Institutional Edge with Page Gostling

Welcome. This is the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing with James Nelson, the principal and head of Addison Young's U.S. Investment Sales Group, and his co-host Kim Trohler from his investment sales team. In this program, you'll learn game-changing strategies to outperform the market. James will teach you how to source, execute, and capitalize on the best real estate opportunities in New York and around the world. Now, here are your hosts.

Welcome to episode number 242 of The Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. This is your co-host, James Nelson, and I'm Kim Troller, also your co-host. And today with us, we have Paige Gosselin, and you're going to learn how institutional real estate investors evaluate opportunities across markets and asset classes in this great conversation. Paige is the managing director and head of transactions for New York Life Real Estate Investors, which is an $800 billion investment management platform that sits under the Fortune 100 company. The platform fits within the company's broader investment management business and carries out direct equity investments, joint ventures, and acquisitions across the country.

Paige talks about how her team uses data, local expertise, and disciplined underwriting to identify opportunities in asset classes including office, multifamily, and industrial. She discusses why New York Life was willing to move early into San Francisco office and how the firm thinks about value-add versus development and what it takes to invest across a broad range of markets while staying selective.

You know, Kim, what I love about Paige's story is she kind of came from a non-conventional background, which I think could be super, uh, helpful and interesting. This maybe some of our audience who maybe has not entered the real estate field yet. So she was an English major, she went actually and started in marketing department at Cushman, then she went overseas where she started doing some asset management and then got into the investment business. So really, you know, growing and, and obviously going back to Wharton as well, getting some higher learning, but really talking about how she was able to get that experience to ultimately rise to the position that she's in today.

Yeah, she brings a really unique perspective having worked in the European markets as well before coming over to New York Life. So it's cool to see how that experience has shaped her ability to be active in such a broad range of markets across the US at such a large and diversified scale.

Perfect. Well, as always, and, and I should say also, uh, we did have my friend Christy Philbrick Wheaton if you want to listen to that episode as a primer. She's also at New York Life. Paige, obviously, is going to give you a great sense of what New York Life is investing in across the country. And as always, you can go to JamesNelson.com. I built this site for you. It's not about me. That's where you can find a lot of helpful resources. You can find out information on how to connect with Paige, the show notes. And as always, if you haven't done so already, please go ahead and subscribe to the show and give it a rating. That's how we help reach a larger audience. And put the word out. So we're gonna have a brief word from our sponsor, and we'll get right into that interview with Paige Gosling.

Avis and Young's United States Investment Sales platform executes on multifamily, office, retail, development, and specialty asset transactions across top US markets. As experienced leaders in the industry, our integrated national team is here to help you make informed investment decisions. Whether advising on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities nationwide. Our one unified platform is built on unparalleled collaboration and connectivity across 120 full-service offices around the world, giving clients direct access to the deepest pools of capital. We put our clients first, delivering tailor-made strategies to achieve superior results.

Welcome everyone. Today we're thrilled to have with us Paige Gosselin, who is Managing Director, Head of Transactions for New York Life Real Estate Investors. Paige, thanks so much for joining us.

Happy to be here.

Great. So for the audience, we know that New York Life does a lot of things, so maybe you could just help set the stage by talking about how New York Life Real Estate Investors fits into the overall enterprise.

Sure. So, uh, New York Life Real Estate Investors, uh, is part of New York Life Investment Management, which is an $800 billion investment management platform that sits under the Fortune 100 company New York Life Insurance Company, mutual fund life insurer, and manages roughly half New York Life money and half third-party capital.

Great. And can you talk a little bit about your role as managing director and head of transactions? So, so what do you do and what is the, the portfolio that you oversee?

Sure. So Real Estate Investors has about $70 billion of AUM, which is divided amongst at debt, equity, and CMBS investments. I oversee transactions for the equity platform. So we are looking for direct investments, including joint venture investments, in virtually all sectors across the country.

Mm-hmm.

Paige, I would love to dive into your career path before we talk about your specific investment strategy, because you've got a very robust path. You, you started at Cushman Wakefield, then you were at Pembroke for like a decade, then Thor Equities doing asset management over there, and now you're at New York Life. So if we go back to your Pembroke days in London, I'd be curious to hear about what investing in European— in the UK or European markets has taught you about, um, investing in U.S. markets and what the sort of fundamental differences are there.

