September 25, 2025 • 34 mins
From Wisconsin winters to Miami sunshine, Louis Archambault’s journey shaped his unique perspective on law and real estate. In this cafecito chat, the Saul Ewing partner and CCIM Miami board member shares insights on Miami’s industrial market, creative deal-making, and the philosophy behind condo law. Tune in for a dynamic conversation blending personal story, market trends, and fresh strategies for navigating South Florida CRE.
Thanks for joining us on CRE Cafecito, the CCIM Miami Podcast where deals, insights, and Miami flavor come together.
For more information on CCIM Miami District please visit:
You can find Ruben the Cuban on LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Welcome to today's episode.
We are very, very excited tohave one of our very own CCIM
Miami District board members,louis Archibald.
He's a partner at Saul Ewingand, lou, I'm excited to be here
.
You're a great storyteller.
You have a lot of things thatour folks can learn from.
We're very, very honored tohave you on the board as well,
(01:03):
and thank you very much fortaking some time to talk to us
today.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Absolutely, Ruben.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And, lou, I know we've knowneach other for a few years
through the board and so forth,but why don't you give us a
little background?
Because before we get to theattorney and all the nice
beautiful things you do and soforth, where you're born, tell
us a little background aboutyourself.
Where'd you grow?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
up Sure.
I was born in Wisconsin,wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, don't tell me, you're a Green Bay
Packer.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Oh, I'm 100% Green Bay Packers fan, born and
baptized.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
This conversation is over.
No, just kidding, I'm a ChicagoBears fan.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I was born in Chicago , that's all right, I like the
Bears, I like the Bears.
I like it when the Bears aregood.
I'm actually excited.
This year, I think that they'llbe an improved team and it's
always a lot more fun when bothteams are good, which is
different than when I grew up,and it's certainly different for
you.
For the last couple of yearsit's been a flip, but growing up
in Wisconsin was great.
(02:03):
It's a great place to to growup.
I went to the university ofWisconsin, madison, for
undergrad and really enjoyed it.
But after that experience Ithought you know what I want?
To be a part of the world.
I want to to expand, go to abigger city, be part of the city
that's international, so that Ican meet people from all over
the world.
So I got accepted to theuniversity of Miami for law
(02:24):
school.
All over the world.
So I got accepted to theUniversity of Miami for law
school.
Funny enough, the day I got myacceptance letter it was 38
degrees below zero in Wisconsin.
So it was the universe tellingme it was definitely time to
leave and seek out sunny beachesand a different climate.
So I started at Miami in lawschool and actually when I was
in my first two years of lawschool I was also on the
(02:46):
cheerleading squad.
I really enjoyed it, had agreat time.
I was going to watch the gamesanyway and you know, and I've
always enjoyed exercise andstaying in shape, so it wasn't
that much of a of a sacrifice.
And if I had to study, I toldhim look, I have to study to
make sure that that I, I, I, payattention to my number one
priority.
But I had a really good time.
(03:08):
You were disciplined is whatyou're saying.
You had good discipline.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I say well-rounded.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
There you go, don't be afraid to try new things.
Even if you're not the best atit, at least you give it a try
and have a good time.
There you go, perfect.
So in law school I wascommitted to staying south.
I wasn't going to go back toWisconsin.
I mean, miami hits so far aboveits weight in the world.
(03:33):
Its population, it's the samesize as Milwaukee, but it's so
much more internationally faced,international cosmopolitan that
I really enjoyed that.
And when I was in law school Iactually met my wife.
She is Cuban, she moved fromNew York to Miami when she was
three years old and we met inlaw school.
(03:55):
So at that point I was like,okay, I'm staying in Miami.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And I've been living as a Miami Cuban for the last 30
years.
Wow, so it's been great.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So during law school, when you got into law school,
did you already know hey, I wantto go into real estate law, you
know, kind of specialize inreal estate on the law side of
things, or how did you?
What was that kind of journey?
You know, law school, we got tolaw school because there's a
bunch of different avenues.
You can take the law degree.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, when you graduate they try to keep it
more general, but I did focus alot of my classes on
transactional issues, commercialcontracts, tax, issues related
to doing business and when Ifirst started practicing, I was
at a firm that did somelitigation and some real estate
work and I found myself reallyenjoying the real estate work
(04:49):
that I was doing and also Irealized very early that
litigation wasn don't mindgetting paid, I don't mind
fighting, but if you want onething and the other person wants
the other thing and we can findsome middle ground, why don't
(05:10):
we just get along and move on,right?
I thought the point of fightingwas to get along and have a
deal, but I realized that forsome clients that wasn't the
case.
They were fighting because theyreally liked the fight and I
thought, you know, this reallyisn't for me.
And I really enjoyed the aspectof real estate in the sense
that, since it can't go anywhere, it's a great vehicle for a lot
(05:36):
of things you can borrowagainst it, you can develop it,
you can live in it, you cantrade it, it can become a
commodity very quickly.
So all of those differentaspects is a lot of fun.
Obviously, in Florida, andparticularly South Florida,
miami.
There's so much going on from adevelopment perspective that
Miami still has so much room togrow that it's a great time to
(05:57):
be down here and to be involvedspecifically in real estate.
And the other nice thing aboutit, too, is when you're doing
real estate work, you deal withsuch a wide range of people.
I could have a call in themorning with a billionaire
developer that's developing ayou know, a 20 acre piece of
property.
You deal with a lot ofdifferent people, so it's very
(06:18):
different.
If a problem comes up, it's nothow do we figure out how to
fight over it, it's how do wefigure out how to solve the
problem.
So I enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, great, great, and so you made your way over to
Saul Ewing.
Your partner and you guys arethe sponsors for today's episode
, so thank you very much.
Can you tell us a little bitabout Saul Ewing and how'd you
get there to Saul Ewing?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Sure, I started at a smaller firm.
I was probably 10 to 15 lawyersfor many years at a smaller
firm.
I was probably 10 to 15 lawyersfor many years.
And Miami matured.
When we first started working, alot of the developers that we
were working with were local.
They were borrowing money fromlocal people, they were raising
money from local investors, soit was a very different
atmosphere.
And then, I would say probablyat about 2010, given a couple of
(07:04):
years after the end of the2000s, when the market dropped,
it changed.
Miami suddenly was havingdevelopers coming from outside
the city.
There were lenders or equityplayers that were from New York,
that were from other areas ofthe world and they didn't know
who we were.
So it became very difficult todo deals because we were fully
(07:26):
capable.
And it's not like I changedexpertise or what I was doing,
it's just you have a differentscope of client and reach and
reputation nationwide orinternationally, and so at that
point I could see that I wasgoing to have to go to a larger
firm.
(07:46):
Point, I could see that I wasgoing to have to go to a larger
firm.
And so I moved to the firm whenit was Arnstein-Lair, which had
three Florida offices and aChicago office, and then about
seven months later we mergedinto Saul Ewing, which now had
offices all over the East Coast,and now we have offices even in
California, and so suddenly itwas like growing.
You know, you change jobs, andnow you're you.
You, you change jobs, and nowyou're, you're on the desk, car
right.
(08:07):
But we have offices that aremore or less the same size in
almost every one of our offices,from Boston to Miami, chicago,
minneapolis, la, you know, dc,philadelphia.
