71: Blogging the Way to Success With Brandon Donnelly

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This is Real Estate Investing live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to Real Estate Investing live from New york.

Show number 71.

This is James Nelson, your host. I'm principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales for Avis and Young. And wow, what a cool show. Last week we had Peter Soulianos on with us and he works at a Canadian based firm, Slate Asset Management. He talked about what it was like to to expand their business in Europe and now in the US So for those of you looking to invest overseas cross border, I think it's a must listen. And we're actually going to have one of his partners on the show today, Brandon Donnelly, who I was originally introduced to because he has a huge following. He writes a blog that you can find on Brandon Donnelly and he doesn't just write about the Canadian market, but he's even picked up on some of the New York City trends. And he has, not only does he have an amazing following, but I am so impressed with the consistency over time. He has been doing this blog for years, every single workday. So really, really impressive and I think you're going to get a lot out of this episode. But before we break, just briefly for a word from our sponsor. I just want to thank you all as always for continuing to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, whether it's itunes, Spotify, it means so much to me. And please keep the comments coming, the ratings and if you haven't connected me yet on social media, please do that at James NelsonMYC and you can find me there. Whether it's Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, you can certainly message me there to try to get any questions answered on the show. But also working on a clubhouse weekly show where you all will be able to join in the conversation. So definitely listen for more news on that. In the meantime, I've been doing weekly shows with my team, Fridays at noon called the New York City Week in Review. For those of you transacting in New York, definitely check it out. But I'm going to be adding another weekly show that that's gonna be more akin to what we're doing here, teaching you all to be the most successful investors possible. So please keep a lookout for that. We have a brief word from our sponsor and we'll be right back.

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You are listening to Real Estate Investing live from New York. To find out more about James Nelson or Avis and young, visit avisonyoung.com now back to our show.

And now it's time for our Investor Spotlight. And with us today is Brandon Donnelly who is Managing Director of Development for Slate. He joined the company in 2016, oversees their development efforts. Prior to joining Slate, Brandon was the development lead at CAPREIT. He has also held development positions at TAS and More Guard Investments Ltd. He holds a BA in architecture from the University of Toronto, a Master of Architecture and Real Estate Development from Wharton, and a Master's in Business from the Rotman School of Management. And last but not least, he has a fabulous blog which we're going to be talking about today. Incredible information. So really suggest that you all go to brandondonnelly.com to check that out and subscribe. This is the second installment in that we interviewed Peter Sulianas last week and you'll remember he kind of set the stage on Slate's global platform. And today Brandon and I are going to be getting into residential lessons learned from his blog and a lot of other fun stuff. So Brandon, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, Robin.

Perfect. So why don't you tell us about, give us a little context. Growing up, did you always know that you wanted to get into the business? It sounds like was maybe architecture. Was that something interesting to you?

It was. I mean the truth is I actually had no idea what I wanted to do. I actually started out undergraduate in computer science and did that for about a year and a half and then realized that I didn't want to be a computer programmer despite the fact that I did like technology and still still love technology. So I ended up dropping all my computer science classes and constructing my own program and ultimately found my way into architecture, which I thought was, you know, a great combination of kind of science and technical things, but also art and design, which I really enjoyed. And it was, that combination was what was interesting to me. So I ended up switching programs, started studying architecture, and along the way start to learn more about how architecture as a business works, how the real estate business works, and how everything fit together, and then started to realize that, hey, development's pretty interesting and developers are really the entrepreneurs that are putting this stuff together, taking on the risk and making projects happen. So I became really interested in development and started taking some business classes as well too, as I was doing my undergrad in architecture. And that had a big influence in me. Ended up going, you know, going to the University of Pennsylvania for my master's is that I wanted to do architecture. I wanted to get my master's in that because I loved it. But I also really loved development and I was trying to figure out the best way to kind of carve a career path out of it. So I went to UPenn and did architecture and real estate. Started interning for developers while I was in grad school, and that was it. I've been on the inside ever since. So I effectively spent seven years trained to be an architect, only to become a developer right away. So that was kind of my path into real estate.

