[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi, I'm John Co and welcome to Icons of DC Area Real Estate, a one on one interview show highlighting the backgrounds and career trajectory of leading luminaries in the Washington, DC area real estate market. The purpose of the show is to highlight their backgrounds and their experiences and some interesting stories about their current business as well as their past, and to cite some things that you might take away both from educational standpoint as well as lessons learned in the industry and some amusing and sometimes interesting background stories. So I'm hoping that you will enjoy the show. Before I introduce my guest, I'd like to share that both this podcast and the community I started in 2021, called the Iconic Journey in CRe, is now part of a new nonprofit organization with that same name. The new company will offer opportunities for sponsorship to grow the community both in membership and in programs. It also allows you as listeners to show your appreciation for this podcast, which has delivered episodes twice monthly since August 2019 with a charitable contribution.
Transitioning the community and podcast into the nonprofit organization is underway. The community, which is open to commercial real estate professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, is currently up to 65 members and growing. If you would like to learn more about either joining the community or contributing to the podcast, please reach out directly to me at John at Co Enterprises coenterprases.com separately, my private company, Co enterprises, now will focus only on advisory work for early stage real estate firms and career counseling. If you have interest in learning more about its services, please review my
[email protected]. Thank you for listening.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Welcome to this special episode of Icons of DC Area Real Estate.
For this episode, we're flipping the script.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Today and I'm going to be interviewed.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: By three of my iconic journey members and postscriptors, Ramise Munoir, Colin Madden, and Kevin Dean. They will give brief bios of themselves before starting to interview me.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: I will share my bio and some.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Lessons learned in a 45 year real estate career.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: We also discuss the iconic journey in cRE community and my process for this podcast, and we finish with life lessons and my typical final questions for other guests pointed at me.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: So I hope this gives you a perspective of why I enjoy sharing this.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Podcast with you and I really appreciate you listening. Thank you for doing everything that you do for me.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Welcome everyone. I'm Ramiz Vonawar and I'm joined today by co hosts Colin Madden and Kevin Dean. We have a special treat for our audience today. We are honored to be interviewing John co himself, the visionary founder behind the iconic journey we're really excited to get started on this conversation, but prior to doing so, Colin, Kevin and I will briefly introduce ourselves.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Thanks, Ramiz. Colin Madden I've been on a number of postscripts with John on his podcast. I currently work at the Meridian group, where I've been for about five years. I met John probably when I was two or three years old. We grew up in the same neighborhood. He has two sons. One is my age, one is my brother's age. So we, growing up in the community, would hang out with his family, go on some trips, on the same swim team. We had sort of lost contact when I went to college and post graduation.
And funnily enough, we kind of reconnected on a kind of online membership community called the Farnham Street Blog, which is held by kind of. He's an author, he has a podcast blog and a membership community kind of circulating on investing, kind of thinking better, mental models, all kind of surrounding the Charlie Munger ethos, more or less. So I kind of joined that community, searched real estate in Washington DC amongst the members, found John, and we kind of reconnected through that. So although we were living about a half mile away, we kind of met online again. And then he asked me to join the postscript and then the membership iconic journey online community as well. So we've been in close contact for last three years. I want to say.
[00:05:21] Speaker E: Awesome and excited to be here and dig into John's story a little bit more and into the iconic journey. My name is Kevin Dean with Rockbridge Investment Group. We do value add multifamily, based in the DC area. I was actually introduced to John by a mutual friend, Peter Hackett, who had listened to John's podcast a number of times. And as anybody who knows John knows John kind of knows everybody. So if it wasn't Peter who introduced me, I'm sure it would have been.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: Somebody else at some point.
[00:05:49] Speaker E: But yeah, have really enjoyed being part of the iconic journey group and excited to speak to John today.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Awesome. And I'm Ramis Monoar. I'm on the asset management team at Jamestown overseeing our DC portfolio. And I met John, I guess, back in 2016 when he was hosting a career counseling seminar at the University of Maryland. And John had graciously asked me to sort of co participate with him. And little did I know it would turn into such an incredible and fruitful friendship. So it's just been an awesome seven years and I'm blessed to be a part of everything that John has created here. And I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to participate in something like this, you've changed a lot of lives and hopefully a lot more to come.
Before we jump in, we'd also like to thank Ray Ritchie for the suggestion here in asking us to interview John. He's put in a lot of time and effort into the iconic journey and we thought it was a great idea and are really excited to jump in and hear more from John. So thank you, Ray. So let's jump. You know, as typical, we'd love to start with sort of your origin story and some of your views and parental influences.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Ramiz, Colin and Kevin. I appreciate that. Very kind introduction. And yes, it's been a journey. We've been now four plus years on the icons of DCA real estate podcast and a little over two and a half years on the iconic journey. So it's been a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed it. So I grew up, I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in suburban Detroit, Gross Point, Michigan. My parents, my dad grew up also in the Detroit area. My mom actually grew up in western Michigan, three Rivers, Michigan, and her father traveled around the country as a salesman.
My parents met at the jail Hudson company, which is a department store. It no longer exists in downtown Detroit. They worked together there for about five years. And then my mom, when they got married, she decided to raise me and my brother and my dad continued on working for the Hudson's retail outlet for 30 plus years.