So a lot of our practice isstill able to represent those
middle to large companies and doa wide range of deals.
(08:30):
And then we also have, atdifferent offices, international
practices that make sense forthat area.
By the way, I got my cafecitobecause I have to be true to the
name of your show.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Oh, rocket fuel, that's rightyeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
If I do one of those, the problem is I was doing with
milk I mean partly because I'mfrom wisconsin so I have to keep
up my levels.
But if it's just a little shot,it's like it's so fast, and
then you're saying yourself, ohI, I want another one, that was
too quick.
And then you do another one andthen give yourself 15, 20
minutes and you start shaking.
You say, say, oh, I'm in danger.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Let's start with the industrial side.
I know you said you work withlike developers.
You know you go through someentitlement and different
process Because Miami is.
You know, you've been here fora while now in Miami.
You've seen the growthindustrial and just Miami in
general has had, has grown leapsand bounds over, like the last
10 years, let alone 15, 20 years.
(09:26):
But let's dive a little bitinto industrial.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
If you don't mind Sure, and I'll give you a little
story.
Also, it weaves into how I gotinto CCIM.
So when I was a much youngerattorney and this is going back
to before we started the Outlookconferences, probably about 20
years ago I was attending anetworking function conferences.
Probably about 20 years ago.
I was attending a networkingfunction and I was good friends
with Ed Redlich and Steve Riggleand you know some of the the
(09:51):
local industrial guys and theywere sitting at a table with
Paul White and and talking aboutstart, you know doing a, a this
, you know growing the CCIMchapter.
And I came over and I said, hey, how are you guys?
And they said, hey, Lewis,would you like to join us?
We'd love to have an attorney'sinput.
I said, all right, sure, thisis great.
And so I sat at the table,started to get involved Right
(10:15):
from the beginning.
We started planning the Outlookconferences, having the Outlook
conferences.
I've been the chapter legaladvisor from that point on and
got to know again a lot of thepeople that had dual
designations John Dahm, tedKonigsberg, jr Steinbauer, danny
Zalonker, and all of themreally took me in.
And then I now do that similarrole in the Board of governors
(10:39):
for the Miami association ofrealtors on the commercial board
.
So it's funny how, throughoutmy networking, I always said you
know, I I I don't necessarilywant to network with lawyers I
like lawyers but I want to bewith people that are doing
business right.
So I've always networked withbrokers and people in commercial
real estate in differentaspects and it's always been
(11:01):
great.
I've learned from you how to bea better salesperson.
Hopefully I can share on thelegal side and that's what I do
on the industrial side andthat's how I was able to become
part of a lot of different deals.
Everybody touches Florida withinone degree of separation.
It's crazy how much the stateinteracts and because of
(11:25):
logistics and distributioncenters and last mile
distribution, obviously you knowFlorida is a large consumer
state and that's where there'salways something going on from
an industrial perspective Peoplebuying and developing building
warehouses.
You have smaller players thatare identifying land, trying to
put assemblages together to beable to sell them to some of the
larger players for warehousedevelopment and even older
(11:49):
projects still have some valuebecause you can do business out
of a small 1960s warehouse with25 clear and no real bays,
because you know you might havea showroom in the front and
either manufacture or run someof your distribution points out
of the back of the building.
So you know there's always somevalue for property one way or
(12:13):
another.
And you know Miami's landlockedfor property one way or another
.
And Miami's landlocked Not onlythat, but with Miami 21,.
There's really not muchindustrial land available in
Miami and in Miami-Dade County.
A lot of it's developed.
In Broward it's almost alldeveloped.
So you do have a premium oneither redevelopment or
potentially doing other areasfor development in the state
(12:36):
just because of land scarcity.
So that becomes inevitable.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
A lot of the folks I talk to that specialize in
industrial.
You know we talk often aboutthe.
You know the Amazons of theworld.
They have these.
You know millions of squarefeet that they need and so forth
.
But there's something aboutthat b minus c small bay mom and
pop type.
You know flex space warehousethat will, it seems like, will
(13:05):
never go out of out of out offashion, if you will, and it's
always needed and they havesomething, I think in miami
something it's like sub twopercent, almost like one percent
vacancy, so it's just neveravailable.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Right and now go even for cold storage.
It's an even smaller niche andharder to find.
And actually Miami, one of thelargest imports we have is
flowers.
They're flown in daily and theyhave to be refrigerated and
there's a large need and there'sonly so much space there's.
Also if you're trading in freshfish, same thing you need
(13:40):
chillers, you need refrigeratorsand there's just not much of
that space available and youdon't really have many options,
because if you need to deliverfish to Miami, you need to have
a distribution point here.
It's just you have to figure itout.
You can't set it up in Lakeland, or you could try, but then you
have to figure out somethingelse as far as transportation,
(14:03):
so it becomes a logistics issue.
Or pharmaceuticals you knowagain, if you're dealing with
pharmaceuticals that have to berefrigerated, you don't have
many options.
You really have to.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You have to do what you got to do you know, you know
, the working one thing isfinding the space and then
penciling out the deal thatmakes sense with, you know,
construction costs and so forthand and that sort of thing.
So, uh, we're just still alittle bit at the moment here in
, you know, middle 2025, withsome some space between the
bid-ask spread there, thentrying to make the numbers work.
(14:32):
So, but, uh, right, that's alot of fun though, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Oh, yeah, I love the hat, I love uh, you know your
your your hat for this show.
But you know, that's exactlywhat it is in the real estate
world, right?
We they most of my clients have, you know, a closet of of
several hats, and the first onethey're going to put on is let's
see if we can buy it.
And if I can't buy it, let mesee if I can broker it.
(14:56):
And if I can't broker it, letme see if I can be a lender for
the deal, right, and if I can'tbe a lender, maybe I'll broker
as a lender and I'll do themortgage loan.
And if that doesn't work, thenlet me put in the equity who
maybe wants to be an equityplayer.
And if I can't do that, I'llsit for another three weeks and
then do the whole thing all overagain, right?
(15:17):
So, everybody kind of chooseproperties and choose
opportunities for a while andtries to see if it works.
And if it doesn't work, youjust wait.
It's like the rain.
You just wait five minutes andthe seller will come down in
price.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And now it makes sense to be the broker for the
deal and then you come rightback in and put on, you know,
hat number three.
So it's a lot of fun that way.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's a lot of fun becauseyou never know how it's going to
run and or how the deal isgoing to be presented.
I'll get calls from clients hey, this particular property, the,
the, the owner's in foreclosureand he's willing to sell within
the next week is how quicklycan we do diligence and how does
this look?
Or, or, I have an opportunityto come in as the equity player.
(15:59):
Maybe from equity I can try totake it over.
You know, there's alwayssomething.
You know these guys aremavericks, and so the creativity
aspect.
It's a lot of fun.
A lot of fun.
That's right.
Yeah, the opportunity comes up.
You got to make it work.
So, yeah, so it's.
It is a challenge as a lawyerfor those, because you know, I
have two sayings for people.
Is number one my practice cango from zero to 40 in 2.5
(16:22):
seconds and it only takes twopeople that need something
immediately for a bad day.
Yeah, you just, you know that'sjust the way it is.
So you always have to kind ofbe free for things.
