78: Adapt with The Goldberg Group and Guesst

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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 for show number 78. This is your host, James Nelson. I am principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales at Avis and Young, and I am here to help make you the best investor possible. And week after week, interviewing some of the most successful investors out there, talking about how they got into the business, their first acquisition, how they've grown their company over time and how they've overcome challenges, advice that they give to the aspiring investor and the keys to their success, which is the topic to the first book that I am working on, which will be out next year. So definitely stay tuned for that. But yes, every week, just such great takeaways. And last week was no exception. If you missed that episode with Martin Nussbaum entitled Hard Work. Definitely give that a listen. He's got an incredible story, starting with one building on the Lower east side and parlaying that into a portfolio of thousands of units throughout the city, not just here in New York, but now down in Florida and opening up an office on the West Coast. Amazing. Today's guests are no exception. And with us, we have this might be a first for the show. We have a family. We have the Goldberg family here with us as well as their business partner, Jay Norris. And you probably remember him from the panel that we rebroadcast here called Reimagining Retail. So if you, if you haven't listened to that, give this a listen. But yeah, what I love about this story and what you're going to hear is you have a family business that's been in operation for decades. And then when the retail challenges started to hit, not only because of E Commerce, but certainly accelerated with COVID instead of just waiting for things to improve, they have gotten proactive and they're leveraging technology to improve the way they're doing business. So I think you're going to get a lot out of this show. So we're going to have a quick word from our sponsors. But before we do that, just want to encourage you all to leave your comments on itunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Also, feel free to message me, whether on Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn at the handle. James Nelson, NYC Love to hear your comments and questions so I can feature them on future shows. But thank you again for tuning in today and your support. It means so much to me.

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With us today is the Goldberg Group, Josh Goldberg, one of the principals, as well as Debbie and Zan, who are not only principals at the Goldberg Group, but also co founders along with Jay Norris of Guest. Welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining. You have an incredible story having a background in the real estate business and I know we're going to get to how you all came together and how you all are now leveraging this guest platform not only for your own investments, but also for the benefit of retail investors throughout the country. So Josh, I thought maybe it would make sense to start with you just to give us a little bit of a backdrop. Maybe you could tell us about how the Goldberg Group got started, the range of properties that you're involved with, and then maybe you can kind of bring it up until today. So yes, give us a little background on the Goldberg Group. Sure.

I started in real estate working with my father in 1979, but for today, I'm only going to go back about three decades. So we were involved, heavily involved in residential property, a lot of it in areas like the Bronx and Washington Heights. And then we started buying properties that were mixed use at that particular point in time. A lot of the owners just didn't have an appreciation for the value of the retail space and a lot of the retail buyers just didn't want to deal with apartment buildings. We had a very nice space. We did extremely well. Over time we transitioned into purely working with retail properties and there have Been many advantages and disadvantages to that. But we like the idea of lower, at least lower management, lower maintenance, that kind of thing. So.

Yeah, that's a great introduction. And I think also for a lot of our listeners, many of them are looking to start their own portfolios or maybe it's college students who are looking to get into the business and think where to start. And I like the fact that, you know, you talked about how you started with mixed use properties. And you know, from a management standpoint, I think a lot of people forget, although multifamily is a conservative asset. Right. Because if one tenant leaves, there's typically always, you know, someone else you would hope who can, can fill the space pretty quickly. But it is a lot more management intensive. So Josh, where would you say you said you started in Northern Manhattan? Bron, I know you also have some incredible properties in the Village. I mean where is your concentration of retail properties today? And are you also investing outside New York?