He was the store manager for the three largest department stores in Detroit, the downtown Northland and Eastland store. He was also a merchandise manager. So he, being a retail leader, he was involved in large real estate and kind of a store manager. So I saw that early on. And I was also inspired by the scale of what he did and what retail was all about. So that really interested me a lot. And then my mom took care of us at home and then she became, when I was in high school, became a real estate agent. And so she started selling homes. And all along my parents were interested in real estate, single family homes, and they started buying them as investment properties when I was in junior high school. And high school and watching that was interesting because they were able to rent the homes, fix them up, rent them, create value and then sell them eventually. And so I saw that firsthand as growing up and was intrigued, but I did not want to interact with consumers and I saw some of the hassles they dealt with that and my mother's dealing with emotion in decision making as opposed to business decision making. So I knew right then that I didn't want to be in the residential market.
So that was interesting.
I really had a good time as a child. My brother and I got along pretty well. We had fun together, and I was in public school throughout. My parents, as they got a little bit older, my dad left Hudson's and went into, he went to work for a home builder on the board, and then he was helping in the manufactured housing business. He went into a couple of ventures. They failed. He got into some financial trouble. So at the end, they struggled quite a bit, and they tended to be a little bit over the top spending. So I learned some lessons from that, tried to be a little bit know, fruitful with my budgeting and et cetera.
So I went on to the University of Michigan undergraduate and go, blue national champions this year, which was great. So I was there for four years and then decided I had two choices. I could go to North Carolina or to University of San Francisco in California to graduate school, and I decided to go out to west, out to California. So I went to graduate business school at USF. Unfortunately, I did not complete my degree, but I had two good years of experience and actually interned with a company called Amrex, which was a real estate market exchange that was kind of an early predecessor of public real estate markets, but it really wasn't public. And my goal was to write a thesis called the stock market for real estate. But that didn't happen, didn't finish it. I started it. I got very frustrated because all the response I got from my surveys was, this couldn't or wouldn't exist because real estate is too exclusive and too individual to be something that trades like stocks and bonds.
So I didn't totally believe that over time. And the REIT industry has now demonstrated that you can trade securities backed by real estate, but it's backed by companies, not by properties per se. But anyway, I returned from San Francisco after two years, back to Michigan, and then I started my career in 1979 with Prudential insurance company.
[00:11:53] Speaker C: Yeah, so you started your career with Prudential. So what influenced you to get into real estate? And how did that first opportunity come about?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Well, as I said, my parents were involved, and I was intrigued in college, so I took courses at the University of Michigan in real estate. They didn't have a big program there, but one of the professors was very inspiring. And then when I went on to grad school, that school didn't have a real estate program. So that's where I focused in my thesis and my internships I also talked to as many people in the industry as I could in San Francisco. So I met brokers. I went and met institutional investors. I networked quite a bit while I was there. That's something that I don't have a fear of doing, is calling people out of the blue, which led to my brokerage career, et cetera, and marketing. So I dug on my own and met as many people as I possibly could in the industry, and I was inspired by it and met people that I thought were really people that I wanted to do business with someday.
So I decided to go the institutional route to start with, with Prudential.
And I was there for about one year, and the reason is I joined in 1979, and interest rates when I started were about ten to 11%, and then they rose within that year to north of 20%. And Prudential went out of the market that fall, and we then were only doing acquisitions.
So then I was approached by what had been Chrysler Realty and became AbCO Properties, which is a division of Coke Industries out of Kansas. They acquired Chrysler Realty because Chrysler was in distress in 1979 and had to sell assets, and that asset was their real estate.
And so coke took it over with a guy named George Ablaw, who was the partner. And their goal was to sell dealerships, turn capital, and make it happen. And they did.
They sold several dealerships. And then we did a big trade, 26 Chrysler dealerships, for a huge project in New York, suburban New York, which I was involved in acquisitions for that, and we closed on it. It was a trade 1031 exchange. The project was a 1.3 million square foot, two building office complex in Rockland County, New York, called Blue Hill Plaza.
It was 20% leased. It was a bank that did it with us. And it took two years for them to find a user that bought the entire complex. And that was nine X, which was the division of Bell Atlantic, that overcovered that part, the New York area and New Jersey, et cetera.
And I wasn't there at the time when that happened, but I left the firm because I moved to Wichita, Kansas, and I was there for one year. And it's a pretty parochial town growing up in Michigan, but I did meet my wife there, which was probably the best thing that ever happened down there. And she followed me to Chicago when I joined art Development company in Chicago. And then I got that opportunity because the former president of Chrysler Realty was the reason I joined the entity. He went and became president of Hallmark and recruited me to come up to Chicago and join him there.
So I was in regional mall development for one year and I was laid off in 1982. Markets were tough so I didn't know exactly what I'd do. But I did start talking to people in the Chicago area quite a bit and I decided to go into brokerage.
So I went from a salary job to straight commission and had a condominium with my wife and she was earning income so we were okay and I went ahead and started as an investment salesman in the suburban Oakbrook office.
So I was there for three years in suburban Chicago brokering deals and I did every product type and that office was the number one office in the country until the Tyson's quarter office beat us one year. We actually were better than the California office where CB actually started.
So the company I worked for was Colo Banker, which was at that time owned by Sears, Roebuck. And then over time they became a public company or now known as CBRE, of course.
So that was in the early 1980s.
And then I moved to the Washington DC area after a big commission died.
I was in somewhat financial straits because I had a mortgage payment to make, et cetera. And I had just bought a house in suburban Chicago. And so I decided, okay, we're going to have to sell the house and move probably. So I was recruited by the BF saw company here in Washington DC in mortgage banking and I moved in 1985 at that point.
[00:17:26] Speaker D: So what was the environment like at the time? You said you were laid off. Was it kind of a systemic issue across the country?
More resilient to that?
[00:17:36] Speaker B: A little bit more. Let's go back now a little bit in time. So in 1982 I was laid off from Hallmark. Okay. Before I went to CB 1982, there was a mini recession at that time and the markets were a little tough.
