Today my guest is Neal Bawa.  Neal is the founder of Grow Capitus, an online multifamily investor education platform. He's also an experienced syndicator developer, and his attention to the data has earned him the moniker the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Neal about the Feds Gambit with rising interest rates and their impact on commercial real estate.

J Darrin Gross

I’d like ask you Neal Bawa, what is the Biggest Risk?

Neal Bawa  

The biggest Risk is to keep doing what you were doing before. Right now we are at a point where we need to pivot. So you know, you name three things. And so I'll go through those three and tie them back to the biggest risk. This change right now may not be a good time to buy multifamily. In fact, I don't want to buy multifamily until about July this year, when something known as the spread, which is a portion above Sofer is likely to to drop it might even just collapse. So I basically want to wait until that time in terms of transferring risk. Yeah, I want to go out and have my distressed fund by not buy properties, but invest money into properties. Because when I invest money into properties that are that are distressed right now have negative cashflow. I'm doing what Darren mentioned, I'm transferring my the risk from my investors to the existing investors of that property. So if they change their mind would allow me to come in as preferential money. I'm coming in ahead of them. And I'm transferring the risk of ownership of the property while I'm getting ownership of it to someone else. It's somebody else's risk is the GP and the LPS risk, not my LPs, their LPs. So if I can transfer risk successfully, I'm looking to do it by recapitalizing existing properties that I like nothing wrong with the property, just the interest rates are killing it. One day, the interest rates will go away and the property will do well, again, I want to own this property, but I don't want to buy it from the market because I think that the price is too high. So when I recapitalize somebody else's property and put my investors in pole position and transfer the risk.

Today, my guest is Anna Kelley. Ana is a former top ranked financial relationship manager for Bank of America's private bank. She also worked for AIG for 20 years in the corporate and affluent Markets Group focused on creating products for ultra high net worth individuals, banks and institutions. Anna has been investing in real estate since 1998, and has held active ownership of a rental portfolio valued at $300 million across Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee and Maryland. As a sponsor, Anna seeks strong multifamily investment opportunities to help her partners and investors meet their financial goals and grow wealth on a tax preferred basis. She brings her decades of experience with both traditional investments and real estate to help others overcome fears, increase knowledge, mitigate risk, and make wise investments in real estate. Anna is passionate about creating a meaningful impact in the lives of her residence and communities. And is also a sought after speaker real estate coach and a four times Amazon number one best selling author. And in just a minute, we're gonna speak with Anna about real estate investing through market cycles.

J Darrin Gross

 I'd like to ask you Anna Kelley, what is the Biggest Risk?

Anna Kelley  

I think the biggest Risk right now is not knowing how high inflation might get for how long and how that might impact both the interest rates over the next decade and cap rates over the next decade. And so with that risk comes a few things that we really have to look at. One, as we talked about is what kind of debt are you putting on your properties? So the question is, when you when you're trying to create value for a commercial asset, you're really focused on noi, and you're focused on on the cap rate. And so these things that that we can't control are these factors that impact interest rate and cap rate? And so we have to look at what can we control? What risks can we control? Since we can't transfer that risk? It's going to be what it is, what can we do to mitigate some of that risk, one of the things is investing in really strong, resilient markets, right? If you're investing in a class C property and a Class C town with not a whole lot of good jobs, industry, diversity and not population growth, you know, more demand than there is supply, you're going to really struggle. So if you want to mitigate risk, you need to be in areas that still need way more product than what there is demand for towns that have lots and lots of jobs so that if some businesses or industries get really hit hard, they're still resilient, and there's elevated wages and affordable, affordable living in those areas. So the market in which you invest is critical. And then the other thing is, you need to be able to control your expenses, what other expenses can you cut, or make sure that they're fixed for some period of time, so that they're not an additional variable that could impact your noi, and bring your value down as a nature of that? And so, you know, an insurance answer is basically, where do you invest? So I'll give an example. I'm from Texas, and I'm from from Houston, and Houston has had a significant flood risk over the last couple of years because of hurricanes in certain areas of the city. Now, it's a 10,000 square mile major metro. So Houston is extremely large. And there's pockets that do not have flooding, and that are much less risky. Well, I want to buy assets there, because if I buy in an area that has had some flooding, I wouldn't be surprised if my insurance goes up another 30 or 40%, like it has over the last couple of years. So you've got to get really good at where are my expenses? And where can I invest and what assets are going to give me the best outcomes, given all of the uncertainty to increase my noi to bank on where I can increase my noi by increasing income and cutting expenses. While I can't mitigate, you know, the interest rates and the cap rates that we ultimately have.

Today, my guest is Greg Brooks. Greg is a partner in Rocket Station and oversees everything, business development, and marketing. Greg is the National Director of Business Development at rocket station, an outsourcing company that helps real estate businesses hire experienced virtual assistants. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Greg about improving your process with virtual assistants.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Greg Brooks, what is the Biggest Risk?