Well, primarily we're New York based. Actually we've always been New York based. But let me just go back a little bit if you don't mind. Around 2008 I sensed seven actually I sensed that things were going in the wrong direction. I saw that with the CMBS lenders, they weren't doing well with the auctions which put pressure upon their interest rates. And I thought it's time to get out of highly valued property. So we went to Net Lease Properties as a safe harbor and we did okay during those difficult years. But then I had the feeling that interest rates were going to rise. Still hasn't happened, but I had that feeling around 2010, 11. So we traded out of the Net Lease properties which we happened to do well in because the interest rates went way down. And we bought properties that we felt there'd be some kind of enduring value. We weren't relying on the credit of major tenants like to Home Depot or CVS or whatever. So we moved into Manhattan. Essentially we gave up the higher income that we're earning in the Net Lease properties with the idea of, as I said, retaining value. We went into a lot of food and beverage type locations and we were concerned about the Internet. We focused mostly on smaller spaces that we felt would be resistant to the online competition. You know, in my grandparents era they always used to say, you know, start a grocery store because people are always going to need to eat something. And we went into Manhattan with the idea of, well, buy restaurant space because in Manhattan people are always going to need to eat out. So that's Kind of the bent we went in.

Makes a ton of sense. And look, I mean, due to this pandemic, there's no doubt that retail has been impacted across the board. Almost all retailers have certainly been challenged. But I think also your focus in kind of the neighborhoods and kind of the more service oriented businesses opposed to high street retail, which has been hit very hard due to a lot of these companies were taking on space, really more for the advertisement, that flagship location. So I think it's good context to understand the type of retail and the locations that you preferred. So, Debbie, talk about thinking about the future and maybe a little bit of context about how you all met Jay and started thinking about the idea for guests. When did that all happen?

Well, I would say the germ of the idea happened when Xan joined the family business. And things at that point were about four and a half years ago. We're not soaring in retail already at that point. And his encouragement and enthusiasm towards diversifying our investments into prop tech was very compelling. And we all know that real estate is like the last industry to join on the technology train. Kind of everything's really backwards. So we thought that was a compelling direction to learn about. And he came across Jay Norris and that's where everything began because Jay, as we know, is very compelling, very good listener, good problem solver and a terrific connector.

And.

And we basically decided to partner and move forward in the development of the guest product as we know it today. Zan and Debbie, as part of the Goldberg Group, wear two hats. We're part of Goldberg Group, but we're also part of the, we're co founders and executive team working alongside of Jay on a daily basis because we see a lot of promise in the technology leading the future of retail and commercial real estate. It's like it's become, it's just, we're just excited about it and we think it's part of the whole new paradigm of having exposure to actual sales performance in the retail locations. So we really know what's happening to understand the value of a property, the capability and what's going on with the actual tenants. And as quote, Zan likes to say, it's all about measuring the dollars on the street is how we can understand what's, you know, things have turned upside down lately. And we're all trying to figure out that the big reset. And I think this is the path.

You know, I love this story already because you have a family business, you've been doing this for 50 years, right? The family business. And I think especially in light of this pandemic, so many of these owners are just caught completely flat footed because they've been doing the same way of business for decades and now the rules have changed the way a business has changed. And if you don't adapt, you can get left behind. So, Zan, I want to ask you the question because when you decided to enter the family business, I mean, clearly you were already thinking about how do we do things different, how do we leverage technology? How did you decide to do that with the family business as opposed to, you know, maybe going to do prop tech exclusively or maybe joining one of these, you know, big shops that are out there? How did you decide to work with the family to really leverage technology?

Well, it's kind of the, that's kind of the core question. I kind of grew up around hearing realist about real estate all the time. I'm not saying that my parents were trying to always bring me in from the beginning, but there would be a moment where we would drive you driving around and oh, we got to stop at this property. Or someone would say, let's just go walk down this street and talk about this property we're about to buy. Or we just bought. And what was our thinking? And so to try getting involved in real estate, it seems like pretty natural to get involved, at least at first with family. And I realized very quickly that there's something kind of special about the trust and camaraderie you get with the family business. And then I really dove in and did so much research about what was going on. And I tried to bring fresh eyes, a fresh attitude to where the trends were for us to find opportunities. And it's kind of a crazy thing that I started on Halloween 2016 and that week we lost three major tenants. It was almost like that was in maybe in like five days or something. And it was like, holy cow, is the beginning of the end of the peak that was just experiencing or the beginning or the beginning of a major shift where online retail was starting to catch up. And so whether I was doing a little research in industrial and technology and I pushed myself to get out there and meet a lot of new people. And I went to a networking event and saw what was like 8:30 in the morning. I was dragging my feet and lo and behold, there's a panel and there's this really charismatic guy sitting on the stage talking about guests and talking about his vision for the future. He actually asked everybody in the audience, who here is actually owners, can they raise their hand? And about two people were brave enough to raise their hand, me included. I approached Jay afterwards and the rest is history. We really had such a philosophical alignment about thinking about a new way about collaboration within the ecosystem of lenders, landlords and tenants, but trying to understand consumer spending and how that drives the whole ecosystem, about whether it would any something about co retailing or about new online brands. We just felt that we really had a clear alignment of the, of the next decade or even beyond for retail, real estate and business in general. And then, so then it just kind of became one thing led to another and here we are building a company together. It's been very, very exciting.