But when you do talk to peoplethat are in other practices and
they say, I don't know, I I needthis from a response from you
real quick and I said, well,how's real quick.
They're like can you get it tome in a week, a week, a week?
(16:45):
I mean everybody's saying Ineed it yesterday and then
having to massage my schedule oftrying to figure out how I can
get it all done.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Uh, just, you know, spin my plates, keep running
down the line and spinningplates and hopefully nothing
crashes absolutely, absolutelyand then well, so let's shift a
little bit from industrial and,by the way, I love in the
conversation.
But I want to get a little bitinto the condos because I know
right now some people condos isa little bit of a bad word.
The condo market in miami has,you know, gone up and down and
(17:12):
we've had a lot of differentcycles of the market for the
condo.
But yeah, it seems like youknow you have a sweet spot in
your heart or a soft spot inyour heart for condos.
You know a lot about condos.
You really dealt with all sortsof condos and I think that's
also an area that not a lot ofpeople realize.
You know the history of condosand you know taking an apartment
(17:33):
complex and turning it into thecondo conversion kind of plan,
not just building a condo andyou know there's a lot of.
You know Florida is a littlebit different than other states,
like Illinois, that where youcan actually take some of your
deposits when people startbuying into condos at the
beginning to actually use foryour construction, if I'm not
mistaken.
And so those are.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout condos what been
experienced.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know if you have a story.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I like a story and I have a little trivia question
for you.
A little app with around thetime.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Okay, yeah, we'll see how I do other trivia, but uh,
yes.
So condominiums are great.
You know you're trying to ownyour, your piece of paradise.
And, yes, you can use thedeposits in florida over the 10
percent for for the projectconstruction if you want.
You can even use the first 10%if you post a bond.
But what's so fun aboutcondominiums and actually doing
(18:20):
the documents is when I was anundergraduate, I studied
political science and philosophyand a lot of people would say
philosophy, how is that going tobe anything?
Right, you're just sittingaround and thinking about things
that aren't real.
But I use my philosophy degreeall the time when I'm doing
condominium documents andcondominium development work,
(18:40):
because when you're doing acondominium, none of that is
real at first.
It's just a plan, it's just ascheme, it's a document with
schematics over how they intendto build the project and what
you really have to do.
And this is the fun part.
You're rolling out the surveyor you're rolling out the CAD
drawings and looking through howthey're planning on building
(19:01):
the project and you have to sitback a little bit and picture in
your head how the building isgoing to look spatially and then
how is it actually going to beused, because so much of the
documentation you know, floridastatutes in chapter 718 for
condominiums.
What you're doing is creating avolume of air and legally
(19:22):
dividing up that volume of airbased on the actual units, which
are little blocks within theproperty.
Limited common elements, whichis spaces of air that one person
or an entity has a right to use, and then common areas, which
is something that everyone'sgoing to use in general.
So all of that is theoretical.
(19:43):
So when you're sitting back atthe beginning of the project,
you're saying to yourself okay,this elevator, who is it going
to use it?
Where is it going to go?
Who's going to have access toit and who's going to pay for
the insurance and themaintenance?
Right, this lobby over here?
Is everyone going to use it?
Are just some people going touse it?
Is it open to the public?
Is it have access to commercialunits where you're going to
(20:05):
have more foot traffic In theparking areas?
Who's going to have access towhat areas?
Are you going to divide up theparking spaces?
Who's going to own it?
Are you going to have arestaurant bar?
How are's going to own it?
If you're going to have arestaurant bar, how are you
going to key that access with anelevator?
You don't want to have generalaccess.
You're going to have todedicate an elevator.
That's going to change some ofthe costs in the way you develop
the project.
How are you going to lay outthe units?
(20:26):
Where are you going to put thebathrooms, the toilets, the
showers?
Those are all going to have toline up.
If you adjust those, even acouple inches, it changes the
entire line of those units sothat if you're off by, say, five
inches on a toilet, you mightlose a closet.
You might have to rearrange thefloor plan for the units to
(20:48):
make sure that it all fits.
But all of that doesn't exist atthe beginning.
That's just you sitting backand picturing the building,
(21:10):
no-transcript.
You know this was going to bean issue, or that was going to
be an issue.
So you have to chase ghosts alittle bit to try to determine
and predict proactively what aregoing to be some of the issues.
And then the better you do yourdocumentation, the better you
set up this building, thesmoother it runs and the happier
everybody is.
(21:30):
So it's a lot of fun from thataspect.
It's also fun because of how itevolved, right, I mean, people
buy houses Okay, great, you canhave a house but obviously land
along the beach in Florida isvery valuable.
Everybody wants a piece of it.
So condominiums started to comeabout because the idea of wait a
second, what if, theoretically,we're able to define that space
(21:52):
and sell someone athree-dimensional space?
Now we can take a very densebuilding and divide it up.
And co-ops had already existed,where you buy into a
corporation and then lease yourspace.
But they thought if you couldlegally own the space, then it
would change everything.
You could do this in adifferent way.
And that's how you developedwith condominiums and the
(22:15):
ability by statute to actuallycreate legal-defined
three-dimensional spaces of air.
And then people said, oh well,that's now gotten a little
expensive.
What if we could take one ofthese units and just own a right
(22:44):
to use that volume of error forfive days out of the month, or
however it divides up on aschedule, it starts to become
much more complicated, which iswhy timeshares started to become
not as attractive, because itjust gets so complicated that
it's hard to manage.
But that was the idea.
And then you can evolve thateven further and say well, what
(23:08):
if we buy our space but weactually do it as a condominium
hotel to where I'm going to putit into a management company.
They're not pooled, but you putyour unit to a management
company to lease it outindividually as a hotel and then
I can use it every so often tolease it out individually as a
hotel and then I can use itevery so often.
So it becomes more like acontractual arrangement with a
condominium management company,which is also for hotels.
So it's not really Airbnb,you're actually running it
(23:29):
through a company individually.
And then you know, when you gointo a building let's say it's
you know whoever's managing thebuilding from a hotel
perspective yeah, I'd like to.
You know, lease room 701 forthree nights, okay, and then you
do it that way.
So you know, once you've got itand you've got the idea and the
(23:52):
theory behind how you're goingto do some of these, you know
it's really just the limitationof how conceptually you can do a
building.
We have clients that dovertical subdivisions which,
again, rather than athree-dimensional volume of air
for a condo, you actually deed athree-dimensional volume of air
right next to the other and youhave space then that you own
(24:14):
like towers.
Think of it as air towers rightnext to each other, rather than
specific condominiums, and youcan do that now like you would
do any other properties.
You don't necessarily have todivide up a mixed-use building
by the condo statutes.
You can do it as a as avertical subdivision.
All this is theoretical.
(24:34):
It definitely stimulates thatside of me that always like to
sit back and just think aboutphilosophy and other
philosophical topics.
I get to do it as part of myjob, so I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I'm sure you've seen your fair share of stories with
condo associations and condoowners and so forth.
And that leads me to thequestion.
I kind of have the condo ownersand so forth.
And that leads me to thequestion.
I kind of have the condoconversions process.
From my understanding it's Imean you would think, oh, it's
been around for a long, longtime.
Condos, I think, started inEurope and my understanding it
(25:08):
came, you know the idea, in the60s and 50s and 60s kind of, via
the Caribbean, like Cuba andpuerto rico, coming this way
into the us to become a littlemore popular.
