biggestrisk

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, George Pino, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

George Pino  

Biggest risk? Um, I'm gonna answer that as the biggest risk I see for investing in real estate when you're just getting started. Because that's kind of what we're talking about as well. And the biggest risk there, I think, is, we see this happen a lot. And you'd mentioned like jumping on the bandwagon. You know, I'm constantly getting calls and our offices getting calls over the last month and a half about adaptive reuse for office space. And yet people have no clue what that is or what to how to go about it. But they hear about it, and they read it and I want to do this not understanding the whole business of it. And that right now, at this point, it's just too cost prohibitive for the most part. It may not be especially if the government's come in and give some incentives. So you know, I think one jumping on the bandwagon but I think that correlates into the ultimate answer, which is not doing your homework or due diligence ahead of time. Just here's my investment money. This is what I heard was going to happen. This is what I'm going to do. You know, I I think the program that you're looking at, you're talking about as far as an insurance company, you know, identifying the risks, mitigating the risks, transferring the risk, absolutely correct in any type of aspect, and investors should be looking at that as well, you know, identifying what the risks are, and then mitigating and we're transferring it. Part of that is also not understanding what's going on in the future or reading that. And, you know, we don't have crystal balls, I don't have a crystal ball, no one has a crystal ball that I'm aware of, was at the Magic Castle a few weeks ago, they had a crystal ball there, but I don't trust it. So. But when you're looking at the future, though, you can still kind of see what's happening, you know, what laws are going to come into place, you know, if it's going to be a headache, if you know if you know, right now there's, you know, insurance industry, at least in Southern California, we're having some issues, you know, there's a lot of carriers are pulling out of California. And that's going to cause an increase in your insurance rates. Now, if you're in a single tenant net lease or net lease property, sure, you're looking at what the tenants are going to pay for that. But you have to think a little bit further, if your triple net expenses are too high, and they're going to offset by trying to lower the rent. So it can't just be a complete passer, you have to think about what's going to work for everybody. And also, the last thing you want is to pass through expenses that cause your tenant to go out of business. So you have to really think about how to go about that and how to plan for that action. And a lot of people don't don't really think about that. I mean, speaking of insurance, I just got a insurance person, I had a company that just denied insurance on a property because the neighboring property had too many homeless people based on aerial photos. So the insurance companies are getting very picky and pushing and that's been an issue. But you have to understand that going in if you're investing that this is going to just be part of my investment strategy here my expenses, they may be this today. But in reality after I close escrow, it's going to be here, and a lot of people don't really look at that and have a plan for that action. They're just kind of looking at that snapshot today. And I think that's the biggest risk that they have if they're just not taking the whole picture in.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Scott Lyons, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Scott Lyons   

So I think the biggest risk for us Darrin is is is making decisions around in kind of moment of duress, and let me kind of explain what I mean there. So what you won't get imagine that, hey, you're going into a recession will or we think there might be a recession? Maybe it's soft landing, who knows, but guess what interest rates are up there and a whole lot of is many projects opportunities out there, we better sell a bunch of work. We better just, you know, be the squirrel that goes out and just grabs, you know, every night that we can. And that rarely works out. And so what we're doing to mitigate risk really, Darren is just like, radically just discipline decision making. And so in other words, don't go out and overextend ourselves, don't go remote, don't take on projects, for customers whom we don't know. And because histories, you know, history is a great teacher, and just a lot of times that doesn't work out. And so what we're trying to do is, stay the course, be disciplined, make great decisions, work with customers, whom we just value and really can deliver for and who wants to, you know, and that's, you know, the risk is just panicking. And so we're not, we're not going to do the opposite of that, and just stay steady. Because of the macro factors, you know, of interest rates and economy, hopefully, this debt ceiling deal gets, you know, done by Congress. We can't control that, but we can control our decisions.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Ran Eliasaf, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Ran Eliasaf  