It's just, it's amazing to hear the willingness and the openness of your family because I can imagine, you know, in a lot of these family dynamics when the next generation comes in, it's like, you know, hey, thanks for the idea, but you know, we've been doing this for decades. Thank you very much. You know, if it ain't broke, you know, you know, don't fix it. But, but clearly, you know, the family was open to, you know, well, clearly.

Clearly it was broke.

Right?

That's true, that's true. But you know, I don't know, I.

Mean, accommodation, I've been very fortunate with, with these two.

We lucked out with him. James, I gotta say, I mean really, Josh and I, I think are, are open minded people and I think it's very excited with Zan's inspiration and Jay's inspiration to pursue something new, challenging, kind of cutting edge and it's inspiring. You know, it's fun. It keeps us young and you know, part of, part of what's going on today. So I think we get, we do really well, you know, as a team.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, I can definitely tell and sense and knowing you all for four years and Jay and you know, for our listeners, if you haven't gone back and listened to that great webinar that we did on reimagining retail that was hosted by ICSE and Counselors of Real estate. Go check it out. Because Jay did a phenomenal job talking about the future of retail and why guest is positioned to help investors benefit from this changing retail landscape. So Jay, take us back to 2016, 2017, when you and Zan are talking at that, at that morning event, I mean guessed at that time what was missing. And talk about the partnership and why this ultimately became so powerful for you all to work together.

You know what, thanks. And the Goldbergs have been great partners because I would say if I could look back at that time that morning and what I was saying, and Zan and I laugh about this all the time because I do that a lot. I love to. I'm all about listening earlier what Debbie said. And the whole mission of Guess was to put a team of thought leaders that were retail experts, hospitality experts, property owners and technologists. But before then, before I met Zan, we didn't have the property owner perspective really in place.

Right.

We had some retail and the technologists and we were building this. But I always knew essentially that that was a part of the commercial real estate ecosystem, you know, the lenders, the property owners and the tenants. And I knew that we needed to. If we're uncovering pain points, we're going to need to make sure that we're solving it from all angles in order for us to, you know, create something that's going to be viable for the future. And I'm really honored that I got partners like this because we're always uncovering new pain points and solving for them in real time. But we also have real case studies, we have customers now that are on our platform. So I'm very excited about the future and where we're going.

I love what you had to say about having those boots on the ground and having that landlord perspective because I know there's billions and billions of dollars that has been dumped into the prop tech space. And yes, we've been behind fintech and there's been a need to really modernize the real estate business. But you just wonder how many of these technology platforms are really created through the eyes of end user. The landlord who says, look, at the end of the day, this has got to work or I'm not going to use it. You know, the fact that you could be trying different things and adjustments and getting that real time feedback doesn't work is no doubt. You know, I'm sure a big.

We have a partner. I'm going to cut you off, but I know we say this all the time. It's like something that comes up every day is that, hey, guys, let's remember, we don't build to spec, we build to market. And it's great to work with a team that is the market, right? Because they have real life, you know, real life business strategies that are happening that are real pragmatic in real time.

So with that all in mind, Jay, talk about how the platform has evolved. Where were you in 2016, 2017, and where is it today from a functionality standpoint?