So one of the key differences that was highlighted for me as I transitioned back to working in the U.S. is mindset around transferable skills in investing. It's much more common in Europe for people to be pan-European fund managers and to say, we've been investing in France and we think there's better relative value in the Netherlands, so we're going to take our toolkit and go deploy that in another geography. Contrasting that with the U.S., where people will say, well, you know, I'm a Midtown Manhattan specialist— a little different because it's such a big market— but, you know, and I'm, I'm a Carolina industrial specialist. I think there's more of a trust in the transferability of those skills. Of course, you have to have great tax advisors and legal and planning and hire great operating partners who are local to each jurisdiction. But I, I think there's just more comfort with moving amongst different geographies and figuring out the important nuances.

That makes a lot of sense. So how has that shaped the way that you run your team and the way that you approach the projects that you all are working on?

I guess it gives me confidence in trying to look across a very broad geography. So I have 7 teammates across the country who each invest in all sectors and all strategies within a region, and I can't purport to have bought every kind of deal in every market where we're looking. And so saying, well, but I know what questions to ask and You know, I trust that I don't know everything and I'm gonna rely on experts and I'm going to boil it down to, from experience, you know, what makes real estate investments perform and where can you fall into real pitfalls.

If you don't mind, I was gonna even start us a little bit earlier because I was fascinated to see that you were also an English major. Although I believe you graduated summa cum laude from Washington Lee. I may have gotten a little bit of laude. What's the baseline of the laude?

Sumo is like the top.

That was—

you were that— you were Sumo, right?

I was.

Yes. I'm here with two Sumos.

I was at Magna.

Okay.

Just to be, you know, to be—

okay.

All right.

So, yeah, okay, we got the pecking order here. I'm— whatever it is, I'm at the bottom. But anyways, uh, somehow you were able to parlay that, and I, I just missed you at, at Cushman, but you were doing marketing. So this is kind of an unconventional path, I guess, to real estate. But I think for a lot of our listeners who maybe are in a different industry, or maybe they're coming out of a liberal arts education and maybe they don't have experience with real estate. Would love to just hear how you found your way.

Sure.

So, I think most people who've been doing this for more than 20 years got into it one of two ways: had a family member in the industry or a little bit by accident. I'm the latter path. As you said, English, was kind of doing some marketing and was lucky enough to find an opportunity at Cushman. And in the office sales team in Washington, D.C., and did that for a while, starting from a marketing angle, but then started digging into the financial analysis side. And it was a really heady time in the market, and every deal was sort of breaking records for lowest cap rate and highest per square foot. And I realized I wanted to understand why one investor was able to pay more and how people were capitalizing the deals. And the liberal arts base was great in terms of how to think, how to digest information, how to structure arguments, but it hadn't given me credibility around my analytical thinking and math skills. So I said, I need to go do a real estate-focused MBA. And I left at a somewhat challenging time because right in the middle of my MBA, the GFC struck.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

And then what brought you overseas from there?

Uh, well, yeah, going, going back to the GFC, right? I got an opportunity in London, and it was the most interesting opportunity I had. A lot of my classmates pivoted out of real estate actually in the middle of business school because it was 2008 and recruiting was drying up. And I said, no, this is what I want to do, and I'm going to hold firm. So got the offer, didn't tell anyone. I had never been to London. Moved over, and then about 6 months in said, you know, by the way, my first trip here was to sign a lease on a flat, and thought, you know, I'll do this for 2 years. Then, you know, went to business school to advance my career, and then I loved it, obviously, and kept learning and encountering new challenges, so I stayed for 12.

Wow.

And the role that you had with Thor, at this point, are you back in the US, but you're covering Europe for them, helping them expand?