Our biggest risk is determining the value of the collateral we're lending on? It's never a scientific answer. You can get all the appraisals, you want third parties and all of your internal knowledge. But eventually, a value of an asset is only what somebody else would be willing to pay for it as a term at a certain point in time. So we spend a lot of time on the writing and diligence thing and trying to determine what's the value and then what's our LTV, what's our loan to value. And that's where we focus most of our engine, that's the biggest risk, because if you gave a loan and you find you're at 50%, LTV, and then you realize you're at 80 or 90, then then that's that's a big problem. That's a big risk. What we do to mitigate that risk, first of all, we lower their LTV. If you know two years ago, we learned that 65% LTV, now we're more around 54% LTV to we kind of focus on asset classes that are less volatile, like residential in New York City where there's, you know, yeah, prices can shift. But the chances of, you know, the value of residential in New York dropping 50% is less likely than it is for an office building, for example. And that's where we're the biggest risk for us. And that's where we focus on.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Fernando Angelucci, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Fernando Angelucci  

So I would answer that with actually there being three things that we look at in our business. So the first being compressed cap rates, the second being oversaturation of given markets, and the third being reconnaissance competition are basically competitors, they have unlimited capital. So let's let's dissect each one of those press cap rates, has been an issue in the storage space for the last 10 to 15 years. That's partially because of just the easy money policies that we've been in for last 10 years, and that capital needing a home that has yield, but then also the fact that self storage used to be kind of this ugly asset. And if you weren't getting a 15% cap rate, day one, you know, what were you doing, then all of a sudden fortune and Money Magazine start talking about it as an attractive alternative asset, and that cause this floodgate of institutional capital come in compressing all the cap rates. So because of that, it creates a very competitive acquisition environment. And it also creates an environment in which middlemen can strip a lot of upside, aka brokers, right. So one of the ways that we decided to mitigate that was to shift our business from retail, aka buying on market to off market acquisition strategies, where we're the only one at the table. And then to switch from acquiring stabilized assets to only buying value add or building self storage, where we can force a ton of appreciation. So that was one of the ways that we were able to mitigate the compressed cap rate environment. Now, recently, with interest rates, increasing at such a high velocity, we've had this mismatch between sellers and buyers, or sellers still think their facilities are worth what they were in 2021. And buyers looking ahead and and saying, hey, well, you know, my debt service coverage ratios are not gonna allow me to Buy at your price. So one of the ways that we've gotten around this is by saying, basically getting creative. If you want the price from March 2021, I want you to carry the financing at rates and terms similar to what was available to me in March 2021. So that's one of the ways that we get around the compressed cap rates. A lot of people don't realize that the price is only half of the equation, the financing around. That asset is also a huge component that basically no one ever looks at, I'm willing to buy your property at twice the going rate if you give me a 0% 30 year loan, because then I'm still paying the same amount I would have if I bought it at the going market rate with the going market capital or financing structures. So that's how we overcome compressed cap rates. The second piece is the problem of oversaturation. Because of this rush of institutional capital, you see these land grabs occurring where larger operators are trying to basically stick a flag in a market. The other piece of this is that you're seeing a lot of investors switch asset classes because of the construction costs, you know, storage produces roughly the same rent per square foot that multifamily gets. However, to build a Class A multifamily facility you're at 400 $450 a foot were to build a Class A self storage facility that gets similar rents. You're at 100 In 20, to 150 bucks per foot. So you have this, this transfer of capital and investing pressure coming from different asset classes. And that's causing a drop year over year and in the sort of supply index numbers. So the one way to mitigate this is the importance of underwriting and getting third party feasibility studies to make sure that you're not wearing rose colored glasses, and to truly deep dive into hyper specific markets where you're looking at all of the competition and a five mile radius and seeing if this area is saturated, versus the five mile plot down the road. And then the last piece, of course, is is the REIT competition, they have basically unlimited capital that is needed deployed, they've raised a lot of equity, a very cheap cost, they've raised a lot of debt that is long term at very cheap costs. And typically, they have a longer investment timeline than some of the smaller counterparts, you know, when they're investing in 30 year horizons, I'm usually investing on five to 10 year horizons. So that means that they can usually stick it out and drop flags in a market that right now doesn't make sense. And they're willing to lose money on because when the population moves in, they can take and be the first ones to take advantage of that. So there's a few ways to get around this, you know, the first is to avoid, you know, downtown primary markets, you know, don't build in downtown Miami. And as opposed to doing that, go to secondary or tertiary markets, or go to the, you know, the suburbs, or the exurbs of some of these primary markets, or even some of the rural areas around these primary markets like we are. So that's one piece. And then the second piece of the competition is if you can't beat them, join them. So that's one of the strategies that we employ, in which these REITs they do not have the bandwidth, nor do they want to waste the manpower on negotiating one deal. But if you do all that legwork, and you bring them a 20 property portfolio, now it makes sense for them to use all that manpower to underwrite and see the feasibility of that. So there's the, this, this aggregation that is occurring right now in our industry that's causing a lot of opportunity for those that are willing to play along bet that feeding chain, if you will.