This was coming out of the Paul Volcker crackdown in 1980 81 where interest rates were up soaring.
The regional mall business was tough at that time to do anything because the numbers were just so difficult to make deals work. So we were working on mostly on land use issues, entitlement. When I was there, there was one project we were finishing up at Hallmark and that was it when I was there. So they just didn't have a need for development person at that time. And the mall business was really starting to taper down.
So CB was owned by Sears also. So it's more or less a trade internally that I went over to CB and it was brokerage. So brokerage, straight commission, you run your own book. At that point it was a lot less organized than it is today. So we were kind of on our own and I teamed up with people that were in leasing and I would help them with the sale, investment packages, et cetera. As I said, a big commission kind of crapped out on me in 1985 and I said, you know, I'm going to have to look around, find something else. So I looked both in Chicago, but I spread out net nationally and I had a couple of friends here in Washington and they led me to this opportunity with the BF Salt company. So I was recruited and I just left CB. I wasn't laid off there in 85.
And ironically in 1985 the markets had turned and things were on fire here in Washington at that time. I mean, people were building open end construction loans with no takeouts on office buildings, on retail. On retail. If you had a grocery anchor, on grocery lease, you could get a site, you'd get them down. I mean, this was the fastest growth time in Washington was in the mid 1980s. So I came here at a very good time. Markets were strong, hiring was good. Interest rates were, as I remember, high single digit, but the numbers penciled.
Cap rates were high single digits as well. They were higher than they were recently. Cap rates are probably similar now than what they were in the mid 1980s.
The capital markets were a lot different then. It was basically banks and life companies and snls. This is before the SNL industry crashed. So the SNLs were wild out there and so you could get deals done pretty aggressively. In some of my podcast interviews, Bob Kettler probably talked about it more than anybody else, where he was able to over finance some of his land development deals, where he, in essence got more cash than he needed. He got lines of credit over and above his costs on deals, both on debt and equity. So people were way over their skis. And in 1990 the virtual s hit the fan and things really went down fast, really quick. And so the savings and loan industry crapped out. We had the RTC emerge taking over most of the bad assets. The FDIC took over a lot of the bank bad assets. And then the life companies had to work out their own issues on the debt side and on the equity side. A lot of companies just had to roll up. And there was a new innovation called Upreat that came out about 1991 92 that many companies took advantage of, including Car America, which was the Oliver car portfolio here in Washington, as well as Sam Zells forming both equity office and equity residential at that time. Those were three of the big ones. There were several more.
Anyway, so when that happened, I went on straight commission of the saw company. So I had from 85 to 90, had pretty good years. Did okay, good production. 91, they said, no, you're going on straight commission. If you want to stay in production, you want to go into workouts, we'll pay you, like, one third what you're earning now. And I could do that. Those are my two options. I said, I'm going to keep trying to make deals. Fortunately, I found two developers that were active, and I was able to close enough business to earn as much money as I had the year before. So I was fortunate working through that year in 91.
In 1992, the BFSL company sold its mortgage banking divisions. The company I worked with, the entity, the group I worked for, a division of leg Mason Real estate.
Leg Mason out of Baltimore, acquired us, transitioned through a company called Latterman Buck in Philadelphia. They were bought first, and then we were bought through that entity and then became leg Mason real Estate services.
And I was with them from 92 until 2003. So I continued doing mortgage banking, basically in the same enterprise through that period. And then in 2003, Northmark Capital came in and bought all the leg Mason portfolio. So I went through two corporate mergers for the same entity, in essence.
So throughout the early 90s, we were recovering, of course, and a lot of really huge fortunes and funds created value coming out of the 1990 debacle, 91 debacle. So several huge funds were created out of that, including Blackstone and equity residential and office. And a lot of the public real estate markets came out of that. And of course, the CMBS market emerged in 1991, 92. And I recently interviewed Ethan Penner, who was one of the founders of that market. And we talk about that in my podcast with him in detail of that change in that emergence. So I started doing deals both with the life companies as well as CMBs, and then also Kevin Dean's former employer, Fannie Mae, started getting very active in the multifamily space then with their dust program, and we had a relationship with Freddie Mac to do their seller servicer relations. So we started doing more multifamily, a lot more in the 1990s into the 2000s, through those relationships. So that's what I was doing, mostly debt all the way through 2003. And then in four, I was recruited by Ackman Ziff, a New York based mortgage brokerage firm, to lead the office here in Washington. And I did that for two years and through 2006, when we decided to part ways due to primarily lack of support and a few things that we didn't agree on. So I left, and then I joined Concord, East Ridge, a development company and started being as a financial person for them. And we looked at a lot of land deals, both in Florida and then up here. And then we also were involved in university real estate. So we were working with colleges and doing fee development work on campuses and also raising capital through the public equity, the public markets and bond raising from that. So I was involved in that. And then we also tried to acquire a couple of assets. And then 2008 hit and the capital markets went, almost disappeared at that point. And so things got really dicey. So I stayed with them until nine and then went back to, actually, I went to the CTL business. Actually, no, I should take that back for one year. I joined up with two former Charles E. Smith executives and we did advisory work. 2010, struggling through the emergence back from the markets of eight. And then in 2011, I joined two guys in Baltimore, CGA Capital, and we were doing credit tenant lease financing. So I was involved in that for a couple of years.
And then real estate markets came back. Instead of just doing ctLs, I decided to get back into doing regular real estate again. So I joined two other guys, Sirius Capital, and we started looking at both investing and advisory work in what I had done before in mortgage banking and equity involvement as well. Raised capital for people, debt and equity. We did some workouts, kind of a mixed bag of things. And then in 2015, I decided to start my own firm because those guys left and joined separate companies.