From a functionality perspective, it is truly Evolved because you know, it has one still, one key DNA to it. The core DNA was really being a third party verification platform. But then in 1617, we were doing it for retailers and brands. Okay. We were verifying what the brand sales were when they were transacting sales when they were transacting inside of a retail location. Okay. Now we're actually, we flipped it. Instead of the brand being the variable X in this equation, it's the landlord now. So the landlord sees exactly what's happening in that retail location or restaurant location.

Right.

And that's the third party verification that we're providing. Now you said it earlier, which I always go back and say, wow, okay, if we're doing that for the property owner, we have that lens and we're actually seeing exactly what the transactions are in real time on the street. Then we actually, now we realize that lenders want some of this information as well because as we pointed out earlier that the consumer spending habits, everybody wants to know exactly what those are, right. If they're trending this way, what's happening. And a lot of times that data is backdated, it's quarterly or it's annually actually it's annualized rather instead of in real time. So we noticed that that's what we're really building for is real time sales reporting that could be shared with a lender, property owner or the tenant.

So I've had the chance to demo your product and it really is amazing the level of data that you're able to on a daily basis. And just so our listeners can kind of understand, you know, the power of how this or how this could potentially work, maybe it would be helpful, you know, Debbie or Josh. Let's go back to kind of, you know, whether you want to say pre Covid, you know, pre E Commerce. I don't know how far back we want to go, but let's say when retail times were good, right. And a typical retail lease would be you get a security deposit, you get a 10 year lease. And that tenant, especially when the retail rents were increasing, is probably doing everything possible to hold onto that space. So maybe talk about how that started to change. And Xan referenced Halloween of 2016. So I don't know if that was at which point things started to change, but I know then you started to hear about these pop up stores that would start going in. Maybe talk about from the retailer standpoint and kind of how you were originally structuring leases and how that has changed over time.

Okay, I wish we had more leases to describe you could talk about how we're restructuring essentially, in order to get the space leased, a lot of the risk needs to shift from the tenant to the landlord. Now, there was a lot of resistance to cutting rents or doing all kinds of things because lenders and investors predicated their loan amount or the investment on seeing a certain rent level. With commercial real estate, since you're locked into retail, since you're locked into a 10 or 15, a 15 year lease, a small decrease in the rent translates into an awful lot of value. And that reluctance, people would say, well, all right, I'd rather keep it vacant because the market was so speculative that people imagine that a vacant space is worth more than an occupied space at a rent that's too low. Well, it turned out that a lot of the retailers were overoptimistic in their projections. And as you said earlier, the idea of renting the space for marketing purposes that also ran out, went out of style. And so the vacancies seem to come up very quickly. And as I say, people want to keep the space empty. And all of the owners have said, well, all right, we're going to wait, we're going to wait. And then more and more space is empty and the market, before you know it, the market's flooded and the surrounding space has become less valuable. It's been a very difficult cycle. We've been in the last four or so years now, things have gotten so bad because of COVID or I should say, it's really exacerbated the situation that people can be a lot more flexible. I'm sure this applies to a lot of owners, but they're essentially underwater. The lenders understand that now, out of necessity, we imagine a lot more flexibility in the way leases are structured.

For example, James, I think we talked about this before. We felt when Covid first was like a big mystery, that we were proactive by addressing our tenants and saying, okay, we don't know where this is going to land, but we're going to give you a reduced, substantially reduced rent for three months. And when we wake up in July, let's hope this was a bad nightmare that actually worked well, because from where we stand, we don't want vacancies. We would rather have a tenant stay in place and work with a tenant rather than have an empty space. And the reason, obviously, is it's extremely expensive to change a tenant in terms of the TI brokers and all fees and all that. And it's not like a long line of tenants out the door these days scrambling for your space. So it behooved us to kind of work out some, some concessions and accommodations for the tenants. And that's really where the guest platform was just perfect for us. Because if we're giving an accommodation we want to see, okay, show us your sales. And we want to know why we're continuing to give you the accommodation based on what's really happening. And that's really served us well. And it's really been a game changer with how we really know there's transparency with the sales reporting.