I'd like to ask you Mason McDonald, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Mason McDonald  34:58  

Yeah, um, I expect my answer to be a little different than what people might expect. I mean, I was the CEO of a psychiatric hospital. So in terms of a risk management perspective, there's, you know, in terms of over regulation and high risk, there's about, that's about as high risk of an environment as you could ever imagine. But for me, the greatest risk that I have is, I fail at this entirely and have to go get a job again. So, you know, me being my own boss, and, you know, getting to live life on my own terms. And having financial and geographical freedom, the biggest risk for me is I fail, and I have to go get a job again, which is what 99% of the population already does, because the margins in this business where if I set my Buy Box criteria based on market data, which is what's available to everyone at 50% or less, I could liquidate and get all of my money back all of my investors money back and be able to walk away, but that's not going to happen, you know, or should it happen, it's not the end of the world. But yeah, the riskiest thing to me is ever having to get a job again. So maybe not not exactly the answer, you know, that that's expected or wanted, but that's what it is for me.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Henry Stimler, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Henry Stimler  

I think the biggest risk is not doing, I think more is lost by inactivity than activity. The biggest killer of deals is time, time and dalliance and not getting it done. So I'm a very big believer in that you have to jump in. Right, you have to be all the way in you can't be you can't be partially pregnant. And you have to have conviction in your decisions. And if you don't have conviction, that's the biggest risk. If you are Wofully. If you don't, if you want to buy it, if you don't know how you're going to run it. That's the biggest risk to me. So when I see clients who are unsure, who are not confident their decision, I see that as a red flag, I think you've got to make moves move quickly. That's the best way to mitigate risk. If you see a deal that you like them make sense. You got to move quickly, one to wrap it up to to get the right debt in place, rate, lock your debt, take that risk off the table and move quickly. So that's what I see as the biggest risk is not having conviction in your decisions and not having the gumption to go forward and get it done.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Nick Prefontaine what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Nick Prefontaine  

What is the biggest risk? So the biggest risk to me is not following that voice in the back of your head. Now I'd like to frame that in, in a few different ways if I can. So when I was in the hospital, that voice was no, they said, You're gonna make a full recovery. My parents were, that was their goal, you're gonna make a full recovery, I followed the voice that said, No, you're gonna run out, then all throughout my life, no matter what I'm doing, as a successful realtor, as a successful real estate investor. And then as I moved into being a coach, and a trainer with smart real estate coach, as well as still do deals, I've always had that voice in the back of my head, which has told me that I have to be speaking and sharing my story, and helping others that are going through a trauma life challenge or adversity and helping them get through to the other side. I think the biggest risk is not listening to that voice and rationalizing it away. Two years ago, I reached out, I got to a point. And I reached out to my mentor to have a to have a conversation with her and share my, my goals and my vision about what I wanted to do. And I said, What do you think I should do? She said, the speaker salon in New York City, our community for six weeks in a row in New York City. That was in the fall of 21. During that she presented or pitch the idea of working with her one on one, she helped speakers to build out their speaker platform and really fine tune their craft and their message. And I said, Yes, I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I said yes. And a week later, I walked in with her. And without her. And without listening to that voice in the back of my head, I wouldn't have common goal and the speaking Korea that I have to go stay. And she was one that actually helped me develop the step system, which I trust, which I touched on support, trust, energy and persistence. I know we didn't have time to really go over that today. But if any of your listeners are interested in downloading the free ebook step, where they're going to learn all about support, trust, energy and persistence, they can go to Nick prefontaine.com, forward slash step two, download the step system for free today.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Todd Drouillard, what is the Biggest Risk?

