iowa State like yeah you know but they're top 10 now in the country they fell off for a while yeah I feel it I feel a national championship coming right now you never know they had a rough period for yeah I mean just we so I mean we didn't win we like the last championship was in 2013 you know yeah but that's a that's pretty good yeah 2013. I'm just saying UConn was always you know top 15 at least yeah Kevin Ali he won I think his first year and then they he won his first year started he was first year he won his first year yeah yeah that was with uh Shabazz yeah yeah I mean even like if you look in the 80s obviously at that time UConn wasn't like UConn was amazing man it was a great great when Jin Calhoun got there yeah but prior to that yeah right well Calhoun took the program into Heights and then you know they just you know were phenomenal for a long time they ripped rip on the national championship yeah who's who's the greatest player from UConn history Ray Allen that's easy it's not easy Ray Allen Scott it's Ray Allen because he played we played four years right three three years yeah no but look what we did in the NBA I mean well I'm talking about just oh you're talking about playing camera Walker is the greatest oh oh okay he's the greatest player because he had the greatest performance wow Ben Gordon was nasty too if we're going to talk about basketball player is Diana Taurasi not the best player from Yukon okay Point all right men's okay okay he's had his run that run in the NCAA tournament that was the greatest is the year best run that back court was phenomenal yeah if you take kemba's freshman year sophomore year you might not say the same but you if you take that third that Junior when you want a chip yeah but Ray Allen consistently yeah even even rip yeah like his career was ridiculous and he wanted what he ended it with a chip that's right yeah y'all got four chips like most schools don't have four chips I know I'm very very proud very proud Columbia grad as well that's right but you know I Bleed Blue either way well it was a pleasure having you gentlemen thank you for joining us and I look forward to connecting more in the future all right love it thank you so much all right thank you guys for rocking with us we'll see you next week peace peace my graduates from my school being Forbes backdrop backdrop a mic drop backdrop [Applause] thank you foreign

Channel: Earn Your Leisure

Views: 95,791

Keywords: earn your leisure, business, finance, sports, entertainment

Id: 39OHkXlYeKk

Length: 82min 8sec (4928 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023