I joined the London office.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay. Interesting. And, and I don't think we've had a lot of guests on the show who are, you know, US-based looking to acquire in, in Europe. I mean, is that still something that, I mean, did, did you ever think of kind of taking on a more global role? I mean, now your, your focus is on—

Just focused on the US.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was, that was an interesting transition. It, it took me a minute to realize that I wasn't covering markets outside the US anymore, but the US is such a big and dynamic market. And I think there's increasing capital formation overseas that will be focused on the US in the very near term, that this is where I want to be now. What I think— where I think I can parlay some of that experience is understanding from firsthand experience a little bit more of how global investors think, you know, how they think about the US. How they think about where real estate and US real estate can fit into their portfolio. Even speaking a little bit more of the language of here's some of the real estate typologies you might be seeing in your home markets, at least for European investors. Can't purport to do that all over the world. And even just an awareness that not everyone kind of speaks in the same language that we do, uses the same metrics, right? Even just a little bit of cultural sensitivity, I think, can go a long way.

Great.

So on the US portfolio, can you give us a breakdown of what your sort of geographic breakdown is and maybe your target markets right now, and also the, the buckets of capital that are getting you there, how it's sort of structured?

I wouldn't say we have target markets. We've got 5 offices around the country, and as I said, 7 acquisition folks who, who each cover a region, and then debt professionals, asset managers, advisor— sorry, appraisers, engineers in each of those geographies. So we're pretty opportunity-driven across the platform. We have current investments in 200 MSAs, and if we were an equity book only, would we be in 200 MSAs?

No.

I think we're able to get comfort going into some more tertiary, certainly secondary, even tertiary markets because we have the data and the relationships coming off of having initially taken some lower-risk positions on the debt side. But, you know, we have that data, we have the breadth. So we are following opportunities where we think we have an execution edge, either because we have conviction about sustainable demand for that product in that market, and that conviction may come from our strategy and research group, it may come from the firsthand data that we've gotten from prior investments, and where we think we have strong relationships, strong asset management capabilities so that we can make that investment perform better. So we can buy it well, maybe moving into spaces that are a little bit less competitively bid, and we can manage it well. Wow.

The data piece that you mentioned is, is a really interesting point and something that I actually think about a lot. The, the larger, more institutional companies have such a leg up at times when it comes to actually like understanding trends across the country, because you could have your own data, your own portfolio data to look, to look to.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's like literally just an inward glance. You don't even need to outsource it. So that, that much must be a real advantage for you all. I'm curious how being a life insurance company in general affects your investment strategy. Like, are there, does it need to be a little bit more risk adjusted when it comes to certain asset types or certain locations? Like how do you all view your strategy relative to being a life insurance company? Primarily?

So two things. First, when we think about our competitive set, increasingly we're thinking about the private equity firms, in particularly those who now are managing significant amounts of insurance company capital. You know, we think that's, that's the bar in terms of dynamism and in terms of being very responsive to market opportunities. When we think about risk, it depends on the investment and it depends on the opportunity. Obviously, we have a— I mentioned we're part of an $800 billion investment management platform. So that means we have investments across, you know, the full suite of opportunities, and we're attaching ourselves at different risk points depending on the investment. I'd say for the insurance company, a lot of what they're looking for their real estate to do, their equity real estate to do, is more value-add and opportunistic. Whereas commercial mortgage lending, which is the majority of our book, is— will take on a slightly lower risk profile in general. I mean, putting aside that we do structured debt and construction debt.

I'd love to talk about your acquisitions in San Francisco because they're clearly in this last cycle, you all were a pioneer there. So you'll have to remind us when you made your first acquisition this last cycle, but just Now, fast forward last year, there was a million square feet of new AI leases, $300 a foot rents have been secured. But I think when you made those investments, you might not have had the benefit of all that knowledge. So, just understanding how did you look at San Francisco? What not only gave you conviction to go back into that market, but also into office when, let's face it, at that time, that might not have been at the top of the list, uh, for most investment committees.