Todd Drouillard  

The biggest risks that we face, right, right now, and it's, it's nearly on every project both large and small, it's the the actual long lead times to get either equipment or the materials. And what that comes down to is that, you know, it's really risk to both cost and to, to, to the schedule, you know, it's been, the biggest thing is, is the, so what happens is, you know, a project gets started gets planned, you know, you know, the architect has engaged, we're doing the work, the engineering has been done, the project goes out for, for, for, for, for a bid. And long Behold, some of the equipment that's been best supplied for the project, it could be things like roofing, insulation, roof deck, mechanical, electrical equipment here, and we find out that it that it's a long lead time, and it's beyond the project time. So you'll never get at level one was just a accident, you know, in the amount of time that you thought it would would take. So it's extending the schedules. And as everybody knows, time is money. Especially when you have, you know, you know, all the contractors with their hands in their pockets, you know, you need a you need equipment, you need goods, you need all this thing, all these things to put the pieces, you know, like in place. So, so the biggest risks that we're seeing now is lead times on really equipment and products. And there's ways so there's a couple things that that that we do in the, you know, they like industry to help to help I minimize that. And a couple things that that that we always try to try to try to sell is kind of doing you kind of plan from plan in from the from the worst case back. So it's kind of like planning in real Verse And here's a way to repurchase, or to pre, to pre to pre like, order all, all, all this equipment and have it brought brought to the site within, you know, blah, blah, blah reasonable time, so then it can get installed. So it's that, that idea of, you know, just in time, you know, if you can plan ahead, and, and it takes time, and it takes, you know, takes a, you know, it takes a good a good design team to kind of think ahead, but if that's all done, there's really no risk at all, you know, and it's really hard to kind of push off that, that risk when you're at the, the, the, the will of, of, you know, multiple, you know, folks trying to procure all like, all these things. And one way to do that, again, you know, this to pre pre, pre, like, ordered, you know, you know, these things. And, of course, there's risk in that and, you know, you know, you know that piece of well, because you have to have a lot of trust. But, you know, and there's really not a way, like out of it, unfortunately, until the lead times come come down. But you know, that, you know, that's probably the biggest risk that I face on on like a daily, you know, party, and I'm sure they can, you know, the owners can tractors and everybody else is having the same, you know, like the same like issues?

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Sean Buchheit and Gloria Caulfield, what is the Biggest Risk?

Shawn Buchheit  

Well, for us, it's overextending, you've heard all the wonderful the ecosystem that's there at Lake Nona and Tavistock there's so many incredible opportunities to do exciting new things. For us, it's really important to us to remain focused on our core business, and while we are who we are, and prioritize all all the amazing opportunities that we have part of being part of an ecosystem like that, so just again, overextending for us and it would be our business, our biggest risk. 

J Darrin Gross  

Gloria, anything from you, or,

Gloria Caulfield  

Yeah, I mean, I think our biggest risk is not being true to our mission. I mean, in, you know, we, we have this whole mission and vision statement that I mentioned earlier, to create the ideal place to inspire human potential through innovative collaboration. And when you have a mission statement like that, I mean, it's, it's a pretty lofty goal. And, but it also is a filter for us. Like it's a filter of organizations we want to be associated with or not associated with, you know, the types of businesses that really are good fit within this, because it's really the sum total, but it's going to ladder up to fulfilling the mission. And, you know, real estate development is tricky. I mean, it's always fraught with various challenges. But at the end of the day, are you able to really fulfill the dream that you've created or not? And, to me, that's the biggest risk. And so far, I think we're run a phenomenal path to continue to do that.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Stewart Heath, what is the Biggest Risk?