Stan, maybe talk a little bit about this from the tenant's perspective. Because I've got to imagine opening up a store today is very scary, right? Especially I mean really, the landlord has to spend a fair amount to deliver the space, but the tenant is also investing a ton of money in the build out. And again, that long term financial commitment. I mean, today and with the new accounting, I believe I'll give a disclaimer. I might be slightly off on how this works, but when that tenant strikes a long term obligation, that might also prevent them from opening up other stores, right? Whereas, you know, could the future of this be that maybe the tenant says, hey, why don't I try out five or six locations? And then I've got this feature in my lease where if I hit certain metrics then it automatically, you know, converts to a longer term lease. I mean, is that, is that where you see the future of this going for tenants and for landlords?

Well, I think certainly one of the, one of the ways that risk shifted a little away or is shifting a little away from tenants is shorter term versus longer term where they get to test things. I think that's a perfect example of where a tenant can approach a landlord and say, okay, I want to be here for a year to test it. I'm going to let you see how I'm really doing. So we all know what's going on and then we can come to an agreement based on the actual performance. So we're all really living in the real world now. That may not be what the rent was, unfortunately, but at least ideally it's a sustainable arrangement moving forward. It may include a percentage rent, it may not. But then of course, I mean, we see it at guess that the porting relationship will go on and definitely because it benefits the tenant to be able to trust that the landlord trusts them and that there isn't this all at an arm's length distance still, but there isn't this sense of like every time there's an issue or a Complaint we don't just really just don't know and everyone has to kind of be on edge. I think the tenants are looking to find like it's harder to know where the spending is going to be. Harder to know right now necessarily where people moving. I mean just last weekend Central park was busier than I've ever seen it in my life. So who knows, maybe restaurant spending and retail spending is going to explode in New York City over the next year just from pent up demand. I always kind of think I say this kind of jokingly, but I also mean it seriously, that the economy ultimately is a trickle up economy. It all sort of follows where the consumer spending is. My dad alluded to this, but when even major tenants like Nordstrom or Gap had to ask for breaks at the beginning of COVID and in some ways credit as we've understood it doesn't actually exist. And it's only ever been and will ever be about sales and about consumer spending. And on online there's already sort of because of the nature of technology, a luxury or it just sort of built in that we understand everything and more about our consumers, our customers already. But it's so opaque in physical retail that ultimately this sort of, this testing opportunity, this transparency opportunity allows people to grapple with and understand data a little bit closer to how it is online for physical space. So I think ultimately that's sort of the advantage for everybody.

And you know what's held things back is that the banks are all looking for predictable income. Historically they would never lend on the basis of a variable or percentage rent. But now I think they are accustomed to the idea that rents can come and go whether there are leases in place or not. So I think we're at this moment where there's so much pressure that people are prepared to change the way they behave.

Yeah, I was going to say that is a fantastic point because you know, lenders are going to have. This is a changing world. And by the way, the whole notion of percentage lease, this is not something that's never been done before. I mean this is all standard for the malls. And what all are doing is bringing this practice to kind of the mom and pop retailers. And I guess the fear of percentage leases were always up. Well, if they're doing business in cash or they're not reporting, you know, who knows? But you know your platform, you know, again see what those retailers are doing every day. So yeah, go ahead Jay.

Yeah, I was just going to add something that, you know, Zam was actually uncovering this and this is what I really want. I talk to a lot of customers or daily on the property owners side and also the tenants. And this phenomenon with these D2C brands that truly understand transparency because that's what they're getting from their data sets online. They know exactly their customers spending habits, where they are located, and you know, their margins right away in brick and mortar, it's harder for them, you know, they don't know the property owners have zero visibility into that. And so it's harder for them to all work together without trust and transparency. And that's what we're providing. But I really see the world and brick and mortar, the commercial real estate industry having the tools that the online metrics have, right? So the data and analytics that's happening online need to really apply to brick and mortar as well. And that's what we're seeing.