So we made that the first office investment in April of '24, so 2 years ago now. So you're right, we, we got the accolade of being the first institutional investor back into San Francisco office, which has served us well, by the way. You know, we've, we've gotten further interesting opportunities as a result of, of people saying New York Life is doing something interesting. They're obviously being thoughtful and they're willing to take calculated risks. We were able to make that investment because we said, uh, we're able to buy at a compelling basis because this is not a competitive market. And an opportunity was introduced through a strong relationship that we've nurtured over, you know, for many years. And, and we had conviction around burgeoning demand in the leasing sector. So I think it's bringing together the data that we can get from our platform and from, you know, having good infrastructure, good research infrastructure with on-the-ground experience, and then having that much more of a, of an underwriting cushion because we're buying at such a compelling basis. So we don't have to underwrite that capital value is going to revert to long-term average. You know, we can underwrite cash flows that we really believe we can deliver, and maybe a little bit of reversion in that cap rate. But we don't have to let— wait for capital markets to bail us out, because in that kind of thinly traded environment, we were able to underwrite really conservatively, right?

I mean, it's amazing. In 2025 alone, San Francisco was tied with New York for sales volume at $6.4 billion in sales. Leasing activity was up 40%. For, for office specifically. And our leasing brokers there say they've never been busier. So it's, it's really an amazing time. Yeah. I'd love to dive into your, your two most recent San Francisco office deals. I saw 600 Townsend West and then 353 Sacramento Street, both like 200,000 square feet, 1980s vintage. Walk us through the strategy for both of those and like how, how you're viewing office now.

We're continuing to underwrite office investments in the Bay Area where we've got two on our desks now, one in San Francisco and one on the peninsula. So, and, and now looking for potentially for other clients outside the, uh, other third-party capital for those investments. So we still are really excited about the leasing story. You know, it was even more fun when we were, you know, no one else was buying and yeah, you didn't have to think twice about the basis at which you were entering, but you know, the leasing story has really been borne out. And, and we have the benefit of the information that we're getting from those deals as each new lease that we sign in those properties is, you know, blowing through our underwriting, beating the last deal. And that's helping give us conviction around underwriting new opportunities. The, the deals that we did each has a— have slightly different profiles in terms of the state of occupancy, the, the floor plate, the profile of the tenant, which is also, I think, an advantage, right? Where we could say we think we're catering to slightly different tenants for each of these investments.

Mm-hmm.

Another interesting thing about San Francisco, which I'm sure you're well aware of, is like those smaller pockets like Menlo Park, mm-hmm, Redwood City, Palo Alto. Mm-hmm. There are buildings that are trading for like $2,000 a foot. Mm-hmm. Uh, but then you're more, it seems more concentrated in like the CBD.

We did do a deal in Palo Alto last year.

Okay, so was that a different strategy than your CBD acquisitions?

And fundamentally driven by the same leasing demand, leasing demand. And, you know, this is a, this is a, an irreplaceable location. This is a product— there is compelling demand for this asset and not a lot of competitive supply, right?

So kind of going back to that 2024, because I think this is so pivotal in that you saw something that clearly a lot of investors most missed, right? And part of it we could say is, you know, the capital markets and everything going on that were, uh, you know, challenging to invest in office at the time. But, you know, clearly you saw something, your, your partner, where I've got to imagine you, you saw that office leasing was going to take off. So what was it at that moment of time? And maybe, you know, it looks like it's turned out to be more than a hockey stick, but what was it at that time that gave you conviction? Because I think I'm sure there's a lot of other investors thinking like, what's the next market that's going to pop? And what do you look for?

I think we look for the data to support why the demising demand is happening and why that's sustainable, right? So another market that has gotten a lot of attention for office investment is Dallas, where there have actually been really competitive processes and, you know, bids coming in well above guidance in select pockets, right? And it's the same in the Bay Area. But we would still look at that market despite the fact that it's not an undiscovered spot, because there are compelling tailwinds in terms of population growth and in terms of, you know, continued corporate relocations.

We—

it's favorable tax environment. We just think there are a lot of reasons why Dallas will continue to perform, and there will be sustainable leasing demand. So if you pick the right asset in the right pocket You know, you can do well there. San Francisco, we understood a little bit about the AI story. We had some assets that we thought catered very well to that direct demand and not just the halo effect coming off of AI. And we had the benefit of having a number of our senior executives sitting in San Francisco who really understood the market. And, you know, the base at that point, especially the first investment, the basis is so low, you know, historically low, that if you say there's real leasing demand, so I, I can generate these cash flows now, uh, and I really believe there will be some recovery in, in the capital value on the back end, you know, there were some opportunities just that just felt too good to miss. I think other investors may have seen those opportunities but didn't have capital that had that conviction. Some people just didn't want to have that conversation, right? You know, it was an unpopular conversation to have with investors. And I think some people didn't know how to source those opportunities.