Stewart Heath  

I am willing, and I will dive into the pool. I think it's a brilliant question. To me, the biggest risk is tenant selection. It's not an insurable risk. You know, I do live in Tornado Alley. So you know, severe weather can be a risk but you can insure around that the biggest risk is essentially the income from the property. And the income from the property comes from tenants. And it is a professional, I think it's a professional expertise that is developed to be able to underwrite a new tenant for a lease. It's not just the first person that called and say, and is willing to pay you the deposit. And I use that example, because I've made that mistake before. But if you will take, you know, an hour's worth of due diligence, either residentially or even commercially, and check into them yet third party reports, and do reasonable and customary means of verifying what what the tenant is telling you. And yet, then, then you will most of the time, select a proper tenant. If you don't do that homework, your property will have income problems. And so what is a bad tenant? Well, number one is bad tenant that doesn't pay. That's one. But part and parcel with that is people who don't pay usually bring other kinds of people to your property, whether it be multifamily, whether it be to your commercial office, your storage space, whatever, I have seen this over and over and over again, which actually begins to make other tenants feel uncomfortable. And so now your problem is a lot worse than just the one guy who's not paying. And it was also easily headed off. By doing some basic due diligence on the front end, that's the biggest risk I have in what we do. There are obviously other kinds of risks slip and fall risks, and we get sued by somebody whose coffee was too hot or whatnot. And, again, that's insurable risk, we carry general liability as well as property coverage and, and on most of our properties. Like, we also get business interruption insurance, or, like, if a tornado takes out a lot of our storage buildings will, you know, we're, we're not only going to get repaid to have that rebuilt, but we will get income that we're missing from those units that were that the tenants can't use. So, but the biggest risk is the one that's not insurable. And that, to me comes down to tenant selection.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Victor Bell. What is the Biggest Risk?

Victor Bell  

Well, if I can give an honest answer, it's short is not taking risk at all. Because it's real. I'm a real estate guy. So I take a look at all risks and try to assess it as like, Hey, how can we minimize risk and get the match return, even if to other people that return is not a very big. So a prime example like when I look at an apartment building deal, and I really like it, we start sizing the deal up, first thing we do is we look at the debt, we find a debt person, and then I try to get an insurance person on the team to say, hey, what do you think the insurance needs to be here? Could you give me an idea to quote and arrange? Because I recognize like, hey, there's two things that are gonna happen. And the most important thing to me is to make sure that I de risk my opportunities by saying, hey, there's a nicer thing. But we have insurance, we have somebody that can take a look at this and say, Vic, this is risky, or this is, you know, there's the cost is what you're looking at. And here's why. So I think the quality of asset going up, like we said, is the best way to de risk because it removes some of the question long term and short term and have somebody on your team that is in like, for guys like yourself, and it isn't an insurance thing. It's just real for me. I want to know, like, I don't gamble, when I go to Vegas, I go for conferences, I don't step one foot and play a slot machine, I don't do any of that stuff. So it isn't that I'm not aware of risk. But if you don't take any risk whatsoever, that's a loss. And then you also need to mitigate that risk by having people on your team who understand risk assessment, guys like yourself. But that's an honest answer. Even when I call the bank, I'm like, hey, what can go wrong here, guys, and then they'll tell me, or someone on my team or our broker, like like, I'm all about having people around me that can point out my flaws, because I have them like any other investor, I, you know, bright eyed, bushy tailed my want. So I hope that answers the question. And it's not, you know, may not be what everyone else looks at. But I'm always asking that same question like, like, if I don't take a risk, there's a major risk in itself. But if I do take this risk, what does that mean for me and my investors? And who could I get to point out the things that specialize in that, that I may not even consider? You know, even if it's cost, I gave it the insurance product on this things, arrange the roof about $800, you know, as opposed to, as opposed to you underwrote it, and budgeted around about four 450 That matters. And I'm like, Oh, why? Well, you know, paneled boxes need to be changed out, this needs to be done, like, like, all the things that most people just take a look at things that don't think about. But that's how I see risk, you know, take it, but understand the risk you're taking and why.

J. Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Roland  Gib Stewart, what is the Biggest Risk?