I love the data driven decision making, both from the landlord's perspective and how you're structuring leases, but also as the tenants look to how to, you know, reenter and expand in the market. I had a friend used to work for MasterCard and I know they would sell their data and MasterCard and they didn't tell you who the tenants were, but they could say, okay, in this region, you know, on West 14th street, the average ticket size is this. This is how much the consumers are spending, this is when they spend it. Right. And so retailers could start to think, okay, well, these are the areas I want to be in. So it would seem to me, based on your technology, that you're taking this a step even further. So how, going back, I guess, Jay, to the tenant experience, how are they going to be able to leverage your data to figure out where they want to open up more locations?

Well, one of the ways that that can happen, and that's what we're doing. You know, we're working with customers now on uncovering the data, the daily sales performance and the reports on their daily sales. But in future versions, we'll be able to get a little more granular and tell them what categories are performing in a certain center or a certain area. And then that way they can take that data, repurpose it and be able to package it to their leasing team to go out in court new tenants. Let me give you an example, and I think we talked about this before, James. A brand like say a Bombus or like a Mac Weldon, they may have been interested in participating in some kind of lease or license at a particular center. However, historical data on averages of sales in a center doesn't. That's not compelling for them. They need real Grindler data, just like they get the data online. Right. They know exactly what's selling there. For socks. How many stocks are selling in your center, Mr. Or Mrs. Property owner? Then I can tell you if I'm going to test this site. But if you're giving me an average of sales that's skewed over like Apple sales are in that same center, and I don't know what my category that it's not categorical data, then I'm not as compelled to jump in to test the site.

Makes a lot of sense. And Jay, what do you. Since you brought up Bombas and thinking about some of these clicks to Brics tents who are now on the market. If the Goldbergs are structuring percentage leases, which is based on those sales within those four walls, how do you capture the bump that they'll get on online sales? Because someone might be walking by the store. They see it, they go in, they see the product, and then they order it online. So how do you capture that?

There's a couple ways to capture it. One of the simplest way is coupon codes. Like actually having coupon codes in a physical location that a customer would go by, and if they bought it online that same day, they get 50% off online or whatever that may be. You can track it that way, but there's also other ways to track it. And we're working on those, you know, in the very near future. And that's really what, you know, our goal at Guest is to be an omnichannel reporting system. Yeah. And we are mining for each one of those channels and tracking the performance on those channels.

Got it. Okay.

I'd like to add something to what you said. You had said that Goldbergs are using the platform for our percentage rent deals. It's important that you know that of our tenants that we have using the platform, only one is on some form of percentage rent. The others are on some kind of deferral or concession where we're getting their sales data without a percentage component. And we even have brand new leases that we signed, like 10 year leases where it's just a flat rent, but their sales reporting through Guest is required. So just so you.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. And sorry if I mischaracterized that.

James. We have to. That's really one of the things that we really want to make sure we reconfirm with everybody is that they understand that we're a performance tracking Platform. So you might be doing a rent concession. You don't even have to. Everybody really wants to know what's going on on the ground.

And the data calculating the percentage rent is one added value that the program has. It's not the value, it's an optional added value.

Yeah, understood. That being said, I am thinking of one of my friends who told me a story and he operates, owns gas station sites and C stores and he told me about a situation where Dunkin Donuts, they said, well, this location, we don't, we could pay you the 10 or 12,000amonth or whatever he was asking. And he was so confident on the location and how they would do, he said, look, I'll just do a straight percentage deal with you now. You know, Dunkin Donuts is paying them double. Now again, I don't know if this is just kind of a one off story with a certain franchisee, but I would think that a lot of retailers might be underestimating kind of what they would do. So they're probably coming in low, balling you on rent, saying, look, based on today, this is all we could pay. But fast forward a year from now, you know, there might be a benefit for taking that risk and doing, you know, a percentage lease because otherwise you're just, you know, maybe you're locking yourself into that five or ten year proposition at today's rent, which is below market. So I don't know. Zan, do you have any thoughts on that kind of.