So with your investor base, when do you— you mentioned that you also do JVs. When do you buy something direct versus work with a partner?

So historically, we've done most of our investing direct. We have a big asset management platform. We have strong capabilities for everything but development. We will, we will always work with it, or almost always work with a partner for development. Last year, we did more JVs than direct deals, and that comes down— a lot of that comes down to originations. So we saw really interesting opportunities through partners that were off-market deals where the partner genuinely controlled the opportunity. And, you know, that, that was a worthwhile kind of price of entry for the deal. And we structured different joint ventures differently depending on the business plan and the partner's capabilities and how they're complementary. We'll also partner if there's a heavier lift on the business plan or partners really bringing a skill set beyond our own. But I think we're, again, more opportunistic. And so we're, we can flex our business model a little bit to, to respond to where we think that are the best opportunities.

That makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned demand drivers for office. It would be great to shift gears over to multifamily because there are some really interesting trends going on right now. Obviously, there's a lot of population growth if you think about like the, the Southeast. I know you all have been quite active there in multifamily this past year. How are you viewing the dynamics between, like, supply and demand when there's been a lot of oversupply in those areas over the same period and now the market is just starting to recover from that?

Yeah, it's challenging. Obviously, you know, one thing we like to do is pick spots within markets. So there are broader markets that might be oversupplied but still have, you know, but are absorbing that supply because of demand. But there are pockets within those broader MSAs that have more barriers to entry. You know, maybe they're more, more mature, more built out. And so there's an opportunity to refurbish an older property to meet demand where there cannot be new supply. So Atlanta is a, Atlanta is a good example where we would just be selective about where we would invest to make sure there's not too much competitive new supply, but we wouldn't redline the market.

Yeah, to take a step back on just asset allocation, and so is it, you know, deciding if you want to weight more heavily towards office or multifamily, existing, uh, development, industrial? I mean, how, how are you deciding what asset classes and then kind of what is the, the overall thesis that you're trying to solve for?

Yeah, I mean, there are, there are asset classes that we like because they generally are consistent with the underlying macro trends that we're tracking in terms of sustainable demand. So we like value-add multifamily. We like industrial in a few different forms. Office will be more of a selective play, but then we also think there are some really compelling— I keep saying opportunities, but really compelling investment opportunities in the less loved sectors. Multifamily and industrial, I think, will by far get the weight of new capital formation over the next years, particularly from foreign capital. And so, you know, we'll have to be very careful to pick our spots in those markets, even though we think they're, you know, they're such big addressable markets. So I think we'll probably continue to be heavily weighted to industrial and multifamily and see that as as probably the right portfolio construction. But office, medical office, self-storage, uh, seniors housing is a sector that we're planning to enter with equity investment this year. We're already a debt investor in that space. So alternatives, I think, will continue to be important. And then, you know, significant weight into industrial multi, but with the careful focus on discipline in our underwriting.

And the decision to either go into existing product that you can value-add as opposed to build new construction, uh, kind of what, what guides that decision on, on if the market needs new supply, or is it better to kind of repurpose what, what exists?

Um, it partly depends on whether you're getting paid for the risk of development. And in some instances, so common equity for multifamily development, for example, in recent years, most of the opportunities we've seen, we didn't think that the yield on cost was justified relative to that risk or relative to yields you could get on value-add investments or on development in other sectors. So we've been doing more pref equity investment in new development in the multifamily space. Market-driven, right? I think there are certain markets where it's really important to be the newest product, and other markets where actually being in the best pocket in a refurbished building is, is actually a better strategy, right?

And does your value-add strategy— I assume it differs depending on the deal— so is it typically through lease-up and like pinpointing operational inefficiencies, or is it more CapEx heavy generally?