Pop there's was not literallylike one, hey, here's the first
condo where it started.
But in the 60s, you know, whenit was very, very early going
through the condo conversions,do you know the, the, the
(25:32):
attorneys that kind of startedtrailblazing the condo
conversion process?
And I'm not going to say theywere the very first one.
I don't want to go on the limbsaying that, but they were one
of the very first ones.
They were very well known and,being a Midwest guy, they're
from the Midwest.
Do you happen to know theirnames?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I wouldn't know their names, though, so you got me
stumped.
That's all right, but I do know, like I say, it was an
evolution after the co-ops,because you had a lot of issues
related to co-ops.
So people thought, well, itmight be better if people
actually own their own unitrather than just being a member
in a corporation.
So there was an evolution.
(26:12):
But yeah, the statues startedin in Florida in the seventies.
So I'm curious as to youranswer.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Joseph Moss, or Joe Moss is well known in Chicago in
the sixties he and his partner,they started going up and down.
They actually had an issue anapartment complex on I want to
say it was on Michigan Avenueand they went through this and
they kind of figured there wereattorneys, young attorneys, that
started figuring out hey, wecan legally turn these apartment
(26:43):
complexes and start buying themout and turn them into condos
or doing the condo conversion.
And so they were one of thevery first I'm not going to say
the first, but there were earlypioneers into the condo
conversion or Joseph Moss I hada chance to meet him before he
passed and he had some great,fabulous stories.
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't live it for the first time
around, but definitely in themid 2000s when there was a the
conversion craze down here, thatwas pretty crazy.
Anything you could do.
I did quite a few conversionsof my own along the way but any
apartment that was available.
I mean at one point I had anItalian client that literally
(27:29):
came to me and said anythingfrom 65th Avenue on the beach
South, if anybody's available, Iwill buy it with cash.
I mean, they were anything theycould get to be able to get any
product, because at the time,you know again, the Euro was
like 1.5 to 1 for the dollar.
And you know they were here andthey were looking and they were
(27:52):
excited Anything, anything theycould get their hands on to
convert it and sell it.
That's what they wereinterested in.
So it was a lot of hot andheavy for a while.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But again we're in the epicenter.
Yeah, absolutely, what do youkind of see on a local Miami
level and maybe internationallevel?
Next six months, 12 months kindof thing, what do you see?
The months kind of thing, where?
What do you see?
Or the momentum kind of goingin the?
You know, we can talk aboutreal estate general, commercial
real estate in general, or ifyou have something specifically
(28:24):
that, uh, you think, hey, thisis something that could be a
good little piece of informationsomebody could take away sure.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
well, as far as trends, miami usually is the
first ones to go into a cycleand the first ones to come out
of it.
So we are, more you know, thetail wagging the dog when it
comes to trends and I think thatyou're going to see a lot of
sales and a lot of interest incondominiums to continue in
(28:53):
Florida one way or another.
Again, because we're the safehaven for so many areas of the
world.
If you're in South America,latin America, eastern Europe,
if you have a place that youwant to go where, you're
thinking to yourself, if I'minstable where I'm at and I want
to not necessarily just move mymoney out of where I'm at, but
(29:17):
I want to put it in propertybecause I'm worried that even if
I keep it in a bankinternationally, somehow
someone's going to reach it.
I can land bank it in theUnited States.
And if I'm going to land bankit, even if I break even, I'm
okay with that because I feellike I own something, so there's
(29:39):
always interest for that.
I mean, one of the jokes that Ihave is that you know with my
kids when they were worriedabout the war across the world,
and you know what, if there's aworld war.
And I said don't worry about itbecause you live in Miami.
And the reality is, every worldleader, every world gangster,
every warlord of the world hasproperty here in Miami and the
(30:00):
last thing they're going to dois blow up their vacation home.
And it's somewhat of a joke,but it's not.
So, you know.
So I don't necessarily worry forMiami.
I mean, you do have things,like you know, certainly high
tide, sea level rise is aconcern Long term.
A lot of Miami is built ondredged land.
(30:21):
A lot of the islands aredredged islands, so from that
perspective there may beisolated areas that are probably
more vulnerable than others.
But we still have lots ofsolutions to be able to mitigate
that in the short term and inthe medium term.
So I'm not really worried aboutthat.
Miami is landlocked, and youknow, and again, as even with
(30:45):
climate change and differencesin the weather, we have the
oceans all around us and we havea lot of predictive rain, so
those regulate the temperaturesto some extent.
Where it could be 110 degreesin Atlanta and it still may only
be 92 degrees in Miami, simplybecause we have a lot of
(31:06):
mitigating factors that a lot ofother areas don't have.
So I don't worry about us longterm.
And again, in the short term,there's always something going
on, there's always someonecoming here.
Miami hits so far above itsweight internationally that
locally I'm really not worried,and Florida as a whole the same
thing.
The peninsula is hot.
(31:27):
There's always room forredevelopment or development in
different areas and smarterdevelopment.
So I don't see it ending.
There's always talk and I thinksome of it is wishful thinking
in the sense that if the marketwere to stall or go down, it
creates opportunities.
So to some extent people it's aself-fulfilling prophecy.
(31:47):
People want to see interestrates drop and the markets to
crash and real estate to havetrouble so they can buy it.
But if there's enough of thatmoney waiting on the sidelines,
it's not going to go down thatfar In the end of the 2000s.
I'll tell you a really quickstory.
So on the Miami beach again,everything was crashing all over
the place in the 2008, the skywas falling and we had a client
(32:11):
that had a couple of units inSouth Point and they were
talking to the lender abouttrying to do a forbearance or
some sort of abatement of theirpayments or maybe even a
reduction of their loan.
The bank did an appraisal andthis was absolutely at the worst
of it and they came back andsaid no, we're not going to
agree to that, because from ourappraisals the value of the
(32:34):
properties have just stabilized.
They're not going up.
Agree to that, because from ourappraisals, the value of the
properties have just stabilized,they're not going up at the
moment, but they've stabilized.
So we're comfortable with thefact that if we have to
foreclose we'll get the valueout of these units.
And that was at the absoluteworst part.
So you know I'm not necessarilyworried.
But again you will see.
If you're seeing the marketstarting to change, you'll see
(32:54):
people asking for forbearanceswith loans.
You'll see foreclosures pick up.
You'll see workouts happeningwith lenders and they'll try to
work it out for a couple ofyears just to see if the market
shifts and they can sell theproperty or recapitalize it.
And then, if that doesn't workout, then you'll see some action
.
But again, when everybody elseis screaming, oh, the sky is
(33:19):
falling and the rest of thecountry is having trouble, Miami
probably already is back in itsrecovery.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Great, we're lucky.
We're in a great space, RubenComing from the Midwest to play
in the sunshine.
We both made good choices.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I'm very, very happy,especially with the cafecito and
the very cigar friendlyenvironment down here.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
So that's, right.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You know that's right , lou.
Thank you so very much.
Appreciate it being here on theCRE Cafecito CCIM Miami
District podcast.
Thank you, and to Sol Ewing,for being our sponsors today as
well and sponsoring this time,and it sounds like you not only
help CCI in Miami, but you'rehelping a lot of different
(34:02):
associations and a lot of people.