Awesome. So were you going to, when you went for your master's and the business degree, was it kind of sequential? Did you just say, hey, I'm going to just keep building on my experience here? Was it kind of back and forth with going out into the real world, getting some job experience, coming back, or did you power through school all the way through?

I did my. I started my Masters of architecture right out of undergrad and then I had. So I had two summers. It was a three year program. The first summer I interned for a developer in Dublin, Ireland. And then I came. And then my second, my second summer, I came back to Toronto and worked for a developer here. And then when I graduated, this was 2008, 2009, and in the US everyone was saying they were never going to build another commercial office building for 20 years. And it was the worst recession ever. And it was the kind of things that people say when things are looking pretty bleak. So there weren't very many opportunities at all in the US in the real estate space, and there certainly weren't any opportunities for Canadians in the United States wanting to be in real Estate. So I came back to Toronto, ended up working for a developer here and then went back to do my MBA part time while I was already working in development. So probably didn't, I mean it sounds like a lot of school probably didn't need to do that much, but it was all very interesting.

Perfect. And I had asked Peter the same question about looking for opportunities in the U.S. so did you grow up in Toronto? And if so, I guess you were. You just answered looking at some things in the US and you said you ended up in Dublin, but were you thinking at some point that you would pursue a career outside Canada or when it looked like there weren't as many opportunities there, was it better to come back home?

Yeah, I mean, born and raised in Toronto, My original plan after Penn was to stay in the US for a couple of years and you know, get some experience there. That didn't work out just because of the economy at the time. So I came back to Toronto and it just, it just so happened that, you know, I joined, I joined Slate five years ago and at that time we were just, we were already in the US and we were just going into Germany at that time, so establishing our European platform. So it just so happened that, you know, we've been, we've been growing globally, but I've been, you know, I've been based in Toronto since, since graduating from Penn.

Got it. So with your experience with architecture and a lot of architects, some are very attracted to the design and the aesthetics. I think it's rare that you find a functional architect who will enjoy the process of value engineering. In fact, that can kind of be considered compromising, if you will. So were you, which side of the camp would you put yourself on? It sounds like you were already thinking development, you were also thinking about dollars and cents. But were you also interested in great design and how that works? How do you reconcile the two, great design and building a profitable project?

Well, it's funny because I remember when I was in school and wanting to be in development, but I was labeled as the architect because that's what my academic background was looked like at the time. You know, remember every developer saying, you know, developer or architects are impractical. You know, we don't like to hire architects because, you know, they think too much about design and not enough about the numbers and the numbers and all that matters. I mean, you know, my, my approach as I was starting to work in development and establish my career was always trying to find the right balance between doing design driven great city building type projects. That we can be proud of and I can be proud of. But at the end of the day, you know, the project has to make money and we have to make money for our investors. And, you know, they have to be. There has to be a business case for it. And, you know, one of the biggest qualms that I had about architecture school and architecture training is that for the most part, and I think Penn was pretty good about this because Wharton's such a force on that campus that they, you know, they could understand, they understood the business side of things. But oftentimes with architecture training, it's taboo to talk about money. And I always thought that was the stupidest thing ever is like, why, why shouldn't we be talking about these things, right? Why shouldn't we be imposing reality onto these, these projects and thinking about the overall feasibility? So for me, and I think, you know, the business that what we've been developed, the development business that we've been developing at Slate, I think, you know, we're striking that balance between we want to be design driven. I think we want to be known for the type of, you know, our approach to design. And I think we're starting to really establish that with the projects that we have right now. You know, one Delisle, which is a project that we're about to launch in midtown Toronto, you know, working with studio gang architects out of Chicago, you know, one of, if not the leading female architect in practicing today. And I think that's a good example of us investing in architecture and design, using that as a differentiator for our projects. But at the same time, it's going to be a great project. You know, there's a business case for it and it makes sense. So I think it's finding that right balance and using design as a differentiator and as a value add for what we're doing.