It does depend on the deal. Like everyone, we will often tend towards newer vintage stuff where there are probably, or where there are less likely to be real CapEx issues, lurking CapEx issues. We haven't drawn a line in the sand like a lot of investors have to say nothing older than 2000. 2010, you know, we've selectively bought older product. We bought 1980s, early '80s Class C multi in Reno last year because it was just a compelling opportunity and we were working with a partner who'd executed that strategy. But, you know, we— heavy renovation, kind of cosmetic discretionary stuff is great. We're happy to execute a heavy business plan on that side. Heavy CapEx where you're not sure what you get when you're done fixing the leaks, right? We're going to be cautious about that. Yeah, and we're honest with potential joint venture partners about the fact that we're going to take a really robust approach to diligence, and some deals probably don't make sense for the way that we underwrite. But, you know, again, we're not scared to do older vintage stuff or do a heavy lift. We just have to be comfortable that our underwriting around rents and exit is realistic relative to the starting point and what you have to do to get there, right?

And you mentioned Atlanta on the multi side. We saw that you recently bought a multi deal. It was like early, I think, 2000s vintage. Was that a similar kind of execution there?

Yeah, that was more of a, probably more of a cosmetic lift. Right, unit renovations, you know, the, the common— new signage, new common area. You know, the lobby felt kind of like a Holiday Inn, and we said we could do a lot better here. The bones of the location's great. You know, this is an asset that addresses what we think is strong demand and where we can get rental performance if we just reposition this.

Mm-hmm.

How do you look at your investment horizon and the timeline? I mean, are there usually kind of set timeframes where you're looking to execute the business plan and execute on it? Can you be more open-ended with, uh—

Depends on the client. We have a value-add fund that is typically looking to exit within 3 to 5 years. We have an open-ended core fund that's a little bit more flexible. The insurance company general account has historically looked on longer-term horizons but is a little bit more focused on opportunistically trading in and out of assets. So we'll— we can tailor the, the hold period to the business plan with, you know, with some flexibility. I think it's some of our capital that can take a longer-term view might have a competitive advantage in a market where there's temporary oversupply, but where we think rental performance and capital, and therefore capital values are going to recover, but you just need to be able to underwrite holding that a little bit longer.

Yeah, it's, I'm sure, very helpful to have different buckets of capital that you can match to the, the right opportunity. I'd love to talk more about what is the outlook for core investing, because there seems to be a lot of action right now in the value-add space and And, but the question is, you know, how much core capital is going to be there for the takeout?

Yeah, no, I say that is a very timely question. I saw a stat recently, and this is sort of my lived experience selling investments over the last few years, but stat was, uh, 60, roughly 60% of capital is chasing value-add deals and 9% of the deals, whether this was last year or last couple of years, had a value-add profile. So there has been a significant mismatch, as you said, between what the capital wants and, and what's available. I think that the core capital is, is going to be coming back in a big way just based on what we're hearing about capital formation. I'm not seeing it turn up in bid sheets yet. And Curious, obviously you've got, you've got your own firsthand experience from your platform across the country. You know, curious what you're seeing.

Yeah, no, I mean, look, we're definitely seeing signs of life. And now that especially, you know, some of these Odyssey funds are kind of reloading and we're also seeing that the redemptions are, you know, neutral now, which is helpful. But, you know, the void, I mean, we're seeing a lot of private investment. We're seeing a lot of foreign investment come back into the space. So yeah, no, we are definitely positive and hopeful because that's what's really going to help this market market, uh, continue to, uh, to grow. I'd love to hear a little bit more, just kind of talking about your approach and kind of your role in coordinating. You've got 5 different offices, you've got 7 different regions. So, um, you know, how you all operate as a team to effectively communicate and, and make decisions.