Roland Gib Stewart 

I think right now, the biggest risk is the availability of money. Okay, so we got a lot of money available today, right? So in July, when we, the country hits its debt limit, what's going to happen? Are we going to all collapse? Is this whole thing going to just the glass is going to break? And we're going to all be wondering, Can Can, can I really get the money out of my credit card? I want to eat this week. I'm having fun. How do I continue this? So my biggest concern right now is that somebody's gonna push us over the edge, which I think will damage the entire world's economy, and our country will never be covered. And I don't want that for my kids or my grandkids. 

J Darrin Gross

I’d like ask you Neal Bawa, what is the Biggest Risk?

Neal Bawa  

The biggest Risk is to keep doing what you were doing before. Right now we are at a point where we need to pivot. So you know, you name three things. And so I'll go through those three and tie them back to the biggest risk. This change right now may not be a good time to buy multifamily. In fact, I don't want to buy multifamily until about July this year, when something known as the spread, which is a portion above Sofer is likely to to drop it might even just collapse. So I basically want to wait until that time in terms of transferring risk. Yeah, I want to go out and have my distressed fund by not buy properties, but invest money into properties. Because when I invest money into properties that are that are distressed right now have negative cashflow. I'm doing what Darren mentioned, I'm transferring my the risk from my investors to the existing investors of that property. So if they change their mind would allow me to come in as preferential money. I'm coming in ahead of them. And I'm transferring the risk of ownership of the property while I'm getting ownership of it to someone else. It's somebody else's risk is the GP and the LPS risk, not my LPs, their LPs. So if I can transfer risk successfully, I'm looking to do it by recapitalizing existing properties that I like nothing wrong with the property, just the interest rates are killing it. One day, the interest rates will go away and the property will do well, again, I want to own this property, but I don't want to buy it from the market because I think that the price is too high. So when I recapitalize somebody else's property and put my investors in pole position and transfer the risk.

J Darrin Gross

 I'd like to ask you Anna Kelley, what is the Biggest Risk?

Anna Kelley  

I think the biggest Risk right now is not knowing how high inflation might get for how long and how that might impact both the interest rates over the next decade and cap rates over the next decade. And so with that risk comes a few things that we really have to look at. One, as we talked about is what kind of debt are you putting on your properties? So the question is, when you when you're trying to create value for a commercial asset, you're really focused on noi, and you're focused on on the cap rate. And so these things that that we can't control are these factors that impact interest rate and cap rate? And so we have to look at what can we control? What risks can we control? Since we can't transfer that risk? It's going to be what it is, what can we do to mitigate some of that risk, one of the things is investing in really strong, resilient markets, right? If you're investing in a class C property and a Class C town with not a whole lot of good jobs, industry, diversity and not population growth, you know, more demand than there is supply, you're going to really struggle. So if you want to mitigate risk, you need to be in areas that still need way more product than what there is demand for towns that have lots and lots of jobs so that if some businesses or industries get really hit hard, they're still resilient, and there's elevated wages and affordable, affordable living in those areas. So the market in which you invest is critical. And then the other thing is, you need to be able to control your expenses, what other expenses can you cut, or make sure that they're fixed for some period of time, so that they're not an additional variable that could impact your noi, and bring your value down as a nature of that? And so, you know, an insurance answer is basically, where do you invest? So I'll give an example. I'm from Texas, and I'm from from Houston, and Houston has had a significant flood risk over the last couple of years because of hurricanes in certain areas of the city. Now, it's a 10,000 square mile major metro. So Houston is extremely large. And there's pockets that do not have flooding, and that are much less risky. Well, I want to buy assets there, because if I buy in an area that has had some flooding, I wouldn't be surprised if my insurance goes up another 30 or 40%, like it has over the last couple of years. So you've got to get really good at where are my expenses? And where can I invest and what assets are going to give me the best outcomes, given all of the uncertainty to increase my noi to bank on where I can increase my noi by increasing income and cutting expenses. While I can't mitigate, you know, the interest rates and the cap rates that we ultimately have.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Greg Brooks, what is the Biggest Risk?