And so I started my own company in 2015, started doing advisory work for small companies, had three or four clients, did fee based, raised capital for several people on apartments and office and retail from 2015 through 19.
And then I started the podcast in 2019 and started also a career counseling effort that Ramise talked about earlier, University of Maryland and George Mason University, and did some advisory work and career counseling. And then when the podcast started, I decided, okay, I'm going to start paying it forward now. So I've been focusing now on helping young people in the industry. So that's a long description of what I've been doing for the last, say, 1520 years.
Any other questions now?
[00:27:51] Speaker D: Yeah. So this question kind of encompasses maybe the whole career, but your career has spanned both the highs and lows of the industry, going back to the SNL crisis in the late 80s, early ninety s, the dot com bubble in early two thousand s, the GFC in six to eight, and more recently, the COVID pandemic and its ripple effects. What are some lessons you've learned going through these major economic shifts? Did you have to pivot your career plan, kind of rebrand what you were to the market, retool, anything like that, just kind of dig into what you saw in the market during those downtimes and how you kind of adjusted to those times.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Well, I'll have to say that over the years I matured quite a bit. So I'll just say that the first time I was laid off in 1982, I was just shocked. It was just like a stunning blow, particularly since the president of company was the guy that brought me in. But it just happened that the markets were such, and I was one of five people that were laid off. So it was a stunning blow. And then I made a change and adapted fairly quickly.
But where I was, over time, I realized that I'm going to have to do it on my own. And I learned that in the brokerage business and then getting into the mortgage banking, I stabilized myself with the BF Salt company and then with Lake Mason. So I was there for 19 years in one entity, I learned the mortgage banking business. And that's where I established most of my relationships with Uli and other organizations and was involved in a lot of third party activity. Beyond just that, to generate business and learn, build relationships. Most of the podcast guests I've had were built during those 19 years. Those relationships I built over that time, and then I shifted because I wanted to try something new in mortgage banking and mortgage brokerage, and then into the development business and then ctls. So I kind of dabbled a bit from 2004 until 2015 for about ten years, kind of plugged in and plugged out of a lot of things. And I will say that I did not do as much due diligence on some of those moves that I should have. And one piece of advice I'd give to people is when you're jumping into new situations, spend a little time getting into the backgrounds of the people you're going to do business with. Understand how they think about making decisions on doing deals and how they structure them. I will say I learned some tough lessons along that ten year run because I had been somewhat insulated with the mortgage banking industry, certainly had a lot of dealings with difficult people over the times, but not where my paycheck was coming from. Typically, it was usually in business doing the entrepreneurial things. I learned quite a bit about people, a lot more than I hadn't learned before. So I would say that build cushion in your personal situation, be extra careful in your due diligence about people, be extremely detailed in your underwriting of people. You're doing business, not only the sponsorship. But the entities, the investment groups that you're dealing with as well, are they going to be viable long term? Check reputations, look at their background, and then bottom line, go with your instincts. Once you're confident in the marketplace, and don't hesitate to take chips off the table if you sense that a change is imminent and you have an advantage, that's the final thing I'll say.
[00:31:55] Speaker D: As you kind of reflect on some of the downturns, where do you think we are in this cycle? Do you think we're still trending downwards? Or do you know, with the latest messaging from the Fed, do you think we're kind of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel? And advice to the listeners and to us three co hosts on the call, would you say batten down the hatches right now or kind of, what's your perspective on everything going on in real.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Estate in today's world relating to past experiences? This is a combination of a lot of different downturns. I don't think it's pandemic like, certainly I think it's a different type of thing, but it's kind of a little bit of a blend of a demand issue and a capital markets issue. So the capital markets, we went completely out in eight to the point where the Fed wasn't even sure we were able to have banks operate. We're nowhere near that.
But we have international debt right now at all time highs because of bailing out the pandemic. So who knows what that means, the long term. But as far as the immediate future, it feels kind of like 1991 92 in a way, in that prices are certain asset values are dropping precipitously, including downtown office buildings here in Washington. But what's interesting is the retail market has stayed pretty strong, particularly the grocery anchored retail and consumer.
You know, it's not quite the same. It's not a desperation situation for all product types. One area that I think might be an oversupply issue, and it often happens, and that's in the multifamily space and the way deals were underwritten in multifamily back just a few years ago during the pandemic and before very aggressive and where interest rates are now, there's going to have to be a resizing of structuring and et cetera, I think in that space, which is going to have a cataclysmic effect to some developers and operators that have been making assumptions a little more aggressively in the past. So there's going to be opportunity, I think, for people with dry powder this year, both in the office and the multifamily space. I think that you're going to see repositioning of assets, a lot of that, maybe even demolition of property, a lot of rethinking on some product types, but other product types like data centers, you know, life science office, maybe industrial, continue to go strong, and there's still pretty good demand for it. So it's a unique market in that. There's some things in the past that rhyme, but I think it's a little different.
[00:35:04] Speaker D: Just before COVID you spent some time with the clean energy financing platform called clean fund commercial pace capital. The market as it is cpace. That's an interesting shift. When you were working on traditionally in your career and you kind of focused on the energy side of things, what was the catalyst behind that transition?
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Well, I learned about it.