We— I think we focus a lot on our origination pipeline. You know, I think that's it. That is one of our strengths, and it is— it is critical, you know, in particularly in the environment I think we're in now, where you need to focus more on getting return from cash flow than on— than from reversion. And, and I think there's emerging consensus around the fact that, you know, maybe cap rates aren't going to drop a lot and we're not going get bailed out by the reversion. So, you know, our exit, our, our edge and our ability to be competitive comes from managing, but it also comes from originating well. And so we spend a lot of time communicating. We have multiple calls every week, you know, pipeline calls, deal calls, committee, multiple different opportunities for all of our investment professionals to come together. A lot of our debt folks will join those calls. Our asset managers join those calls. All the portfolio managers join those calls. So we're not only hearing investment people from around the country sharing thoughts, resources— we worked with this partner elsewhere, you know, here's how that stacks up relative to something else I'm underwriting— we're also getting the, the perspective of debt folks. You know, we've done a deal there. We know this sponsor, we know this seller. So I think we invest a fair amount of time in keeping those communication channels open and making sure that we're not missing all of the benefits that can accrue to having all of that data.

Yeah, I'm still amazed that somehow you all have covered or invested in 200 MSAs. I didn't even know there was 200 MSAs. We have 60 offices after after spending 25 years just focused in New York and now taking on this, this national role.

Yeah.

You know, and we're, we're really focused in on a dozen markets and just understanding the demand drivers in those markets.

Yeah.

You know, it could very well be a, a full-time job. So, so obviously you all have figured out certainly how to, you know, to, to curate and, and bring, yeah, all, all that knowledge base together.

Right. You, Paige, you mentioned with your JV opportunities, a lot of them were sourced through your your JV relationship. How do you typically source deals? And like you mentioned that like that is such an important piece. Do you mainly work with brokers? Are you looking for kind of off-market opportunities from a buyer, a lender? Like what has— how have you most successfully originated? We have in the recent—

we have to nurture all of those channels, right?

Right.

We, we do buy broker deals, you know, we buy deals that have been part of a brokered process. But, you know, there's been so much volatility over recent years. You know, we know sometimes sellers pull the plug because they didn't quite get where they wanted to get. You know, we try to stay close to those opportunities, you know, the hang around the hoop strategy, and that's been fruitful for us in some cases. We trade on our reputation capital, right? You know, we all know sometimes you pick a lower bid because of certainty of execution and reputation for doing what you say you're going to do. And, and certainly I like to think we have that. And we nurture relationships with sponsors that we think are really strong operators, developers, uh, and we source new relationships all the time through our colleagues on the debt side.

I was going to ask how you spend your time in the sense of, on one hand, I would imagine it's a tremendous amount of internal coordination and being with the team, but also being out on the front line. Uh, so how do you balance, you know, your time and, and where you focus it?

I do think it's important for me to be meeting new potential relationships, both in terms of trying to figure out who, who might we be working with and how do I make sure they're connected to our acquisition team, and also hearing firsthand where people are seeing opportunities, potentially tweaking how we're thinking about a certain strategy based on what they're those potential partners are bringing to the table. And I— and also just creating the relationship. So I think that being out there talking to people is really key and trumps me looking at individual opportunities, right? I think we've got people in the markets who know their markets better than I do, who are, you know, good at the— getting the underwriting right. They've got the sourcing relationships. So I'm thinking more at the national level. Are there folks that we should be talking to who could be partners with us? Are there on the equity or the debt side? Are there strategies that we're missing?

And how do you think about being top of mind? So I mean, for what we do, you know, we, we put out content, uh, opportunities, and, and again, you, you hope that that creates some inbounds as well. So, you know, do you all think about your presence and how to, you know, communicate and encourage, you know, if the end result is to find more opportunities, more partners, or is it just, hey, our track record speaks for itself? I mean, I'm sure after you did a couple deals in San Francisco, I, I'm sure you weren't having any shortage of, uh, inbounds.