Greg Brooks  

For me, I think it's the pace of how quickly technology is changing how quickly global workforces is changing. And I think it's a risk, especially in the real estate space, for those that are still trying to operate the same way they were in 1995, or two, even 2005, or even 2015. What we've seen a lot both on the technology side, obviously, US servicing on the staffing side, providing a virtual option. I mean, just like everything, the decisions that you have to make as a business operator are just accelerating, you have to make them faster, there's a new software and new technology, a new tool, a new resource out there every second every trade show every corner. So having an effective way to vet those to find the ones that are going to work for your business and are going to fit, but then also getting people on boarded into them and changing existing policies and procedures and processes and weigh the ways that you operate to be more efficient, it takes a ton of human capital. So that's something that I see I know, even just within our company, you know, in a short time becoming as big as we are, you know, that that that the evolution of technology and say a lot of the podcasts that I listened to AI is kind of the word of the here already, you know, 25 days into January. And I think that puts a lot. I mean, it puts a lot of risk on the owners in terms of making the right choices, finding the things that are going to last and actually take you to the next level and which of the things are kind of fly by night, you know, not not as good as as advertised. So I see ICT technology and then that globally expanding workforce, you know, really becoming something that especially in the real estate world, people need to be aware of and be talking about consistently, in order to make sure that you don't get left behind because I guarantee your competitors. They're making sure they're not going to be left behind either.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Edward Ring, what is the Biggest Risk? 

Edward Ring 

I think the biggest risk I'm facing right now is not having the patience to to get comfortable with the knowledge base that I have, and what I see on the horizon. So I'm, I'm a person that tends to slow down when other people are rushing. They want me to make a decision quickly. So I peel back and take a moment, take a pause. I do my best work when I'm thoughtful. And I assess. And I think that that's the risk that most humans not just in real estate, but most humans face is that they are making decisions without actually understanding the fundamentals surrounding the problems that they are faced with. And I think that folks out there would, would do well to get educated, and to really make sure that they're arming themselves with intelligence and intelligent reporting. So they understand the markets that are in they understand the risk, reward calculus, and they understand what, what they're facing. And if they understand all of those factors and are comfortable with them, then it's pretty easy to make the right decision or at least a decision. And time will tell if it's been right or not. But at least you're eliminating the one single factor that everybody has and that's your own ignorance. If you can eliminate your own ignorance, man, you're gonna do great.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Ryan Gibson, what is the Biggest Risk?

Ryan Gibson 

Yeah, so I would say your biggest risks are external threats. Things like cap rate expansion, you know, property values declining, really can't control that. Interest rate, risk, etc. But I would say my focus that I'd like to share is five main things that I look at, in underwriting a deal. In I can do this in 10 seconds. I look at revenue growth year over year, and is it reasonable? Does the business plan, identify if that revenue is achievable based on the market study that you've done, somebody else has done or an operator's done? The second thing I look at is insurance. So insurance costs are not going down. So if you have not pro forma added, that your insurance expenses are going up, I usually don't like the deal anymore. As much. The second thing that I access risk, or the third thing is property taxes, property taxes are not going down, property taxes are going up. And if you're not planning on property taxes, at least doubling over a five year hold period, I don't think we've assessed the risk and the opportunity. The third thing I look at is expense to gross our revenue to expense income. So Egi, expense to gross income ratio, I guess there's another way of saying it Egi. That's if you make $1 of revenue, what percentage will be your operating expenses. And so in self storage, I'll look at a deal. And I'll say, you know, I expect to see between 35 and 40%, expense to gross income ratio, meaning that if you're collecting $1, I expect to see 35 to 40 cents for that dollar and expenses, and all your utilities, insurance, property taxes, all that stuff before debt service. If I see that number 20%, or 15%, I don't think there has been enough assessment in the underwriting to really accurately depict the worthiness of that deal. And the last thing I look at is cap rate. Because cap rate, you know, we love to everybody loves to think that they're the best operator, they have secrets and things like that. But at the end of the day, cap rates drive the value, they drive, the value, they drive, the exit strategy they drive, the market really drives where a lot of these assets can perform. And yeah, we can control and do our best. But that cap rate really makes an impact. I mean, one $1 on a 6% cap rate means $15 evaluation. So yes, operating income can do that. But I like to see an investment where you can stress test it. And that you can actually show the cap rate getting worse than what you bought it for. Not from your operations, but just market cap rates. So if you buy something going in cap rate at 5%. In today's market, I'd like to see that it can exit at a market cap rate of 6% and still be profitable. So when I assess risk, I look at those five things and underwriting and I and I really kind of stick to my guns on that. That's how I can look at a deal in 30 seconds. No, have they adequately assess the risk? Of course, there's tons of more things that you need to do beyond that, but those are kind of my five quick checkboxes on any opportunity.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Fred Moscowitz. What is the Biggest Risk?