I got a call from somebody that wanted to talk about it. I dug in a little bit, and I thought it was an interesting capital structure to address the clean energy demands and things that are the requirements coming today. The way it's structured is it's like a ground lease and or a tax, really real estate tax. So it's superior to all other debt. I dug into it a bit, developed a relationship with the guys, we quoted, a lot of business. I never got a deal done, honestly, but I learned quite a bit about it and now there's a lot more activity because there's more acceptance in the marketplace. So I was early on just digging into it to learn, and it was just another tool in the toolbox, more or less, as far as getting a transaction done and to open a door to offer something a little different to the mortgage banking community as well at the time.
[00:36:28] Speaker E: So, John, you've had a ton of different experiences across many different fields within real estate, institutional investing, development, brokerage, mortgage banking, cpace, even. This is kind of a loaded question, so feel free to answer it with as many pieces of advice as possible. But if you could distill down all that you've learned over this 45 year career, which I know is difficult to do, are there any key lessons, maybe two or three, that stick out to you that are worth pointing out sort of to maybe our younger listeners, including us on the phone here?
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Yes, Kevin, thank you. There are three that I'll mention, and this is also reinforced by my other podcast guests. Most of them pretty much agree with these three things, and I've learned that also by interviewing so many different people. But number one is building long lasting relationships with clients, partners, colleagues and customers.
So that's something I learned, actually, when I was in graduate school starting just networking, and I read a book called what color is your parachute? When I was in college by Richard Bolas. And one of the things he talks about is get out and talk to people. Just set up 1520 minutes conversations if you're curious about what they're doing to learn. So I did that as early as my college years and just kept doing that and just to get to know people and who they were. And I kept building that network as best I could in each market I was in. And so that's number one. And it's with everybody, not just people you're curious about, but all the people you deal with. And in mortgage banking, there are attorneys, there's title companies, there's clients, there's investors, there's equity investors, lenders, et cetera. And then all the people within each of these organizations, you want to just build these relationships and stay in touch and work with them. Number two is always be of service and have that attitude. So try and be more outward and less for your own good. Try and do things what your client needs. Look for other people. When you're in communication with others, try and listen carefully as to what their mission is and try and solve that mission, as long as it aligns with you, creating a win win with you and that other person or with the teams. Try and find out the win that everybody has in a team. So that's an important thing.
And then part of that, of course, is listening, listening to needs. So that's the third one. Just make sure you spend more time listening than you talk if you can.
Those are the three lessons.
[00:39:33] Speaker D: Those are great.
[00:39:34] Speaker E: I love those because real estate is such a relationship based business, and all those answers kind of pertain to that, but it's really applicable across any industry.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Successful.
[00:39:47] Speaker E: If you can stick to those three principles consistently, yeah, I feel like you'll have a successful, fulfilling career, which you clearly have had. So with that, you mentioned in your second kind of lesson just the importance of service.
In the last ten or so years, you've dedicated a ton of time to consulting with students, offering career advice. You've even spent time at George Mason and at the University of Maryland. What sort of inspired you to get involved in the academic community? And with that, was that a precursor, in a way, to what you're now doing with the iconic journey?
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Exactly right. And the inspiration was when I was in college, I wish I'd had some senior people coming to meet with me to talk about the industry and help me guide through my career early on. And again, that book that I mentioned earlier, what colors your know, it's more of a self help type of thing for I said, you know, I'd like to help students think it through a little bit. And it was also inspired by the Uli Urban Land Institute's mentorship program, which I had been involved in for 16 years up until the pandemic started in 2020. So in 2004, when I was at the Ackman Ziff company, I started getting very active with ULI, was on the executive committee, et cetera, and I still on the advisory board, and I was on that mentorship group. And that's a group of five people or six young people that I met with months, a month and learned that they're looking for guidance. So I developed a curriculum and it's really a two hour thing that I met with each student individually and then they had to build their own three to five year plan. So I helped that and did that with probably 30 or 40 students at each university in two separate semesters. For budgetary reasons, they decided not to continue the programs. But that was my inspiration, frankly. And when I started this career counseling, I took my curriculum from that and started meeting with people individually, posted my website and said that I would do that and then also started listening to podcasts. And then in 2019, I decided to start one because I hadn't heard one about the Washington, DC area market. And I knew that I had a lot of contacts, so I figured I could get at least five or six started with my friends. And that's how the Icons podcast got up and running.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: That's awesome. And you've contributed a lot to the academic community and to young professionals across our region. And that topic segues well into the iconic journey, which has become a successful platform that you've created to mentor and educate, really anyone in real estate. What was the inspiration behind the creation of the iconic journey? And sort of how did that vision come about?
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Well, the podcast started in 2019. The pandemic hit us in March of 2020, and I was only probably about 1015 episodes in at that point. And I'll never forget, I was interviewing Spencer Levy that week and he and I, he didn't want to do three short episodes, which I did with him. And I asked him about what was happening in China and then in Seattle, Washington, I think is where it first hit, where I think some seniors housing thing or senior, I think it was a cruise or something that had all these people that were sick and he said, you know, we're in for a big change, it looks like. And he was right. So then I kept doing the podcast and I said to myself, and my mentor group stopped, more or less, because we had to decide whether we're going to meet together or not or do everything virtual. And we decided we'd do a hybrid of that. And I said, I think we can get together sometime. So by 2021, when things started thawing a bit as far as the freeze out, I said, let's do something. Let's start bringing people together.
So actually, Colin and I kind of came together with the idea to do this, and I started researching what community groups we could hook up with. And I used the circle software to build this community. And I started recruiting former mentees from Uli and some of my clients from the George Mason and University of Maryland days. And we got started with about ten early members. Kevin was one of them. He got referred to me. And so the three of you were, I think, early members of the community.
And since then we've grown it up to, it looks like now we're north of 70 members. We have members. We have a member in Amsterdam, we have a member in Canada. We have a couple of members in California.