It's great that you can have that experience to take that practical approach where, yes, you want to do something that is really cutting edge but also is financially viable. And so I'm sure that experience has definitely helped you along the way. How much do you think about the landscape, the built environment, not just specifically what you're building, but actually the place making. We had Rick Clark come on and talk, talk about these incredible communities that Brookfield has created for people to work, live, play Today, it seems like people really want that 24,7 environment. So how do you go after that? If you're not master planning 20, 30 acres, if you're just doing one project, how do you Figure out how it fits into the ecosphere.

We actually are master planning 20, 30 acres for some of our projects, but it's something that we do think about for everything, every kind of project that we work on. I think kind of zooming out at a high level, our project focus tends to be urban infill projects on transit walkable communities that have some, you know, compelling characteristics that are in place. And we, you know, we're not doing, you know, low rise, single family homes on the outskirts of the city that just hasn't been, you know, that hasn't been our focus to date. And so we're looking for areas where there are already kind of compelling characteristics around them and then we can build upon those and see our project as fitting into a broader, a broader context. So, you know, I think it's a couple things. It's thinking about the, you know, thinking about that broader context outside of your building and the kind of things that you can, you can add to it. You know, if I go back to 1 Delisle as an example, I mean that that project sits at the intersection of Yonge and St. Clair, again in midtown Toronto. And that's a good example because, you know, we have eight office buildings in that node and we've been systematically working on what we view as a broader city building type of initiative. So we've been doing public art. We have an eight story mural that we did a number of years ago on one of the side of our office, on the side of one of our office buildings, streetscape improvements, streetscape furniture, public benches, public spaces, things like that. And so we really see one Delisle, which is a residential condominium project, as fitting into this broader city building initiative. And so it's not just that individual project, but it's thinking about that broader community.

That's great. Now that makes, makes a lot of sense today and certainly something to consider to make your project desirable and you know, have those amenities and the type of landscape that your customer is going to ultimately want. So tell us maybe a little bit what led up to your joining Slate? So your time at Capreit or maybe even at TAS and more Guard and kind of what prompted those moves along the way. And ultimately why then did you end up at Slate?

Yeah, I mean, so Slate's development business really started with one Belisle coming back to this project. But because of all of the work that we were doing at that node, we really stumbled upon this site, this development opportunity. And so there was an idea that, hey, we should grow a Development business. We should make this part of our platform. I ended up connecting with another partner at Slate at that time, Lucas Manuel. We have a mutual friend and you know, my friend, I think had sent him my blog and he kind of looked at the blog and read a little bit about, you know, how I was thinking about projects and my background and all that kind of stuff. And so we ended up connecting. We ended up connecting to really just talk about, you know, the industry and if I knew anyone who was maybe looking to make a move and could help start this development business at Slate. So we ended up meeting for coffee one morning and at the end of the meeting he basically said, you know what, actually I think you should join, joined Slate instead of trying to find somebody else. And that was basically it. I joined five years ago and we had one Delisle that we were just starting on. And that was, we didn't have an architect for it, we didn't have a team in place. We were just getting going on that and it really started from there. So we started looking for other opportunities, looking for other sites. Right around that time we also assembled a mid rise site in the Junction neighborhood of Toronto, which is kind of an up and coming, artsy, very creative, really cool neighborhood. And we ended up assembling a site there, rezoning it, and it's under construction now. It's also a condominium project. So it all really started with one Delisle.

So I'm just, I'm in awe that this one Delisle was your first, was the company's first ground up project. And for those of you who want to check it out, you can go to theone delisle.com, but I mean this architecture, I mean it's just stunning. And this is a significant, significant project. How many stories, how many square feet units are we talking about here?

Yeah, so we're approved. It's 47 stories, 383 units and almost 400,000 square feet.

So how do you go about if this is Slate's first significant ground up, you know, how do you convince your equity, how do you convince lenders that you're going to build a 47 story tower for your first project? What would they say, you know, hey Brandon, this looks great, but you know, maybe let's start with maybe a 15 or a 20 story. How did you give them the confidence that you all could pull this off?