So keep doing what you're doingand thank you for being such a
great pillar of the CREcommunity here in South Florida
and abroad.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So absolutely Ruben.
Thank you so much and Iappreciate the Thank you so much
.
I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Thank you very much.
We'll be, I'm sure, seeing youaround each other soon.
Welcome to today's episode.
We are very, very excited tohave one of our very own CCIM
Miami District board members,louis Archibald.
He's a partner at Saul Ewingand, lou, I'm excited to be here
.
You're a great storyteller.
You have a lot of things thatour folks can learn from.
We're very, very honored tohave you on the board as well,
(01:03):
and thank you very much fortaking some time to talk to us
today.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Absolutely, Ruben.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And, lou, I know we've knowneach other for a few years
through the board and so forth,but why don't you give us a
little background?
Because before we get to theattorney and all the nice
beautiful things you do and soforth, where you're born, tell
us a little background aboutyourself.
Where'd you grow?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
up Sure.
I was born in Wisconsin,wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, don't tell me, you're a Green Bay
Packer.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Oh, I'm 100% Green Bay Packers fan, born and
baptized.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
This conversation is over.
No, just kidding, I'm a ChicagoBears fan.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I was born in Chicago , that's all right, I like the
Bears, I like the Bears.
I like it when the Bears aregood.
I'm actually excited.
This year, I think that they'llbe an improved team and it's
always a lot more fun when bothteams are good, which is
different than when I grew up,and it's certainly different for
you.
For the last couple of yearsit's been a flip, but growing up
in Wisconsin was great.
(02:03):
It's a great place to to growup.
I went to the university ofWisconsin, madison, for
undergrad and really enjoyed it.
But after that experience Ithought you know what I want?
To be a part of the world.
I want to to expand, go to abigger city, be part of the city
that's international, so that Ican meet people from all over
the world.
So I got accepted to theuniversity of Miami for law
(02:24):
school.
All over the world.
So I got accepted to theUniversity of Miami for law
school.
Funny enough, the day I got myacceptance letter it was 38
degrees below zero in Wisconsin.
So it was the universe tellingme it was definitely time to
leave and seek out sunny beachesand a different climate.
So I started at Miami in lawschool and actually when I was
in my first two years of lawschool I was also on the
(02:46):
cheerleading squad.
I really enjoyed it, had agreat time.
I was going to watch the gamesanyway and you know, and I've
always enjoyed exercise andstaying in shape, so it wasn't
that much of a of a sacrifice.
And if I had to study, I toldhim look, I have to study to
make sure that that I, I, I, payattention to my number one
priority.
But I had a really good time.
(03:08):
You were disciplined is whatyou're saying.
You had good discipline.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I say well-rounded.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
There you go, don't be afraid to try new things.
Even if you're not the best atit, at least you give it a try
and have a good time.
There you go, perfect.
So in law school I wascommitted to staying south.
I wasn't going to go back toWisconsin.
I mean, miami hits so far aboveits weight in the world.
(03:33):
Its population, it's the samesize as Milwaukee, but it's so
much more internationally faced,international cosmopolitan that
I really enjoyed that.
And when I was in law school Iactually met my wife.
She is Cuban, she moved fromNew York to Miami when she was
three years old and we met inlaw school.
(03:55):
So at that point I was like,okay, I'm staying in Miami.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And I've been living as a Miami Cuban for the last 30
years.
Wow, so it's been great.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So during law school, when you got into law school,
did you already know hey, I wantto go into real estate law, you
know, kind of specialize inreal estate on the law side of
things, or how did you?
What was that kind of journey?
You know, law school, we got tolaw school because there's a
bunch of different avenues.
You can take the law degree.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, when you graduate they try to keep it
more general, but I did focus alot of my classes on
transactional issues, commercialcontracts, tax, issues related
to doing business and when Ifirst started practicing, I was
at a firm that did somelitigation and some real estate
work and I found myself reallyenjoying the real estate work
(04:49):
that I was doing and also Irealized very early that
litigation wasn don't mindgetting paid, I don't mind
fighting, but if you want onething and the other person wants
the other thing and we can findsome middle ground, why don't
(05:10):
we just get along and move on,right?
I thought the point of fightingwas to get along and have a
deal, but I realized that forsome clients that wasn't the
case.
They were fighting because theyreally liked the fight and I
thought, you know, this reallyisn't for me.
And I really enjoyed the aspectof real estate in the sense
that, since it can't go anywhere, it's a great vehicle for a lot
(05:36):
of things you can borrowagainst it, you can develop it,
you can live in it, you cantrade it, it can become a
commodity very quickly.
So all of those differentaspects is a lot of fun.
Obviously, in Florida, andparticularly South Florida,
miami.
There's so much going on from adevelopment perspective that
Miami still has so much room togrow that it's a great time to
(05:57):
be down here and to be involvedspecifically in real estate.
And the other nice thing aboutit, too, is when you're doing
real estate work, you deal withsuch a wide range of people.
I could have a call in themorning with a billionaire
developer that's developing ayou know, a 20 acre piece of
property.
You deal with a lot ofdifferent people, so it's very
(06:18):
different.
If a problem comes up, it's nothow do we figure out how to
fight over it, it's how do wefigure out how to solve the
problem.
So I enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, great, great, and so you made your way over to
Saul Ewing.
Your partner and you guys arethe sponsors for today's episode
, so thank you very much.
Can you tell us a little bitabout Saul Ewing and how'd you
get there to Saul Ewing?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Sure, I started at a smaller firm.
I was probably 10 to 15 lawyersfor many years at a smaller
firm.
I was probably 10 to 15 lawyersfor many years.
And Miami matured.
When we first started working, alot of the developers that we
were working with were local.
They were borrowing money fromlocal people, they were raising
money from local investors, soit was a very different
atmosphere.
And then, I would say probablyat about 2010, given a couple of
(07:04):
years after the end of the2000s, when the market dropped,
it changed.
Miami suddenly was havingdevelopers coming from outside
the city.
There were lenders or equityplayers that were from New York,
that were from other areas ofthe world and they didn't know
who we were.
So it became very difficult todo deals because we were fully
(07:26):
capable.
And it's not like I changedexpertise or what I was doing,
it's just you have a differentscope of client and reach and
reputation nationwide orinternationally, and so at that
point I could see that I wasgoing to have to go to a larger
firm.
(07:46):
Point, I could see that I wasgoing to have to go to a larger
firm.
And so I moved to the firm whenit was Arnstein-Lair, which had
three Florida offices and aChicago office, and then about
seven months later we mergedinto Saul Ewing, which now had
offices all over the East Coast,and now we have offices even in
California, and so suddenly itwas like growing.
You know, you change jobs, andnow you're you.
You, you change jobs, and nowyou're, you're on the desk, car
right.
(08:07):
But we have offices that aremore or less the same size in
almost every one of our offices,from Boston to Miami, chicago,
minneapolis, la, you know, dc,philadelphia.
So a lot of our practice isstill able to represent those
middle to large companies and doa wide range of deals.
(08:30):
And then we also have, atdifferent offices, international
practices that make sense forthat area.
By the way, I got my cafecitobecause I have to be true to the
name of your show.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Oh, rocket fuel, that's rightyeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
If I do one of those, the problem is I was doing with
milk I mean partly because I'mfrom wisconsin so I have to keep
up my levels.