So we're spread out not only nationally but internationally, which is kind of cool.
And it's really grown as an online platform. But also we do tours, try to do a tour a month on average, and we try to do at least one online event a month as well. Either an ask me anything or a case study.
So what do you guys think about the platform?
[00:45:44] Speaker C: I can certainly jump in here. I think the most impactful component to me has been the live doors. It gives me an opportunity to sort of touch and feel the assets and I think actually walking projects, it tells the story in a way that photos and other digital resources just can't. So I appreciate having the opportunity to really speak with people who have knowledge of the project and really learning about it with the hands on experience.
Perhaps the most eye opening one for me was when we toured the Arc on Mississippi Avenue in Ward eight. The Arc stands for town hall education, arts, recreation campus. And it really provides so many events and programs for the benefit of the community. And when we were there, it was really great to just see kids from the community really just enjoying the facilities and taking advantage of the resources there. And there's no telling where this resource might take people. There's going to be a lot of success stories that come out as a result of the arc. And so if there's one key takeaway I have from that project, it's that not every project is going to be a huge financial home run. Some projects are really impactful in other ways, and even if that takes decades to realize it. So I think the long term vision behind that project was just fascinating, and I really enjoyed seeing how it all comes together and really benefits the community.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: Just to add to that, that property was built by Chris Smith of the WC Smith companies, who developed a subdivision across the street from it and worked to deal with the district government and also the federal government for that land. So it's a ground leased parcel, and he built now three different structures, and the fourth one is planned on the site. And these are all nonprofit structure. It's a nonprofit entity that has at least 15, quote, unquote, tenants that are nonprofits that provide services to the community, and they're pretty wide ranging. So it's a very special project. I saw it first back in about 2013 when they first delivered, and I was just overwhelmed with how cool it was. So I wanted to make sure that the community had a chance to see it. One of the features in that building is that Chris has secured this automaton of Frederick Douglass.
[00:48:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: And so Frederick Douglass himself walks out on stage. He's like a robot and gives speeches, and it's all. It's. It's fantastic. It was really good.
[00:48:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Very realistic. Yeah. If there's ever a project that we should do another tour of sort of a double tour, I think that would be the one.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: It's a pretty special property, no question.
What do you think, Kevin?
[00:48:46] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, there's so many events. Ask me anything. Mastermind groups that we could speak to. I'll hit on two real quick. One, we've got a few different mastermind groups within the community, which is just a small group of people who kind of gather on a regular basis to discuss a certain topic. So, for me, I'm in a finance mastermind, and it's been really beneficial to me personally. My company is pretty small, and we are an entrepreneurial company, so getting to kind of mix in with some other guys in the group who work at larger companies with more of, like, an institutional background has just been really helpful for me to get a better perspective on real estate in general. Different ways of looking at things, ways to finance deals, that sort of thing. So the masterminds have been key just for my own personal growth in my business. And then the second thing I would hit on is just the tours. I always look forward to the most, if I'm honest, just getting to see some of these class a type of assets with really unique stories and backgrounds for how they got to the point of actually delivering and getting to pick the brain of the developer or the owner of the asset has also been extremely educational and inspiring, honestly, just to see what can be done in the real estate. Can't brag enough on this community and just how great it's been. But those are some of the highlights.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: Among those tours. Kevin, which were your favorites and why?
[00:50:27] Speaker E: There's a would. The one that sticks out, I would say, was the tour of Reston town center with Ray Ritchie of Boston Properties for a couple of reasons. One, it was just so big, and to get know he's got a ton of experience and just hearing stories, know that property and know what it was and what it is now, and also future plans. We also got to go up to the top of the Fannie Mae building while it was still under construction, which was also cool, just given I used to work at Fannie Mae. So I would say that one probably sticks out out of everything.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: That's great, kala.
Yeah.
[00:51:05] Speaker D: I'll add sort of a mirror. What Kevin said, I think the group is intimate enough. 70 is a good number where you can meet a lot of the people and everyone's kind of on the same page. So you have like minded individuals, typically very ambitious, and then you have know, very wide ranging group with multifaceted experiences. So we're in the mermise and I are in the future of real estate, and one member of the group is an art curator based in California. So just hearing his stories, he owns his own company that curates art for hotels and multifamily projects. So just stuff you're not getting exposed to on a day to day basis. This group allows you to meet people like that. Where Kevin was saying, it's good to hear the stories of people working in the institutional companies, so he can kind of take that information and apply it to his smaller business. I would say the reverse is true for me. Where I kind of came from institutional businesses was at crawl before Meridian. But it's really nice to meet people like Kevin where they're kind of doing what I want to do one day, where they're kind of breaking on their own, buying their own business, raising friends and family capital, finding debt. So he has a lot of information that I'm not privy to because the institutional side doesn't have the boots on the ground, typically in some of these deals. So meeting people like Kevin has been huge for me, and it's good to.
You're the average of the five people, you're around the most. So this group kind of averages you up, I would say a lot of impressive people and inspirational people. And I'm fairly certain some members of the group will one day be a podcast.
Know, if not with you, John, someone else, I think just meeting the people, and you can also meet people asynchronously. I have two kids now, so getting to the tours have been pretty difficult for me, but I can still ping people via the online community, meet up for coffee, lunch, et cetera. So I think the tours are an amazing experience and very intimate. And how often can you be on a tour with five to ten other people with Ray Ritchie talking to you for an hour? So the group itself is a surface area of luck maximizer. I would say you kind of never know where you're going to get, but I do think I've had a lot of luck coming out of it.