Fred Moskowitz  

Wow, this is a great question. There's, there's many, many risks. That's a big part of what we do is known investors is get good at understanding what they are. As I said earlier, diversification is is a great way to manage risk and the note portfolio, but some other other areas, it's really getting good at doing your due diligence before purchase. As I said, I dedicate a large portion of my book to this topic because it's so important. It's prior to buying, running your due diligence and surrounding yourself with the right individuals to help you whether it's vendors its data providers, to give you the resources and information. It can be an another area super important. Is counterparty risk when you're buying a note, who are you buying from? This is a big one. You want to make sure you're comfortable with who and this goes for any any business transaction. Are you comfortable with who you're you're entering into a business transaction with with them as a person with their company, their reputation and track record industry, I feel like this is something that often gets overlooked, or doesn't get enough attention to it. Because deals can go bad transactions can have problems, they can go bad. And so what's very important is how is the other person going to respond and cooperate and work with you to solve a problem that comes up? Because we live in a far from perfect world? And so you want to know, how is the other person going to show up and resolve this issue. And that matters so much, so much, so that you're comfortable, that you can work through an issue, you can still be friends at the end and walk away knowing that everyone got a fair transaction. And you're looking forward to doing the next deal again, in the future. There's nothing worse than walking away from a transaction saying never again, am I going to deal with this individual or this company, or this client, it's so all these headaches, it's the worst feeling in the world. And so that's something you can avoid upfront. Something you can easily avoid upfront. And that that's, I would say, a huge risk that a lot of people neglect to think about or talk about.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Aaron Weiche, what is the Biggest Risk?

Aaron Weiche

So here's the first thing that comes to mind to me. And that is not being connected to your customer. So to me, in all kinds of aspects I've talked and written about this recently, with so many people looking inside of so many industries, with a downturn slowdown, whatever that might look like. Those are the kinds of times where you need to be more connected than ever to your to your customer, so that they understand the value you still bring. As you change and adapt how you might deliver, or price or what's going on in the market, things like that. You need to have that personal connection with them. If you haven't been keeping in touch with your customers, if you're not staying top of mind, if you're not solidifying the resource you are and how your expertise helps them out no matter what the market looks like timing opportunity, any of those things like it's just slowly eroding the chance away of once that opportunity might surface for them because too much distance has built up. So I'm just a massive proponent in running your business where you really know and understand your customers and you're finding the right touch points that enrich their relationship with you keep keep you in contact and keep you connected with them. So that you're always just a text or a phone call away from what their need is. And they really feel like you you're a valuable resource in a relationship and a connection sense instead of just a transactional sense.

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you Shannon Robnett. What is the Biggest Risk?

Shannon Robnett  

You know, in my business, the Biggest Risk is taking on the project and having things like prices increase on commodities. You know, we started a construction project. And our lumber costs estimate went from 3 million to 9 million. We locked in on the way up and caught it at about five and a half million, but it was still a two and a half million dollar Upswing on that. Those are the risks that we take as developers on brand new ground up. And so there's always that question that you have to ask and it comes back to your underwriting? Do you have the runway to absorb this? Can you get from here to there so that you're not, you know, your framing is in the first third of your job? If you've used all your contingency in the first third of the job? How are you going to finish the rest without additional cash? So are you properly capitalized? Have you underwritten correctly? Do you know that three years from now when you're built out on a 200 unit apartment complex that you've you're going to be able to sell those are the risks that we take that that sometimes keep me up at night?