Yes, that's an excellent question. Well, I think, you know, it's so Junction House is, as I mentioned, a project that's already under construction. And so that one, even though, you know, the platform kind of started, the development business started with one Delisle. Junction House came together pretty quickly. We assembled that, we rezoned it, we went to market, we sold condos and we got under construction. And so we have a big hole in the ground right now and the crane will be going up very, very shortly. So you know, we already had that project, you know, kind of underway and it was a successful example of us taking a project from, from kind of the beginning and bringing it all the way into, into construction. And I'll be honest, I mean when we, you know, when we were first assembling that site and I remember speaking to, to brokers in Toronto and they thought, you know, oh, what, what the hell is Slate doing assembling this site in the junction? I bet you they're going to assemble it, they're going to probably try to zone it and they're going to flip it out. And that's what the perception was. And sure, that's something that we'll look at with our opportunities, but we just felt that if we're going to be developers, we got to build it out. And it's funny how quickly market perception changes because we went from, oh, they're going to buy the site, zone it and flip it and then all of a sudden we sold it, we marketed it, we did extremely well on that. We set a new price point for that entire submarket and we got into construction and then all of a sudden everyone's thinking, oh, Slate's a big developer and they've got all these projects and they got one Delisle coming now and the market perception changed pretty quickly. So that's one aspect to it. But you're right, there were certainly discussions and it was, we've done a lot, we've done a lot of, we have this very successful track record with other significant repositioning projects, taking existing buildings, renovating them, releasing them. We had done a lot, but we hadn't done other than Junction House, a full ground up new development. So there were certainly discussions and we put the right team around it and we spoke with our partner on it and we said, look, here's the team, here's their experience and we can do this. And I think we were fortunate that we had a reputation and an existing track record that we could rely on and we have their confidence.

Junction House also looks like a major undertaking. And just looking at the rendering and I mean it looks like almost a full block presence here. I mean this is a pioneering location. So how did you know that there was going to be demand for this? How did you figure out what you were going to build there, what the unit mix? And if there hadn't been a similar project done in this area, how did you know at the end of the day there was going to be end user demand?

Yeah, you know, I actually, when I was at TAS previously, I worked on and was involved in a mid rise project in that area and it was, that was, I would say, a very pioneering project and that would have, you know, when was that, that would have probably launched back in maybe 2013 or so. So that was, that was well before, but it was at a very different price point. And, and so, you know, when we, when we, we stumbled upon this opportunity and it was basically the first, the first parcel of the assembly was, was listed. It was a public, you know, it was, it was a public listing and it was, it was a site where you could kind of underwrite it as either an end user, you could potentially occupy the existing building or you could underwrite it as a, as a development opportunity. We obviously chose the latter and we said, this is interesting, let's get this site under control and let's try to assemble some more. And I think relying on the fact that I had some experience in the sub market, I saw that there was demand for, you know, for condos in this, in this area. And also just kind of seeing what was happening in the broader residential space in Toronto where like low rise homes, prices for low rise homes were just going through the roof and they're continuing to go through the roof. And Covid has only kind of heightened that. We saw an opportunity to do a residential project, create a product type that could fill a bit of a gap in the market. And I remember early meetings where we were talking about what kind of pricing we thought we could get. And at the time I think we were, I think we said, oh, we think we can know it's probably 700, 750 bucks a foot. And we were scratching our heads saying, well, you know, there's no comps at that, at that price. Because the project that I mentioned before that I worked on had sold years ago and was below that. So there weren't really any comps. But we felt confident and our basis on the land was very compelling. And so we said, you know, we do believe in this site. And so we went ahead with it and we ended up selling for over $1,000 a foot. So the market moved significantly and it worked out. But I think a lot of that came down to a very attractive basis on the land, which is something. Our basis is what we focus on. Every asset class and every opportunity that we look at. And if we buy right, that's where it starts, right?

Absolutely. I'd love to dig a little bit deeper and talk about the unit mix because figuring out what you're going to deliver. So you talked about as far as price per foot and when we underwrite development sites, I mean that's what we're looking at. But we're not saying, okay, well what's the actual, is it studios? Is it one bedrooms, two bedrooms? Who's your buyer? What's the total ticket price? So you know, how do you go in and figure out what size units you're building and who's the buyer? I mean, you spend a lot of time, you know, speaking to the residential brokers in the area. Are you surveying people in the area and saying, hey, what kind of product do you want? Are you thinking about is it families, young professionals, and how do you figure that all out?