I think at all? I think it's been talking about this a lot. I think it all comes back to on the flexibility understanding or evolved thinking from the lenders. Right. So often there's very specific DSER covenants for loans. There is sometimes for major leases, lenders have to approve it completely. So that potential upside that someone could capture a percentage rent or a short term lease or something that's a little below market at first and then rises in the third or fourth year. A lot of property owners might find themselves needing to then go to a lender who then needs to then also feel like they either have enough data to make an actual decision or there's a little greater flexibility there. So my sense of it is that we mentioned this before, that really the ecosystem that's driving so much is the three prongs. The tenant, the property owner and the lender. And as soon as there's a substantial alignment among those three players, and I think what you described, James, could be potentially very fruitful for everybody.

Everybody. Beautiful. So we only have a couple Minutes left. And so I'd love to just take a quick step back because, you know, always try to get some advice for our listeners on, you know, how can they step up their game? And Jay, this is a broader question, but for someone, and maybe it's someone who's been doing this a long time, and they're thinking about how do they leverage technology? And I'm putting that in air quotes because there's much of it out there. How do you know where to start? There's all different systems on how to track your portfolio and monitor energy consumption and this and that. Where do you go and how do you know what, you know, what technology to leverage? Where do you start, and how do you find out what's actually good?

James, that's a great question. Wow, I love that question. It's really, really awesome because I get that a lot. Like, I'll get inquiries from certain potential brands that are like, wow, where do I go next? And I say, well, guys, you're right. This is the great reset. And, you know, we're during the great reset. And they say, well, you know, I always start by saying, if you're a tenant, you know, what are your, you know, you gotta look at your fixed costs. And we look at and saying, wow, let's turn some of those fixed costs into variable costs. And that's where we see this opportunity is like, first, because I, as a commercial broker, you know, I was a broker, and I always realized that there were brands that would come to me and they'd say, you know what, Jay, we have this much money, we're not sure about our marketing, but we need to do a deal first. We need a deal, right? And I say, well, be careful about that deal, guys, because that deal, you got to make sure that deal is right. And so if I'm a brand or anybody thinking about entering the market, I'm really excited about where we are right now because I feel as though the tools, not just guests, but guests, could definitely be a tool for a brand to start that process, because at least they know that they may be able to use our platform to test the physical waters right now, right? If they want to test it. And then there's other numerous products that come after that, which is, of course, you need a new system now. Now you need to know what point of sale system that you should use. And so we're working with a couple of our customers on this welcome package for new brands that are excited about testing the waters, but they almost need a toolkit, right? Like, they Need a toolkit. We're a part of that toolkit. And then we have other systems that we work with to come along with that. So right now, will they. Can you just Google it? No, it's, I don't think, you know, you can't just Google, hey man, I want to test physical retail right now. Where should I go? You would probably get a whole bunch of brokerage shops. But as far as if you want to test something from a real estate perspective, also you'll need the systems. So you need to do a good, a great deal. But then you'll need some software systems to go along with that so you can actually optimize that experience.

No, great point, Very helpful. Debbie, what would you say?

I think what Jay is getting at is start with guest and then when we understand all of your needs, we can say this is what we can do and this is what we recommend for these issues. This is another company or another technology, whether it's a POS or something completely different. But you start with guests.

Wonderful. Well, we'll end on that. I want to thank you all for coming in. I loved kind of the back and forth and we had a great discussion here and I think that, you know, the take home for our listeners is to keep an open mind. Here's a family business who had been doing things, you know, a certain way for decades and rather than just let the world pass them by, they said, look, let's adapt, let's step up our game. So I hope all of our listeners take this to heart. And just last question before you go, Jay, where do they find out about guest?

Okay, they can go to our site. It's Guest. G as in Gary. U as in Ulysses. E as in Eddie. S as in Sam. S as in Sam, T as in Tom Co.

Wonderful. Check that out. And from all of my listeners, thank you again for joining us today. This is James Nelson, your host of Real Estate Investing live from New York. If you haven't already, please follow me at James Nelson nyc. You can connect with me, Twitter, Instagram or send me a link in with me and send me a question. I love answering them on the show. Appreciate you sharing this with your friends. Subscribe, leave your ratings. It means a lot to me. So thank you again for joining. This has been a wonderful show.

A different approach to putting our clients first. Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office, retail development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in our industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first, providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more.

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, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as Always on Demand. We'll talk again next week.

Sam.