Today, my guest is Anna Olin. Anna is one of the pair of the pioneers of Z Life Sustainable Luxury Real Estate, originating the English Hotel in Las Vegas. And they are renowned for their innovative M8Trix Model. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Anna Olin about Z Life's newest initiative, Midtown; revitalizing downtown Las Vegas.

J Darrin Gross

If you're willing, I'd like to ask you Anna Olin, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Anna Olin

Yeah, thanks. Well, I will make sure my insurance broker is listening to this with this podcast as I as I answer this, which actually I have Have a great relationship with my insurance broker shout out to John, he's been awesome for us. So I do actually love him. You know, I think in the industry as a whole, we always see the biggest, I think risk is the cost risk, right, and the cost of materials, the cost of time and cost to build, which I think our system and building the M8Trix and being in construction for so long, our entire system in existence on this planet now is was built to mitigate that. So when I look at our risks, specifically for Z Life, you know, our biggest I think our biggest risks is what is the market going to do, and nobody has a crystal ball and I can listen to a million podcasts and say, it's going to do this, it's gonna do that interest rates are gonna drop, they're not going to drop whatever. So I think, for us, the way we look at it is location is always going to be key, right location is always going to be the driver, that's going to be the consistent factor, whether markets up or down, no matter what's happening. The second is always going to be how, how flexible are we with the asset. So physically, the physical asset cannot be repositioned? If it needs to be to address the risk, or if something happens if there's a crisis. So you know, if it's, we went in with the intention of okay, we're building apartments, but now they have to be hotels, can the asset be repositioned easily and with with little cost, you know, as painlessly as possible. So so that's something that we always look at, that we try to address up front is the what ifs. And if there is a change in market, we started the English hotel three months into the pandemic, which was an absolute nightmare. It was so funny when we first designed this system, the M8Trix system and I apologize for the the long answer here to your question. But we designed the system around recession proof, we wanted to build a recession proof model that even during a recession, the the asset would be able to produce the pandemic hit. And we've now changed from being a recession proof model to a pandemic proof model. So so so we know that our model works, but it's having the you know, the ability and the flexibility to reposition our asset, and not just that, but you know, our portfolio overall the vision overall to to address market changes. I think aside from that, that physical answer to that is the emotional and mental, you know, flexibility as well, to recognize that and be willing to make those changes. I've seen so many assets, so many projects get cancelled or put on hold, because of market condition changed or something happened, and the owner just doesn't have the flexibility emotionally to look at look at the project in a different way and how to maybe repurpose it or move it around so that it can work is that it's kind of just a hands up open, it didn't work the way it did we have to cancel it, it's gonna sit, you know, while it's gonna sit, thank you for the next 10 years. So I think that's that's how we approach that and how we approach risk. And it really being as flexible as possible, not just with the the physical product, but with our mindset and our leadership and how we approach that.

Today, my guest is Jerry Rosengarten. Jerry is the real estate developer who came up with the idea and build new york city's iconic Bowery Hotel. And he's an author of the book Jump on the Train, Dyslexic Entrepreneurs 50 Year Ride from the Leisure Suit to the Bowery Hotel.

J Darrin Gross

I’d like to ask you, Jerry Rosengarten, What is the BIGGEST RISK?

Gerald Rosengarten

If you own real estate, you're always at risk. Always. Somebody falls on your property somebody else there's a fire These are the things that you're going to always be risk. As far as the biggest risk is building the real estate. To build it, catastrophic things can happen. I had a crane fall in a building I was building Bowery, another building that was built. Seven, also a 17 story building. And the crane fell and knocked out the eighth and seventh and sixth floor of the building. Now, no one's living in the building. But that crane sits next to other buildings. And if it went another way, different story.  I think that's the biggest risk that I know.

J Darrin Gross  and Zach Lemaster discussed a turnkey investment strategy for single-family and small multi-family properties in the southeast US, highlighting low acquisition costs and potential for cash flow. J Darrin Gross and Zach Lemaster then explored strategies for creating a retirement income through real estate investing, including leveraging depreciation and creative financing options. They emphasized the importance of reverse engineering the investment strategy and maximizing real estate investments through 1031 exchanges and tax advantages.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Zach Lemaster, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Zach LeMaster

Oh, man, we're gonna get deep here for a sec. Darrin, I'm gonna get on my soapbox. But the biggest i and this is investing in general, buy, I truly feel this isn't this cliche, I truly feel that the biggest risk is doing nothing with your money, and not not paying attention to it. Because if you want to live the same life you're living now later in life than that, that's what you can do, right and one, one event could wipe you out one event and a health event, a loss in your job change in the market could completely wipe you out, you start over. So I just want to say that first and foremost, the biggest risk you can do is nothing. But when you're investing, I think there's there's so many different ways to evaluate risk. I actually think leverage D risks your investing. I like the idea of having adequate property insurance in place, we have portfolio policies and umbrella policies on all of our properties, we also do risk by having the right entity structure in place on our portfolio and separating it that out from each other and personal assets. We have all life insurance policies set up we invest for retirement vehicles, which are protected accounts, we also invested trusts, as well as having LCS those are all like portfolio structure that I think can de risk situations. Having the right insurance policy in place, I think is certainly important. But the the and there's so many different ways to answer this right at doing nothing is the biggest risk. And then I think secondary to that investing arbitrarily without knowing what you're investing in investing out without fully understanding something or having a plan and strategy. That is probably the next biggest risk that I see in investing real estate, it's a beautiful thing because you can man, you can really de risk it quite a bit. First and foremost, you're investing in a physical asset you're investing in and that's why we like residential real estate because it's human necessity housing, that's never going to go away. People always need a place to live and especially if you're in that kind of workforce housing, location like those are areas where you will always have demand and then you properly insure the property. You protect your assets with right entity structures. You have the right insurance brokers and professionals providing guidance bay that actually understand your goals. I think that is the biggest way to de risk so I probably went on too many And is there Darrin? So let me let me stop there.