Yeah, I mean we're definitely speaking with as many players in the market as we, as we can. I mean now that we have sites that are out in the market and we're selling units, we get that feedback from purchasers as they walk into our sales offices. So we start to see what people want. So, you know, there's definitely feedback from the broker community. I'd say at a high level in Toronto, there is a bit of a split in terms of who the buyer pool tends to be. So for downtown high rise projects on transit, there tend to be a lot of investors and that kind of skews the unit mix towards smaller units and they're investors and they're going to be rented out on the secondary market upon completion. And that's an important part of the rental supply in the greater Toronto area. So there's the buyers that buy in those projects and then there's the buyers in mid rise kind of projects like Junction House that are situated within established neighborhoods where they tend to be a little more end user focused, you know, end users. It could be people that, you know, it could be, it could be empty nesters that are looking to stay in the same area. But they, you know, they want to move into a condo. There are local investors, sometimes they live in the area and they're looking for an investment that's nether to them. So there is a bit of a split in the market between those two product types and that's Kind of at a high level and then drilling down into the specifics of the project. I mean, our thesis for Junction House was that yes, there, yes, we want to do some smaller units and studios and one bedrooms and that's probably about 60% of the building. And there's a market for that and it could be first time buyers, could be investors, it's a mix of those. But we also saw an opportunity where as I was mentioning, low rise home prices were going through the roof. People were getting priced out of that segment of the market. And yet you had young families, you had people that wanted the, wanted the space that came with a single family home and wanted some of the amenities that came with a single family home. So we said why don't we kind of bifurcate the building in a way where a portion of it we can offer a little bit larger units and actually two story units throughout the building that have terraces, good outdoor spaces, a barbecue connection, a hose bib, so you can, you know, you can water plants on your terrace, things like that, and price them just below low rise homes so that you can fill a bit of a gap in that market. And so that was part of the thesis for Junction House and we got incredible uptake on those units. We actually sold a very high percentage of large units early on, which is a bit atypical in the way things typically work in Toronto where you have a lot of smaller units that move quickly. So that was part of our approach with Junction House and it was, it was really catering to, you know, two, two parts of the market.

Really interesting. And yeah, I mean as you offer more of these developments, you only get that much better as you get that live feedback on what people are looking for. So I love to now talk about your blog because the. This is unbelievable. You've got 15,000 people who subscribe to this and you post daily. Right. Which is a lot of work. I mean, I write a white paper once a month and it's real time, real effort. So how long have you been doing this blog and kind of what gave you the idea to do this?

It'll be eight years this year. And it's every day, mostly every day. I probably miss a handful of days every year. And sometimes the posts are short, sometimes they're much longer. But it's really about the discipline and the practice of doing something every day. The way it actually came about is this was eight years ago. I was working on, I was working on a real estate startup with a friend of mine while I was doing my mba. And it was real estate tech. It was proptech before anyone knew what proptech was. And we were working on what ultimately became a review site for condo buildings. And as part of that, I started blogging. We were looking for a way to get users and to, you know, to market our platform. And so I started blogging, you know, at that time, I started, you know, I started finding other bloggers. I stumbled upon, you know, Fred Wilson, who's a venture capitalist in New York, which you're not. You know. You know, it sounds like you're familiar, but, you know, to be honest, he was a pretty big inspiration for me. He'd been writing every single day. And I remember him writing a post where he said, you know, I was a mediocre venture capitalist, and I started writing this blog every day. And then all of a sudden, I was a great venture capitalist, everyone. And I thought that was really interesting and interesting insight because you create content, you put yourself out there and it creates awareness and people start to know about you. And it's also really difficult to do. It's extremely difficult to do. And I think the things that have value are usually challenging and hard to do. And you gotta. You got to do things that other people can't keep up or don't want to do. And so, you know, I started writing as part of this startup, and then, you know, when we ultimately wound that down, stopped working on it, I got in the habit of writing. I said, you know what? I'm going to do this personally now because I think it's pretty interesting. And I was getting great feedback on it, and so I just kind of stuck with it. And it's become a bit of, you know, it's become a bit of my thing. You know, I write this blog and it's. It's. You know, they say that the definition of a habit is you don't feel normal unless you do it. And it's become one of those things where if I don't blog, I don't feel complete for the day. Right.