Kevin actually introduced me to some people that I would say were extremely lucky. And there's, there's just situations like that where if someone's interested in joining, I can't know you'll join and then this is going to happen. But I can assure you that if you join, something positive will happen. I don't know what it is, but the talent density of the group itself and the offerings the group offers increases the surface area for luck.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: So let me just say that last year in 2023, we had at least one tour every month. I think we probably ended up with about 14.
We toured all kinds of different properties, including a data center, large mixed use developments, an apartment complex that was under construction, a hotel under construction, mixed use project, major mixed use project, an office building downtown Bethesda. So we toured a lot of different properties, and all of them were with either the sponsor or the person handling the operations for that asset. So we had intimate knowledge and the story behind each project as well. On the tours, we also every month had an ask me anything guest. And so I selected typically mid career professionals to come on live. And this allows for out of town members to participate, not having to come to Washington, tour pre real estate, and they can plug in and learn from these people. So it's a long list of people, but mostly people that I've either were mentees of mine historically, or people I did business with, or I've known in the community for a long time that are doing what I would say, cutting edge things, or very progressive activity, or leading their respective organizations.
I think most people that have participated would have to say that these are engaging conversations and that it's been a lot of fun. So the way it's set up is they present for about 30 minutes, either orally or with some visuals, and then we have Q and A afterward. That's an engaging conversation that oftentimes goes beyond an hour. And we do it usually around lunchtime or in the morning.
And then most recently, in the last six months, I've done three or four case studies where I've actually brought on members that have talked about transactions that they've closed or are trying to raise money for or business platforms that they've built from scratch. So most recently, I had a fellow from Baltimore who's a member who built a platform, and he has done extraordinarily well with it, mostly retail, but buying on auction and figuring out how to capitalize it know mostly all it's been. It's a fascinating platform. And he explained how he did it, why he did it, and the structure behind it. Another guy acquired four shopping centers down in Woodbridge. He explained that that was the Rock Creek group, and that was a large discussion of acquisition there and how they were able to get the insight on that. And then we had a case study with one of our members who met up with another new member who bought a property together in Alexandria and renovated it, meeting here in the community. So we're going to try to do, in the 2024, we're going to try and do several case studies and ask me anything at least monthly, and try to do a tour monthly as well. The weather is kind of tough now, so we probably start the tours in February and go through the rest of this year.
So that's what we're doing. And also in May of this last year, I formed a nonprofit. I've talked about this in the past that's now encompassing both the podcast and this community, and that nonprofit is looking to raise money for future programs.
And one of which I'd like to do this spring with our community about downtown Washington, to try to help reinvigorate downtown Washington with ideas, bring some leaders together, some of my podcast guests, maybe some city officials, et cetera, to bring some ideas together. And hopefully the community will help support that effort and help recruiting both people to help new members to the community, as well as future podcast guests and money as well. So we're looking to raise some capital, I will say, and I want to give a special shout out to three sponsors that have already contributed to the community that is the Rappaport companies. Gary Rapaport has been twice a podcast guest of mine, the Basuto group, and I've had three podcast guests from Brazuto companies, including Tom and Toby Bazuto and Julie Smith, and then finally FCP, formerly federal Capital Partners. And Lacey Rice was a podcast guest of mine. Lacey's one of the founding members of that company. So I'm looking to raise more money from other podcast guests as well as other organizations. And I also would look for contributions to the production of the podcast as well. So I appreciate any support that any of you listeners are willing to give. And you can reach me via my email address at
[email protected] so any other things about the community, guys, that you think we should talk about?
[00:59:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I think overall it's been a great opportunity to network and build relationships. And I know that sounds cliche for industry groups, but what I think makes this platform different is not only the frequency of opportunities, but also how networking is reinforced through different complementary programs. I often meet people multiple times through live tours and amas and through a mastermind group. So I think that type of reinforcement is super helpful. And the platform has given me a comfortable environment to connect with people, and that's been just really impactful.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: Thank you. I will say that Ramese, Colin, and Kevin are all officers of the community in they're because we are a nonprofit, so they're all helping, and they're on the governance committee, so they're helping advise for the future growth of the community. And I really appreciate it. Thank you for doing that, guys.
So, more questions?
[01:00:50] Speaker D: Yeah. So, John, the podcast has really grown over time. You've had a very robust and impressive guest list.
Can you dig into kind of your preparation on these? What's your research strategy? How do you prepare? What's the process looks like before each interview?
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Well, it varies with each one, actually. It depends on my relationship with the guest. So if I have known these people for years or done business with them, it's a lot easier. So I will try to mine areas that I don't know about them, and then I put the things out I do know and just reinforce those, and then the relationship I have and how I bring up some of those ideas from that. But the overall theme is biographical, so I really want to get into the person, their background, their origin story, and what drove them to come into the industry and why they came in and what intrigued them. And did they just jump in or not, or was something guided them here into the business. So that's how I do it. And so then the research goes through that. I go online, I ask them for things that they think I should talk about in advance, and then I provide them questions, usually in advance, for them to review and think through. Most of them are very complimentary because I do spend some time doing some research about them, and a lot of them say, so where'd you learn that about me? So I thought that was kind of amusing.
People don't necessarily know sometimes what's out there about them, and so I bring it up, and then if they don't want to talk about it, I've had people say, no, let's not get into that.
But most of the time, people want to do that. And what I've also learned is people like to talk about themselves.
[01:02:45] Speaker E: All right, John, so really appreciate you digging into the iconic journey and just all the work you put into that. We kind of want to transition here and conclude out the episode with a few final questions. First thing, what person or people have stood out to you personally as inspirations and why?