Greg Brooks  

For me, I think it's the pace of how quickly technology is changing how quickly global workforces is changing. And I think it's a risk, especially in the real estate space, for those that are still trying to operate the same way they were in 1995, or two, even 2005, or even 2015. What we've seen a lot both on the technology side, obviously, US servicing on the staffing side, providing a virtual option. I mean, just like everything, the decisions that you have to make as a business operator are just accelerating, you have to make them faster, there's a new software and new technology, a new tool, a new resource out there every second every trade show every corner. So having an effective way to vet those to find the ones that are going to work for your business and are going to fit, but then also getting people on boarded into them and changing existing policies and procedures and processes and weigh the ways that you operate to be more efficient, it takes a ton of human capital. So that's something that I see I know, even just within our company, you know, in a short time becoming as big as we are, you know, that that that the evolution of technology and say a lot of the podcasts that I listened to AI is kind of the word of the here already, you know, 25 days into January. And I think that puts a lot. I mean, it puts a lot of risk on the owners in terms of making the right choices, finding the things that are going to last and actually take you to the next level and which of the things are kind of fly by night, you know, not not as good as as advertised. So I see ICT technology and then that globally expanding workforce, you know, really becoming something that especially in the real estate world, people need to be aware of and be talking about consistently, in order to make sure that you don't get left behind because I guarantee your competitors. They're making sure they're not going to be left behind either.

Today, my guest is Edward Ring.  Edward founded New Standard Equities in 2010 and serves as its chief executive officer Edward has transacted over $2 billion of real estate over an illustrious 25 year career. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Edward about the relation between interest rates and cap rates.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Edward Ring, what is the Biggest Risk? 

Edward Ring 

I think the biggest risk I'm facing right now is not having the patience to to get comfortable with the knowledge base that I have, and what I see on the horizon. So I'm, I'm a person that tends to slow down when other people are rushing. They want me to make a decision quickly. So I peel back and take a moment, take a pause. I do my best work when I'm thoughtful. And I assess. And I think that that's the risk that most humans not just in real estate, but most humans face is that they are making decisions without actually understanding the fundamentals surrounding the problems that they are faced with. And I think that folks out there would, would do well to get educated, and to really make sure that they're arming themselves with intelligence and intelligent reporting. So they understand the markets that are in they understand the risk, reward calculus, and they understand what, what they're facing. And if they understand all of those factors and are comfortable with them, then it's pretty easy to make the right decision or at least a decision. And time will tell if it's been right or not. But at least you're eliminating the one single factor that everybody has and that's your own ignorance. If you can eliminate your own ignorance, man, you're gonna do great.

Today, my guest is Ryan Gibson. Ryan is the co founder president and chief investment officer of Spartan Investment Group. Ryan has organized over 200 million of private equity for Spartans projects across the country. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Ryan about real estate investing and development.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Ryan Gibson, what is the Biggest Risk?

Ryan Gibson 

Yeah, so I would say your biggest risks are external threats. Things like cap rate expansion, you know, property values declining, really can't control that. Interest rate, risk, etc. But I would say my focus that I'd like to share is five main things that I look at, in underwriting a deal. In I can do this in 10 seconds. I look at revenue growth year over year, and is it reasonable? Does the business plan, identify if that revenue is achievable based on the market study that you've done, somebody else has done or an operator's done? The second thing I look at is insurance. So insurance costs are not going down. So if you have not pro forma added, that your insurance expenses are going up, I usually don't like the deal anymore. As much. The second thing that I access risk, or the third thing is property taxes, property taxes are not going down, property taxes are going up. And if you're not planning on property taxes, at least doubling over a five year hold period, I don't think we've assessed the risk and the opportunity. The third thing I look at is expense to gross our revenue to expense income. So Egi, expense to gross income ratio, I guess there's another way of saying it Egi. That's if you make $1 of revenue, what percentage will be your operating expenses. And so in self storage, I'll look at a deal. And I'll say, you know, I expect to see between 35 and 40%, expense to gross income ratio, meaning that if you're collecting $1, I expect to see 35 to 40 cents for that dollar and expenses, and all your utilities, insurance, property taxes, all that stuff before debt service. If I see that number 20%, or 15%, I don't think there has been enough assessment in the underwriting to really accurately depict the worthiness of that deal. And the last thing I look at is cap rate. Because cap rate, you know, we love to everybody loves to think that they're the best operator, they have secrets and things like that. But at the end of the day, cap rates drive the value, they drive, the value, they drive, the exit strategy they drive, the market really drives where a lot of these assets can perform. And yeah, we can control and do our best. But that cap rate really makes an impact. I mean, one $1 on a 6% cap rate means $15 evaluation. So yes, operating income can do that. But I like to see an investment where you can stress test it. And that you can actually show the cap rate getting worse than what you bought it for. Not from your operations, but just market cap rates. So if you buy something going in cap rate at 5%. In today's market, I'd like to see that it can exit at a market cap rate of 6% and still be profitable. So when I assess risk, I look at those five things and underwriting and I and I really kind of stick to my guns on that. That's how I can look at a deal in 30 seconds. No, have they adequately assess the risk? Of course, there's tons of more things that you need to do beyond that, but those are kind of my five quick checkboxes on any opportunity.