So I would say historically we have not been, uh, a self-promotional organization. I think it was very much our work speaks for itself. You know, on the debt side, we had a lot of happy borrowers who were repeat borrowers. As we've grown the platform, and we are growing it, we've significantly ramped up debt production. For example, it was $7 billion in '23 and $12.5 billion in '25, and that's, you know, set to keep growing. So we can't just rest on our laurels. And it's, it's been an uncomfortable shift, you know. I think the New York Life culture is very collegial, It's very humble. So it hasn't been natural for people— for a lot of our people to be promotional. But I think people are starting to see the virtuous cycle of if we tell people what— about our capabilities and we nurture those relationships, then we will see a broader set of opportunities and we'll be able to be more selective. So as we grow, we're definitely institutionalizing some of that, uh, outreach. And we have the benefit of, of our broader investment management platform, particularly having just merged the, the two investment management platforms within New York Life into one bigger platform, uh, where we're able to, to leverage some of the, uh, research and communication and AI infrastructure that's been developed across different private investment strategy, private and public investment strategies. So I think that's, that's certainly helping us. And, and as a company, we're leaning into AI in a big way and, and, you know, figuring out how to be more efficient in mining the data that we have and communicating that back to the market. As you said, creating content, you know, but creating value for our partners such that they think of us Yeah, I think that is really key.

And it's not, you know, the approach isn't— I mean, you could very well be just doing victory laps over some of your recent investments, but I think as you're sharing, and today is a great example, you know, sharing the expertise, the process, the knowledge is really, you know, incredibly helpful. And I think that the best way to organically spread what you're trying to accomplish.

And it's fun, right? Yes. It's great to get in conversation with smart people who have been in this industry for a long time and maybe have a different perspective. And, you know, just sharing ideas. And, you know, it's a, it's a competitive market. And so, you have to stay curious and you have to adapt.

So, with— this has been amazing. And with only a couple minutes left, just wondering, and again, kind of going back to how we started the show and thinking about advice for our listeners, and maybe it's someone who's new to real estate, but maybe it's someone who doesn't have the institutional background, and maybe they aspire to one day be in a position like yours. What would, what would you say to that person to level up in their experience, to kind of get on this institutional plane?

Uh, level up in experience. I, I think if you're in a role now looking for opportunities, right, make it— demonstrate flexibility and adaptability. Figure out where you can add value, you know, look for that stretch assignment and figure out a competitive difference, right? So if you have only ever looked at investments and you've never been close to— you haven't been close to the real estate, you know, build some of those skills so that you can speak the language of an investor or, or, you know, someone who, uh, really wants to, to drill into the credibility of your underwriting, you know. But figure out where there are potentially voids in your experience and fill in those gaps so that you can really speak a bunch of different languages, you know, as, as an asset expert, as a capital markets expert, as someone who understands where real estate fits into a broader investment portfolio.

And Paige, you have your, your MBA, you said, and you had a focus in real estate. What advice would you give to someone who's maybe debating getting a master's in real estate versus an MBA, or just not going to school at all?

MBA was great for me. And when I was evaluating the MBA, I didn't really look at real estate-focused masters. I think based on what I wanted to do, specifically pivoting more to a direct investment strategy, the MBA made sense because I did want to be able to speak the language and take one step back from saying, "If you're going to do a real estate deal in Manhattan, this is the one you should do." You know, actually take a few steps back and be able to say, I understand where real estate sits in the broader investable universe, and I can speak that language with investors and have a more strategic role, uh, view of, uh, of investments rather than just an execution-led view. So I think if, if portfolio management and investment are an interest, then potentially the MBA makes more sense. If you're interested in being really close to the bricks and executing on business plans, then potentially the master's in real estate makes more sense.

Makes a lot of sense.

Wow, Paige, thank you. This has been amazing. We really appreciate your sharing your story and such incredible, uh, advice with our audience. So we really appreciate you joining us today.

Yes, thanks so much, Paige.

And thank you everyone, as always, for joining. Uh, again, the, the best thing you can really do is share this episode with someone that you know who would truly benefit. So I would certainly encourage you to do that. And as always, you can go to jamesnelson.com. This site is not about me, uh, I built this for your benefit. That's how you can find out the show notes, you can find how to connect with Paige. And until next week, thank you again for joining.

Thank you for listening to The Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. We appreciate your subscribing and sharing with your friends. If you haven't already, please connect with James at James Nelson NYC on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Please also visit JamesNelson.com where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, find the show notes, other episodes, exclusive video series, and other helpful resources so you can gain the insider's edge to real estate investing. Until next week.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. The opinions expressed are those of the guests and not their companies. Listeners should not act upon the information without first seeking appropriate advice from an accountant, lawyer, or other professional.