Today, my guest is Ashley Tison. Ashley is an attorney, professional speaker and a founder of OZ Pros, a full service opportunity zone advisory firm. And in just a minute we're going to speak with Ashley Tison about Opportunity Zones for real estate tax mitigation.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Ashley Tison, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Ashley Tison

Well, in the context of what we do, the BIGGEST RISK is audit. Right? So inside of Opportunity Zones, right, that's the, that's the thing that would unwind your deal. So all of these plans that you've made, if you can't survive an audit, then you're going to do it all for naught. And so in stepping into that, there's a number of ways that you do you try to avoid the risk, you try to mitigate it. And then you know, ultimately, we're, we're actually and we need to talk with you about this, we're working on an insurance product or exactly that, that will cover audit, actually covering the price of the audit, and then that will ultimately cover any kind of indemnity for will have an indemnity threshold, but it will cover up to an amount that the IRS said that you were incorrect on. And, you know, the easiest way is, like I said before, is to just have a really solid and organized audit trail that reads like a book. And that is presented in a storybook format. And, you know, that's the best way to mitigate it. And then secondarily is to have good professionals who can assist you with processing the audit with the IRS. And then, you know, ideally, we're going to be able to put together this, you know, are trying to figure out an insurance product that will then insure it. So, great question. I love it. And I love the fact that you're posing that question to everybody, because everybody should be looking at that, as it relates to every element of their life, how can they mitigate risk? And how can they deal with it effectively. And that's both inside of opportunity zones that's within their taxes as a whole that's within their real estate deals. I would say even that it's within kind of life itself relative to family and business continuity, that they ought to have a plan in place in order to be able to address potential situations down the road where they may not have access to the infrastructure that's available today. And I think that that's awesome that you're encouraging your clients to think about that kind of stuff. That's what we do with Cinterion is we help people with kind of continuity plans.

Today, my guest is Rob Finlay. Rob Finlay is a certified property manager and is a commercial real estate expert with a broad portfolio of success stories developed through hands on work and multigenerational industry experience with decades of experience in every facet of care from analytics to acquisitions, operations, to finance and more. Rob's insights are derived from real world wins and cutting edge industry innovation. And in just a minute, we're gonna speak with Rob Finlay about strategy changes needed for commercial real estate owners and asset managers in the shifting markets.

J Darrin Gross:

I'd like to ask you, Rob Finlay, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Rob Finlay:

So not sure if there's one specific one and just so you know, hopefully, I I can give you one right now, that is top of mind for me, right? Because insurances. Property Insurance is property insurance that has been spoken about and and fortunately, we have people like you that help us, real estate owners get through that through that mess. The one thing that that property insurance people aren't going to help us with is what I see as this great risk is compliance and corporate risk. There is this thing out there for anybody who's in real estate, I want everybody who's in real estate, who are all your listeners to understand, if you have not heard of what this corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, whatever it's called, is right at CTA, look it up. But actually make sure it's corporate Transparency Act. The corporate Transparency Act is where anybody who's in commercial real estate, anybody who's in real estate, anybody who has an LLC, and it must file with the US Treasury, any type of beneficial ownership, any type of direct control any type of indirect, like, all these different requirements. And I think where most real estate people are, they're like, Okay, you know, my attorney will deal with this, or my accountant will deal with this, the accounts don't want to touch it, the attorneys will have to do an incredible amount of research to see. And then you have to track it and do all this stuff. If you don't, so right now, if you file an LLC, if you create an LLC, I think you have like 60 or 90 days to file. But in 2024, so this year, you must file this, this, this, this form with the Department of Treasury for all of your entities. And if you don't, it's a big one. These are like you're talking about, like, hundreds and 1000s of dollars of per day, fine. So what I would say is, for me, from a risk standpoint, is one, this is administrative and corporate risks. That typically will fall under the radar until probably December, probably last week in December, when I will now need to go get information and do all this work for all of my entities and try to load it up into some US Treasury database, right? So for me, like I'm gonna have to go sit there and put out by the systems are going to crash. It's like, it's like all of a sudden telling everybody, Hey, you have to file your taxes. But we're not doing it until the last possible second, and you don't know what you're not All right, you don't have none of the paperwork. So, to me, there are a lot of risks out there, right? You could go into data risk, you can go on, you know, all this other stuff. But quite frankly, this is risk that can be avoided, well, actually, I don't know, can you avoid you can't avoid it, because you have to do it. Right. You can minimize it by being proactive. And third, you could probably transfer it There are companies out there that that will handle it for you. So yeah, you can't avoid it. But you can minimize it by being proactive and looking at it now, not December 31.