But if it's just a little shot,it's like it's so fast, and
then you're saying yourself, ohI, I want another one, that was
too quick.
And then you do another one andthen give yourself 15, 20
minutes and you start shaking.
You say, say, oh, I'm in danger.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Let's start with the industrial side.
I know you said you work withlike developers.
You know you go through someentitlement and different
process Because Miami is.
You know, you've been here fora while now in Miami.
You've seen the growthindustrial and just Miami in
general has had, has grown leapsand bounds over, like the last
10 years, let alone 15, 20 years.
(09:26):
But let's dive a little bitinto industrial.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
If you don't mind Sure, and I'll give you a little
story.
Also, it weaves into how I gotinto CCIM.
So when I was a much youngerattorney and this is going back
to before we started the Outlookconferences, probably about 20
years ago I was attending anetworking function conferences.
Probably about 20 years ago.
I was attending a networkingfunction and I was good friends
with Ed Redlich and Steve Riggleand you know some of the the
(09:51):
local industrial guys and theywere sitting at a table with
Paul White and and talking aboutstart, you know doing a, a this
, you know growing the CCIMchapter.
And I came over and I said, hey, how are you guys?
And they said, hey, Lewis,would you like to join us?
We'd love to have an attorney'sinput.
I said, all right, sure, thisis great.
And so I sat at the table,started to get involved Right
(10:15):
from the beginning.
We started planning the Outlookconferences, having the Outlook
conferences.
I've been the chapter legaladvisor from that point on and
got to know again a lot of thepeople that had dual
designations John Dahm, tedKonigsberg, jr Steinbauer, danny
Zalonker, and all of themreally took me in.
And then I now do that similarrole in the Board of governors
(10:39):
for the Miami association ofrealtors on the commercial board
.
So it's funny how, throughoutmy networking, I always said you
know, I I I don't necessarilywant to network with lawyers I
like lawyers but I want to bewith people that are doing
business right.
So I've always networked withbrokers and people in commercial
real estate in differentaspects and it's always been
(11:01):
great.
I've learned from you how to bea better salesperson.
Hopefully I can share on thelegal side and that's what I do
on the industrial side andthat's how I was able to become
part of a lot of different deals.
Everybody touches Florida withinone degree of separation.
It's crazy how much the stateinteracts and because of
(11:25):
logistics and distributioncenters and last mile
distribution, obviously you knowFlorida is a large consumer
state and that's where there'salways something going on from
an industrial perspective Peoplebuying and developing building
warehouses.
You have smaller players thatare identifying land, trying to
put assemblages together to beable to sell them to some of the
larger players for warehousedevelopment and even older
(11:49):
projects still have some valuebecause you can do business out
of a small 1960s warehouse with25 clear and no real bays,
because you know you might havea showroom in the front and
either manufacture or run someof your distribution points out
of the back of the building.
So you know there's always somevalue for property one way or
(12:13):
another.
And you know Miami's landlockedfor property one way or another
.
And Miami's landlocked Not onlythat, but with Miami 21,.
There's really not muchindustrial land available in
Miami and in Miami-Dade County.
A lot of it's developed.
In Broward it's almost alldeveloped.
So you do have a premium oneither redevelopment or
potentially doing other areasfor development in the state
(12:36):
just because of land scarcity.
So that becomes inevitable.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
A lot of the folks I talk to that specialize in
industrial.
You know we talk often aboutthe.
You know the Amazons of theworld.
They have these.
You know millions of squarefeet that they need and so forth
.
But there's something aboutthat b minus c small bay mom and
pop type.
You know flex space warehousethat will, it seems like, will
(13:05):
never go out of out of out offashion, if you will, and it's
always needed and they havesomething, I think in miami
something it's like sub twopercent, almost like one percent
vacancy, so it's just neveravailable.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Right and now go even for cold storage.
It's an even smaller niche andharder to find.
And actually Miami, one of thelargest imports we have is
flowers.
They're flown in daily and theyhave to be refrigerated and
there's a large need and there'sonly so much space there's.
Also if you're trading in freshfish, same thing you need
(13:40):
chillers, you need refrigeratorsand there's just not much of
that space available and youdon't really have many options,
because if you need to deliverfish to Miami, you need to have
a distribution point here.
It's just you have to figure itout.
You can't set it up in Lakeland, or you could try, but then you
have to figure out somethingelse as far as transportation,
(14:03):
so it becomes a logistics issue.
Or pharmaceuticals you knowagain, if you're dealing with
pharmaceuticals that have to berefrigerated, you don't have
many options.
You really have to.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You have to do what you got to do you know, you know
, the working one thing isfinding the space and then
penciling out the deal thatmakes sense with, you know,
construction costs and so forthand and that sort of thing.
So, uh, we're just still alittle bit at the moment here in
, you know, middle 2025, withsome some space between the
bid-ask spread there, thentrying to make the numbers work.
(14:32):
So, but, uh, right, that's alot of fun though, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Oh, yeah, I love the hat, I love uh, you know your
your your hat for this show.
But you know, that's exactlywhat it is in the real estate
world, right?
We they most of my clients have, you know, a closet of of
several hats, and the first onethey're going to put on is let's
see if we can buy it.
And if I can't buy it, let mesee if I can broker it.
(14:56):
And if I can't broker it, letme see if I can be a lender for
the deal, right, and if I can'tbe a lender, maybe I'll broker
as a lender and I'll do themortgage loan.
And if that doesn't work, thenlet me put in the equity who
maybe wants to be an equityplayer.
And if I can't do that, I'llsit for another three weeks and
then do the whole thing all overagain, right?
(15:17):
So, everybody kind of chooseproperties and choose
opportunities for a while andtries to see if it works.
And if it doesn't work, youjust wait.
It's like the rain.
You just wait five minutes andthe seller will come down in
price.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And now it makes sense to be the broker for the
deal and then you come rightback in and put on, you know,
hat number three.
So it's a lot of fun that way.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's a lot of fun becauseyou never know how it's going to
run and or how the deal isgoing to be presented.
I'll get calls from clients hey, this particular property, the,
the, the owner's in foreclosureand he's willing to sell within
the next week is how quicklycan we do diligence and how does
this look?
Or, or, I have an opportunityto come in as the equity player.
(15:59):
Maybe from equity I can try totake it over.
You know, there's alwayssomething.
You know these guys aremavericks, and so the creativity
aspect.
It's a lot of fun.
A lot of fun.
That's right.
Yeah, the opportunity comes up.
You got to make it work.
So, yeah, so it's.
It is a challenge as a lawyerfor those, because you know, I
have two sayings for people.
Is number one my practice cango from zero to 40 in 2.5
(16:22):
seconds and it only takes twopeople that need something
immediately for a bad day.
Yeah, you just, you know that'sjust the way it is.
So you always have to kind ofbe free for things.
But when you do talk to peoplethat are in other practices and
they say, I don't know, I I needthis from a response from you
real quick and I said, well,how's real quick.
They're like can you get it tome in a week, a week, a week?
(16:45):
I mean everybody's saying Ineed it yesterday and then
having to massage my schedule oftrying to figure out how I can
get it all done.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Uh, just, you know, spin my plates, keep running
down the line and spinningplates and hopefully nothing
crashes absolutely, absolutelyand then well, so let's shift a
little bit from industrial and,by the way, I love in the
conversation.