Amazing. So, and how did you build the audience? Has it just been word of mouth or did you start to, I guess, pick up mentions in the press? How did it grow?

Yeah, I mean, it was very much organic. You know, I started writing and of course, nobody was reading it because no one knew it existed. But, you know, I started sharing on social media, my personal accounts, and just started sharing it and then. And then every now, little by little, it would get picked up in, you know, a newspaper would quote it or, you know, some Other publication online would quote it and all of a sudden you get a little bit of a boost there and you get some more subscribers. And it's, it's very much something that compounds. It starts off extremely slow and which is why I think it's one of the reasons why it's so hard for people to do something like this is it starts slow and you feel like you're not getting anywhere. But it just takes time. And then, and ultimately it builds and then people start to become aware of it.

So how do you figure out what you want to post on? Because you pull some really, really good research and then you comment on it. So how are you just tracking a bunch of data sources you obviously read in the newspaper? Tell us a little bit about your ritual and the research you're doing out there to find these stories that you want to write on.

Yeah, one of the questions that I always get is why the hell do you do that and what are the benefits of it? And they are not monetary directly. I don't get paid to write this blog and there's no advertising or anything like that. But there are a lot of personal benefits to writing every single day. And you know, I remember being a kid and you know, being in English class and we had to. We were forced to write a journal every single day or in a journal every day. And I never didn't really appreciate it. And as I got older, you and I've adopted this ritual, you realize there's a ton of benefit in writing every single day. And part of that is because to think about something in your mind is one thing, but to write it down in a way that is coherent and you can explain it to somebody else is a totally different level of understanding. And so to read something and then to regurgitate it or write about it and comment on it, you got to think about it in a much more in depth way. So there are significant personal benefits, I think, to just writing every single day. Even if nobody read this, this journal, if you, if you. If we can call it that, there'd be benefits to it and I would recommend it to people. It just so happens that it's public and that there are other benefits to that in terms of the process. To be honest, I just read a lot and I use Pocket to save articles. So during the day somebody sends me something, I'll save it into Pocket and I have this whole kind of working list of content and articles and research papers and things that I think are interesting. And then when I go to sit down and write. I can go through that and dig into one of those topics.

Amazing. Again, just the consistency to have done this daily for eight years and the commitment over the years. I mean, have there been any postings that went viral, so to speak, or you kind of uncovered something that really created a lot of commotion or anything really kind of memorable that's come out of it?

I'd say the most, the most popular posts have actually been about development. Very like the nitty gritty of development. You know, I wrote a post, I don't know, this was maybe five years ago, which was, I think it was called what Do Developers do and why I Decided to Become one, or something like that. And that was one of the first ones that became incredibly popular. And for a while, if you search real estate developer, it was basically the top search in Google. And that ended up driving a ton of traffic. And so over time you have these posts that really stick and then it'll drive traffic for years and years to your site. So now at this point it's probably 50, 60% is organic coming from Google and other sources like that. So topics around development, how development works, explaining development, transitioning from architecture into development is a really popular thread. And you know, somebody made a comment to me, I was talking to somebody a couple weeks ago and somebody made a comment to me that said if you're in, if you're an architect and you're trying to get into development, you're kind of the guy to talk to because everyone searches for this and they find your blog post. So those have been incredibly popular. And then I ran a series years ago called Baird, which stood for Becoming a Real Estate Developer. And I stopped doing it just because of time constraints. But what I was doing was going out and interviewing developers of notoriety, very successful developers, but asking them not about their most successful project that they've recently done or whatever the case may be, but their very, very first projects. How do they get started in development? How did they, you know, how do they raise equity for their first deal? How did that all come, come together? And that's what I want to talk about. And so I probably did half a dozen of those. And that one was, that was extremely popular. And I think there's, there's actually a huge, there is, there's a, there's a market for that. People are interested in development. There's people that want to get into development from other professionals interested in development. So that's a topic that is extremely popular.