[01:03:05] Speaker B: So I'll start out with my father.
He was a huge influence in my life, more ways than one. He was six foot five and weighed over 300 pounds. So he was a huge man physically. So as a little guy, I was intimidated by him.
And he had a booming voice and loved to laugh and was a storyteller. So I learned a lot about people and relationships. And when my dad walked in a room, he just kind of, he was like a force of nature.
And his voice, when he'd laugh, people could hear it literally hundreds of feet away. So he was just that kind of personality. And so he was a big influence to me. But he took things a little too far sometimes and was a little too boisterous occasionally and struggled a little bit with self control. But he was brilliant and a really incredible person in many ways. And I learned a lot from him, both positively and negatively.
In my career, I've had several mentors who guided me along the way.
One person who I'll call out individually because I met him in 1983 when I was in Chicago.
And he was one of my clients, actually, at the time, trying to find deals. His name was Brad Olsen. Brad lives in North Carolina now. He moved there from Chicago many years ago. He's an international advisor in real estate and did very large transactions. And he just guided me along the way in thinking. And we talked very often about opportunities he would bring me, situations I would introduce to him occasionally, but he was just an overall guide to me and a great person and had a calm demeanor and very brilliant guy, was a Harvard lawyer but decided to go into business and just a great guy. So I'll say that he's now retired, but we've known each other, as I said, now 40 years.
[01:05:18] Speaker D: John, what are your life priorities now among family, work and giving back?
[01:05:23] Speaker B: So similar to my other guests, family is first, my wife and I have been married 41 years and we have two sons, 37 and 33. Colin, you talked about both of them earlier on because you've met them and actually swam with them and knew them growing up and playing with them. Both of them are very happy. My older son is a former helicopter Navy helicopter pilot. He went to Uva Razzi and then now in the healthcare business out in California and is married. My younger son was a swimmer at Princeton University and then went joined a marketing company as a technical. He got his computer science degree and went on. He now has become a chief technical officer for a startup company doing quite well living in upstate New York. Both of them are engaged with another lady, that both ladies are great that they're with. One's married, the other one's not, but they're having a good time and that's great. With regard to my career, I pivoted, as I said earlier in 2015, from mostly focused on deals, making deals happen to young people. That became my focus and it has been now for going on nine years. And I would say that both the advisory work as well as the career counseling then led into the podcast and now the community, that's been my focus. And I'm so gratified by this effort and it brings me emotion to think about it. The next generation, including you guys, about your future. I'm so excited about watching it happen. It keeps me young and engaged emotionally and motivationally to work with young people because that's what I'm working with now. Very few people of my own age do I do any work with now. In some ways, I wish I had done this earlier.
My takeaway from this is having a great spirit, a giving spirit in all you do and care and serve. Giving back is my life now. So while I wouldn't give as much treasure as others do and giving back to the community, I give my time and my passion now.
[01:07:52] Speaker C: Great.
[01:07:54] Speaker D: And then across your illustrious career, what were your biggest wins, losses, and what surprised you the most?
[01:08:03] Speaker B: Well, from a career standpoint, probably the biggest, most interesting and biggest win and took the most time and energy was financing the construction of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington. DC, which required going to the District of Columbia and doing the first TIF financing, which is tax increment financing, to work through the legislation with the city council district and then getting that legislation executed with my client and helping with that process, and then getting a construction loan from a german bank for the project.
And that deal closed in 2003, but I started working on it 1998. So it was a five year effort, labor of love, to get that deal done. Turned out to be a five star hotel, which recently was sold to, you know, Sheila Johnson bought it and turned it into the salamander it's called now. So that's what it is. With regard to losses, I was laid off three times in my career and had two financial deal breakups, so on transactions and things that didn't happen. So I had some lessons I learned from each of those incidences. So I've grown from that. And that's what I try to help with. My counseling with young people is to be careful. And I said that earlier, be due diligence.
Really understand what you're getting into, both personally and professionally.
Surprising thing, realizing that if I take initiative, good things will happen.
So I found this out about mid career and I haven't looked back.
So just jump. Just do, just go, don't stop.
When you have an idea, go for it.
Treat it as an experiment. If it doesn't work out, step back. So jump into the deep end. Try and learn while you're going. And that's what this community is all about. No one else had done this before.
I said, hey, let's make it happen. So I'm working on it. It's an experiment.
[01:10:15] Speaker C: Good advice.
What advice would you give your 25 year old self today?
[01:10:23] Speaker B: Be prepared for setbacks that come unexpectedly, yet don't stop initiating and trying. Life is one big experiment. Live like a scientist and keep trying new things.
[01:10:37] Speaker C: Yeah, great advice. I'll have to do more of it.
Great. So now it's time for our final question, which is one of my favorites and something that I know you ask all of your guests, and I've had the opportunity to compile this into a document so that we can really absorb all the information. If you could post a statement on a billboard on the Capitol Beltway for millions to see, what would it say?
[01:11:01] Speaker B: So, combining a couple of other podcast guest responses, I'll say this, be kind and don't stop believing in yourself.
That's what I would say. So go for it.
[01:11:16] Speaker C: Well, what a great way to end. It's been incredible to hear your story. We really appreciate your time, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to have this conversation and to be a part of the iconic journey.
[01:11:29] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Ramiz, Colin and Kevin, I really appreciate you doing this. And thank you, Ray Ritchie, for giving us the idea to make this happen. So thank you. And once again, I will just say, if you're interested in the iconic journey or the icons podcast, write me at
[email protected] coenperprises.com. Thank you for listening, and I appreciate you joining us today.
Bye.