But I want to get a little bitinto the condos because I know
right now some people condos isa little bit of a bad word.
The condo market in miami has,you know, gone up and down and
(17:12):
we've had a lot of differentcycles of the market for the
condo.
But yeah, it seems like youknow you have a sweet spot in
your heart or a soft spot inyour heart for condos.
You know a lot about condos.
You really dealt with all sortsof condos and I think that's
also an area that not a lot ofpeople realize.
You know the history of condosand you know taking an apartment
(17:33):
complex and turning it into thecondo conversion kind of plan,
not just building a condo andyou know there's a lot of.
You know Florida is a littlebit different than other states,
like Illinois, that where youcan actually take some of your
deposits when people startbuying into condos at the
beginning to actually use foryour construction, if I'm not
mistaken.
And so those are.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout condos what been
experienced.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know if you have a story.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I like a story and I have a little trivia question
for you.
A little app with around thetime.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Okay, yeah, we'll see how I do other trivia, but uh,
yes.
So condominiums are great.
You know you're trying to ownyour, your piece of paradise.
And, yes, you can use thedeposits in florida over the 10
percent for for the projectconstruction if you want.
You can even use the first 10%if you post a bond.
But what's so fun aboutcondominiums and actually doing
(18:20):
the documents is when I was anundergraduate, I studied
political science and philosophyand a lot of people would say
philosophy, how is that going tobe anything?
Right, you're just sittingaround and thinking about things
that aren't real.
But I use my philosophy degreeall the time when I'm doing
condominium documents andcondominium development work,
(18:40):
because when you're doing acondominium, none of that is
real at first.
It's just a plan, it's just ascheme, it's a document with
schematics over how they intendto build the project and what
you really have to do.
And this is the fun part.
You're rolling out the surveyor you're rolling out the CAD
drawings and looking through howthey're planning on building
(19:01):
the project and you have to sitback a little bit and picture in
your head how the building isgoing to look spatially and then
how is it actually going to beused, because so much of the
documentation you know, floridastatutes in chapter 718 for
condominiums.
What you're doing is creating avolume of air and legally
(19:22):
dividing up that volume of airbased on the actual units, which
are little blocks within theproperty.
Limited common elements, whichis spaces of air that one person
or an entity has a right to use, and then common areas, which
is something that everyone'sgoing to use in general.
So all of that is theoretical.
(19:43):
So when you're sitting back atthe beginning of the project,
you're saying to yourself okay,this elevator, who is it going
to use it?
Where is it going to go?
Who's going to have access toit and who's going to pay for
the insurance and themaintenance?
Right, this lobby over here?
Is everyone going to use it?
Are just some people going touse it?
Is it open to the public?
Is it have access to commercialunits where you're going to
(20:05):
have more foot traffic In theparking areas?
Who's going to have access towhat areas?
Are you going to divide up theparking spaces?
Who's going to own it?
Are you going to have arestaurant bar?
How are's going to own it?
If you're going to have arestaurant bar, how are you
going to key that access with anelevator?
You don't want to have generalaccess.
You're going to have todedicate an elevator.
That's going to change some ofthe costs in the way you develop
the project.
How are you going to lay outthe units?
(20:26):
Where are you going to put thebathrooms, the toilets, the
showers?
Those are all going to have toline up.
If you adjust those, even acouple inches, it changes the
entire line of those units sothat if you're off by, say, five
inches on a toilet, you mightlose a closet.
You might have to rearrange thefloor plan for the units to
(20:48):
make sure that it all fits.
But all of that doesn't exist atthe beginning.
That's just you sitting backand picturing the building,
(21:10):
no-transcript.
You know this was going to bean issue, or that was going to
be an issue.
So you have to chase ghosts alittle bit to try to determine
and predict proactively what aregoing to be some of the issues.
And then the better you do yourdocumentation, the better you
set up this building, thesmoother it runs and the happier
everybody is.
(21:30):
So it's a lot of fun from thataspect.
It's also fun because of how itevolved, right, I mean, people
buy houses Okay, great, you canhave a house but obviously land
along the beach in Florida isvery valuable.
Everybody wants a piece of it.
So condominiums started to comeabout because the idea of wait a
second, what if, theoretically,we're able to define that space
(21:52):
and sell someone athree-dimensional space?
Now we can take a very densebuilding and divide it up.
And co-ops had already existed,where you buy into a
corporation and then lease yourspace.
But they thought if you couldlegally own the space, then it
would change everything.
You could do this in adifferent way.
And that's how you developedwith condominiums and the
(22:15):
ability by statute to actuallycreate legal-defined
three-dimensional spaces of air.
And then people said, oh well,that's now gotten a little
expensive.
What if we could take one ofthese units and just own a right
(22:44):
to use that volume of error forfive days out of the month, or
however it divides up on aschedule, it starts to become
much more complicated, which iswhy timeshares started to become
not as attractive, because itjust gets so complicated that
it's hard to manage.
But that was the idea.
And then you can evolve thateven further and say well, what
(23:08):
if we buy our space but weactually do it as a condominium
hotel to where I'm going to putit into a management company.
They're not pooled, but you putyour unit to a management
company to lease it outindividually as a hotel and then
I can use it every so often tolease it out individually as a
hotel and then I can use itevery so often.
So it becomes more like acontractual arrangement with a
condominium management company,which is also for hotels.
So it's not really Airbnb,you're actually running it
(23:29):
through a company individually.
And then you know, when you gointo a building let's say it's
you know whoever's managing thebuilding from a hotel
perspective yeah, I'd like to.
You know, lease room 701 forthree nights, okay, and then you
do it that way.
So you know, once you've got itand you've got the idea and the
(23:52):
theory behind how you're goingto do some of these, you know
it's really just the limitationof how conceptually you can do a
building.
We have clients that dovertical subdivisions which,
again, rather than athree-dimensional volume of air
for a condo, you actually deed athree-dimensional volume of air
right next to the other and youhave space then that you own
(24:14):
like towers.
Think of it as air towers rightnext to each other, rather than
specific condominiums, and youcan do that now like you would
do any other properties.
You don't necessarily have todivide up a mixed-use building
by the condo statutes.
You can do it as a as avertical subdivision.
All this is theoretical.
(24:34):
It definitely stimulates thatside of me that always like to
sit back and just think aboutphilosophy and other
philosophical topics.
I get to do it as part of myjob, so I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I'm sure you've seen your fair share of stories with
condo associations and condoowners and so forth.
And that leads me to thequestion.
I kind of have the condo ownersand so forth.
And that leads me to thequestion.
I kind of have the condoconversions process.
From my understanding it's Imean you would think, oh, it's
been around for a long, longtime.
Condos, I think, started inEurope and my understanding it
(25:08):
came, you know the idea, in the60s and 50s and 60s kind of, via
the Caribbean, like Cuba andpuerto rico, coming this way
into the us to become a littlemore popular.
Pop there's was not literallylike one, hey, here's the first
condo where it started.
But in the 60s, you know, whenit was very, very early going
through the condo conversions,do you know the, the, the
(25:32):
attorneys that kind of startedtrailblazing the condo
conversion process?