Yeah, I would say the feedback that I get from this show, people really like to hear about those early years and the first deal because sometimes you interview these legends in the business and they almost seem unobtainable when you look at their portfolios worth hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. So hearing about how they cobbled together a half a million dollars for their first investment and down to the wire, people can relate to that, and it inspires them. And they say, well, hey, there is a real chance to get in and the sky's the limit, so to speak. So maybe tell us a little bit about what else you've done from a social media standpoint. So is your social media strategy. Are you basically just republishing what you do on the blogs or what else are you doing to kind of teach your audience and inform?

Yeah, I mean, I republish, you know, everything that I post on the blog. I think that. I think one of the most valuable things about social media and, you know, could follow people like the Gary Vaynerchuk of the world who are kind of who have become experts in this. I mean, a big part of what you can do on social media is individual conversations with people. I mean, it's not just about broadcasting. It's not just about broadcasting your stuff out to the world. That's important. Creating value for other people is important. That's why people will consume that information. Like we were just talking about. People are consuming information about how other people became developers or how development works, because that's creating value for them in their life. But I think the other thing you can do is you can go out and just have individual conversations with people on social media. So, for example, I'll go on Twitter and I'll search for our projects, One Delisle and Junction House and projects like that to see what people are saying about those projects. And I'll respond to those individuals and have conversations. And you can learn, you know, it's incredibly valuable because you learn what people are saying, right? I mean, you're hearing what the market is saying about the stuff that you're doing.

And, you know, I've got to ask, do you respond to those who are negative on it? Maybe you've got some, you know, community activists who say, hey, this project used to be, you know, my park bench was here where I used to. I mean, do you ever get any really negative comments? And if so, are you ignoring those or are you responding to those as well?

I respond to those as well and just ask and have a conversation about it. Right. I mean, to be honest, I mean, there's Always going to be community opposition for projects, always. And that's just. It's the nature of change. It's the nature of doing kind of public work like this that impacts a lot of people. But sometimes part of is people don't understand what exactly is happening, and they're kind of reacting to not. To not knowing all of the information. And so, you know, you can, I think, you know, sometimes, and not always, but sometimes you can have a conversation with someone who maybe has concerns, and once they understand the way things are actually going to work, they're okay with things. So, you know, I think you respond, you try. You're obviously trying to be diplomatic and polite, and you respond and you see where it goes.

I think that's awesome. A lot of people would just kind of ignore, keep their head down. But the fact that you're engaging, and I love what you have to say about taking those conversations offline to improve for the future, how else would you say? I mean, it sounds like your introduction to Slate sounds like they were following your blog before. I mean, how much, you know, how much has your blog and your presence propelled your business and your standing in the industry?

I think it has helped. It's one of those things that's hard to quantify because it's not a controlled experiment where I don't know how my career would have gone without the blog. But it's certainly one of those things where, you know, I will sit down in a meeting sometimes, and sometimes it might be with a municipality, and I'm sitting down and meeting with, you know, planning staff, and someone will mention my blog, and that's. And say that they read the blog, and that's, you know, I think it's great, for example, and I think, you know, that's useful. It's. It's hard to quantify exactly, but it's useful. And I think. I mean, look, part of it is I really do care about the work that, you know, myself and Slate are working on. The projects that we work on are, you know, we want to do. We want to be responsible builders. We want to be doing, you know, good city building work. We care about design. And so part of what I hope comes through on the blog is that is that true passion for the projects that we're working on, you know, like these. These are not. And, you know, this gets back to what we were talking about at the beginning of all this. But my background is half architecture, half business. It's not just numbers for me. And I remember being in business school classes where Someone would pull out a package for a development project, and they would rip everything else out and just keep the two last pages and say, all that matters is the pro forma at the back. And, yeah, it's really important, but it's not the only thing for me. And I think that is something that we as a company have made a priority for our projects. And so with the blog and with people being aware of it, I hope that comes through, and I think that helps what we're trying to do.

Yeah. And I think also the fact that you're not just posting for the benefits of your projects, and you're talking about a lot of trends out there. I mean, you've even made observations to the New York condo market, and you all aren't even developing a project here right now. So it's really. You're keeping your readership informed and up to date. And I can certainly identify with that. I feel my role as the broker. I really feel that I'm in the information business, and that's my job, is to keep people informed, where the opportunities are. So, you know, you just, you know, you've gained a lot of credibility with the way you approach it. So we only have a couple minutes left. I'd love for you to give some advice for those starting out in the business. And I'm curious, do you think that maybe starting with a blog and maybe getting an audience and maybe that ends up turning into a stable of investors, or maybe it leads to a next job opportunity? What would be your advice to those people who are, you know, looking to start out?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think no matter what you're doing, we are living in a world where everybody has the ability to kind of create their own kind of brand and following, if you will. Right. I mean, it's the cost of whether it's a pot of setting up, whether it's a podcast, a blog, or whatever. I mean, there's no cost. Right. It's your time. These things are very easy to set up. And I think building a following of some sort can only help whatever industry or business you're trying to create. And, you know, I think there's. There's. This is the way that marketing has shifted in today's world where, you know, I always think it's so interesting around the holidays where you get all these emails from companies and wishing you a happy holiday, all that kind of stuff. And I haven't heard from these companies all year. Like, that is the most point. These are the pointless emails. Right. If you're not engaging me in creating value on a regular basis. That email doesn't do anything. And so I think having a following, earning people's trust, earning their respect by putting out good content can only help you. Just more specifically in terms of development, getting into the business, I think, you know, development is becoming increasingly kind of more institutionalized and it used to be much more, you know, developers were kind of cowboys previously and it's becoming kind of a little bit less like that. But at the end of the day, it's not really a structured process. And I think, you know, if you wanted to be in development, it's something that, you know, you need to commit yourself to. And you know, you're kind of a jack of all trades. There's a lot of different skill sets that you need to have to do this. And I think you can approach from different industries, different disciplines. You know, I just happen to be coming at it from an architecture background, but I think it's about getting the skills, getting the different skill sets and finding a way to get in the industry. And you can do that by convincing someone to give you a job, or you can do it by bootstrapping and putting together your own little project. Right.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you that as far as your journey and if you'd ever considered along the way doing this on your own, building your own projects or. I would imagine the benefits of working with a very established platform, you know, for someone first project out of the, you know, the gate, doing, you know, 47 story tower, working with world renowned architects. I mean, I gotta imagine there's benefits, but what would you say kind of the pros and cons are of doing something on your own versus joining a more established shop?

Yeah. You know, I'd answer it this way. A good friend of mine once described development to me as being this kind of three legged stool, right? You need a site to develop, you need experience and you need capital, you need those three things. If you have two of those things, you can probably get the third one, right? So if you have a site and you know what you're doing because you have the experience, you could probably go out and find capital. And if you have, you know, again, if you have, if you have a site and you have a whole bunch of money, you can find someone to work with and develop that out, right? So there, that's, that's one way to think about it. And it's, I think there are, it's maybe a personal decision, you know, I know, I know people that have gotten into the business with very little experience in real estate, but they were entrepreneurial and they went out and they knocked on doors and they put together sites. So I think it's very possible to do that.

Well, this has been fantastic. Really appreciate your joining us today and sharing your story. I know our audience is going to get a lot out of it. I certainly did. So thank you again for joining us today.

My pleasure. Thanks again.

This is your host, James Nelson, Real Estate Investing Live from New York. Appreciate your tuning in again this week. Please make sure and subscribe if you have not already. Keep your comments coming. It's really helpful to get your feedback and connect with me on social media. My handles James Nelson NYC whether it's Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn and feel free to post a question to me through LinkedIn. I'm happy to answer them on the show. I want to help you become a better investor, so thank you again as always. And until next week.

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Thank you for tuning in this week to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. Please join your host James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7am Eastern Time and 4am Pacific Time as well as always on demand. We'll talk again next week.

Sam.