And I'm not going to say theywere the very first one.
I don't want to go on the limbsaying that, but they were one
of the very first ones.
They were very well known and,being a Midwest guy, they're
from the Midwest.
Do you happen to know theirnames?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I wouldn't know their names, though, so you got me
stumped.
That's all right, but I do know, like I say, it was an
evolution after the co-ops,because you had a lot of issues
related to co-ops.
So people thought, well, itmight be better if people
actually own their own unitrather than just being a member
in a corporation.
So there was an evolution.
(26:12):
But yeah, the statues startedin in Florida in the seventies.
So I'm curious as to youranswer.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Joseph Moss, or Joe Moss is well known in Chicago in
the sixties he and his partner,they started going up and down.
They actually had an issue anapartment complex on I want to
say it was on Michigan Avenueand they went through this and
they kind of figured there wereattorneys, young attorneys, that
started figuring out hey, wecan legally turn these apartment
(26:43):
complexes and start buying themout and turn them into condos
or doing the condo conversion.
And so they were one of thevery first I'm not going to say
the first, but there were earlypioneers into the condo
conversion or Joseph Moss I hada chance to meet him before he
passed and he had some great,fabulous stories.
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't live it for the first time
around, but definitely in themid 2000s when there was a the
conversion craze down here, thatwas pretty crazy.
Anything you could do.
I did quite a few conversionsof my own along the way but any
apartment that was available.
I mean at one point I had anItalian client that literally
(27:29):
came to me and said anythingfrom 65th Avenue on the beach
South, if anybody's available, Iwill buy it with cash.
I mean, they were anything theycould get to be able to get any
product, because at the time,you know again, the Euro was
like 1.5 to 1 for the dollar.
And you know they were here andthey were looking and they were
(27:52):
excited Anything, anything theycould get their hands on to
convert it and sell it.
That's what they wereinterested in.
So it was a lot of hot andheavy for a while.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But again we're in the epicenter.
Yeah, absolutely, what do youkind of see on a local Miami
level and maybe internationallevel?
Next six months, 12 months kindof thing, what do you see?
The months kind of thing, where?
What do you see?
Or the momentum kind of goingin the?
You know, we can talk aboutreal estate general, commercial
real estate in general, or ifyou have something specifically
(28:24):
that, uh, you think, hey, thisis something that could be a
good little piece of informationsomebody could take away sure.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
well, as far as trends, miami usually is the
first ones to go into a cycleand the first ones to come out
of it.
So we are, more you know, thetail wagging the dog when it
comes to trends and I think thatyou're going to see a lot of
sales and a lot of interest incondominiums to continue in
(28:53):
Florida one way or another.
Again, because we're the safehaven for so many areas of the
world.
If you're in South America,latin America, eastern Europe,
if you have a place that youwant to go where, you're
thinking to yourself, if I'minstable where I'm at and I want
to not necessarily just move mymoney out of where I'm at, but
(29:17):
I want to put it in propertybecause I'm worried that even if
I keep it in a bankinternationally, somehow
someone's going to reach it.
I can land bank it in theUnited States.
And if I'm going to land bankit, even if I break even, I'm
okay with that because I feellike I own something, so there's
(29:39):
always interest for that.
I mean, one of the jokes that Ihave is that you know with my
kids when they were worriedabout the war across the world,
and you know what, if there's aworld war.
And I said don't worry about itbecause you live in Miami.
And the reality is, every worldleader, every world gangster,
every warlord of the world hasproperty here in Miami and the
(30:00):
last thing they're going to dois blow up their vacation home.
And it's somewhat of a joke,but it's not.
So, you know.
So I don't necessarily worry forMiami.
I mean, you do have things,like you know, certainly high
tide, sea level rise is aconcern Long term.
A lot of Miami is built ondredged land.
(30:21):
A lot of the islands aredredged islands, so from that
perspective there may beisolated areas that are probably
more vulnerable than others.
But we still have lots ofsolutions to be able to mitigate
that in the short term and inthe medium term.
So I'm not really worried aboutthat.
Miami is landlocked, and youknow, and again, as even with
(30:45):
climate change and differencesin the weather, we have the
oceans all around us and we havea lot of predictive rain, so
those regulate the temperaturesto some extent.
Where it could be 110 degreesin Atlanta and it still may only
be 92 degrees in Miami, simplybecause we have a lot of
(31:06):
mitigating factors that a lot ofother areas don't have.
So I don't worry about us longterm.
And again, in the short term,there's always something going
on, there's always someonecoming here.
Miami hits so far above itsweight internationally that
locally I'm really not worried,and Florida as a whole the same
thing.
The peninsula is hot.
(31:27):
There's always room forredevelopment or development in
different areas and smarterdevelopment.
So I don't see it ending.
There's always talk and I thinksome of it is wishful thinking
in the sense that if the marketwere to stall or go down, it
creates opportunities.
So to some extent people it's aself-fulfilling prophecy.
(31:47):
People want to see interestrates drop and the markets to
crash and real estate to havetrouble so they can buy it.
But if there's enough of thatmoney waiting on the sidelines,
it's not going to go down thatfar In the end of the 2000s.
I'll tell you a really quickstory.
So on the Miami beach again,everything was crashing all over
the place in the 2008, the skywas falling and we had a client
(32:11):
that had a couple of units inSouth Point and they were
talking to the lender abouttrying to do a forbearance or
some sort of abatement of theirpayments or maybe even a
reduction of their loan.
The bank did an appraisal andthis was absolutely at the worst
of it and they came back andsaid no, we're not going to
agree to that, because from ourappraisals the value of the
(32:34):
properties have just stabilized.
They're not going up.
Agree to that, because from ourappraisals, the value of the
properties have just stabilized,they're not going up at the
moment, but they've stabilized.
So we're comfortable with thefact that if we have to
foreclose we'll get the valueout of these units.
And that was at the absoluteworst part.
So you know I'm not necessarilyworried.
But again you will see.
If you're seeing the marketstarting to change, you'll see
(32:54):
people asking for forbearanceswith loans.
You'll see foreclosures pick up.
You'll see workouts happeningwith lenders and they'll try to
work it out for a couple ofyears just to see if the market
shifts and they can sell theproperty or recapitalize it.
And then, if that doesn't workout, then you'll see some action
.
But again, when everybody elseis screaming, oh, the sky is
(33:19):
falling and the rest of thecountry is having trouble, Miami
probably already is back in itsrecovery.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Great, we're lucky.
We're in a great space, RubenComing from the Midwest to play
in the sunshine.
We both made good choices.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I'm very, very happy,especially with the cafecito and
the very cigar friendlyenvironment down here.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
So that's, right.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You know that's right , lou.
Thank you so very much.
Appreciate it being here on theCRE Cafecito CCIM Miami
District podcast.
Thank you, and to Sol Ewing,for being our sponsors today as
well and sponsoring this time,and it sounds like you not only
help CCI in Miami, but you'rehelping a lot of different
(34:02):
associations and a lot of people.
So keep doing what you're doingand thank you for being such a
great pillar of the CREcommunity here in South Florida
and abroad.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So absolutely Ruben.
Thank you so much and Iappreciate the Thank you so much
.
I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Thank you very much.
We'll be, I'm sure, seeing youaround each other soon.
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