Rob Rubano of Cushman & Wakefield joins Mordecai Rosenberg on the Origination Podcast for a lively discussion ranging from Rob’s soccer stint in the Olympic Development Program, selling products as a mechanical engineer, acting in Los Angeles, and commercial real estate. Mordecai digs into Rob’s experiences on the advisory side and what keeps bringing clients back, as well as current capital markets trends. Please enjoy this initial episode celebrating the new partnership between Greystone and Cushman & Wakefield.
Timestamps:
2:00-8:00 Early Sales Experience
8:00-14:00 Relationships in Real Estate, Adding Value
14:00-22:00 Lessons as a Kid, Facing Rejection
22:00 - 38:00 The Current Business, Setting Yourself Apart
38:00 -40:00 Importance of Transparency
40:00 -44:00 How to be a Good Lending Partner
45:00-53:00 How to Handle Multiple Larger Financial Institutions
53:00 -56:00 Trends and Changes in the Last 20 Years
lenders, market, people, loan, client, equity, selling, deals, screen protectors, year, calls, rates, business, borrower, easy, long, sales, chase, interest rates, debt
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mordecai Rosenberg (00:14):
Hey, it's Mordecai. Welcome back to the
Origination podcast where wespeak to the top originators and
salespeople in the multifamilyand commercial real estate
industries to try to understandwhat separates the top
performers from the rest of thepacks. On this episode, I'll be
speaking with Rob Rubano. Rob isthe vice chairman in the Los
(00:36):
Angeles office of Cushman andWakefield. As you may have seen
at the end of last yearGreystone and Cushman formed a
partnership. And I'm reallyexcited to have Rob on the show.
He's the first person that I'mhaving from Cushman and I'm
excited about all the othertalented salespeople be able to
(00:57):
access for our podcastlisteners. Rob has been
responsible for financingtransactions to more than 70
billion, that's billion with aB. How does someone accomplish
such staggering numbers? Well,let's find out. So, without
(01:18):
further ado, let's talk to Rob.
Rob Rubano, welcome to theorigination podcast. It's a
delight to have you.
Rob Rubano (01:29):
Thanks, Mordecai.
It's great to be here.
Mordecai Rosenberg (01:32):
All right.
Well, Rob, I'm really excitedabout this episode, because we
recently announced the jointventure, the acquisition by
Cushman of 40% interest inGreystone and so there's a lot
of exciting partnershipshappening. And you're the first
Cushman guy that I've had on theon the podcast, I'm really
excited about it. So thank youfor for inaugurating.
Rob Rubano (01:56):
Well, I'm honored and looking forward to our
conversation today. And yeah,there's a lot of excitement
around the new partnership, Ithink, clearly a lot of energies
to be captured between theplatforms. So there are a lot of
reasons to be to be excitedabout it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (02:13):
That's right. But this episode is about
you, Rob. So let's talk aboutyou. Alright. So I'll start the
way I usually start, which is toask you, if you think back to
your earliest sales experience,and maybe it's when you were in
(02:33):
grade school, or high school,college, maybe after college,
but what come what comes to mindas far as early sales
experience?
Rob Rubano (02:42):
Yeah, sure. It's such an interesting question.
You know, I think when we thinkabout sales, the mind
immediately goes to sellingproducts, selling services. And
the reality is, we're allselling, you know, selling
everyday, you're sellingyourself. And so, yeah, I mean,
I think back to when I wasyoung, probably maybe a little
(03:02):
bit counterintuitive, but itreally probably revolves around
sports. I was a soccer player,that was my passion growing up,
and I played competitively froma young age. Now remember, you
know, it's probably going backto like, 12 13, 14 years old, at
that time, there was somethingcalled the Olympic Development
Program, ODP, for short, and ODPwas kind of the training ground
(03:25):
to go through to get into whatthey call the national pool to
make the national team andplaying in the Olympics and all
that stuff that. To get intothat Olympic development
program, you know, its meritbased, right. It's based on
ability and skill set. And onceyou get into it you have a lot
of guys, a lot of kids, a lot ofwhat's going on what age you are
around the country there, by andlarge at a similar level, right?
(03:50):
So then there's more of apolitical component to it, if
you will. And I remember beingvery cognizant of that from a
very young age, because it wassomething that I viewed as just
advantageous for me. I didn'thave older siblings that have
gone through, you know, you'remeeting a bunch of coaches, you
don't know, but other kids, youknow, have had interaction or
(04:10):
dealings with it, whether it wasthem or their parents with a lot
of nepotism, that sort of thing.
So, always remember, you know,I've vivid memories of being
that young and always thinkingabout how to sell myself, or how
to differentiate myself when youhave all these other players.
The other kids are bigger thanus, some are faster, but by and
large, everyone has a prettysimilar ability. So, you know,
you're off the field. And Iremember taking every advantage
(04:34):
to try to show the tangible,right, whether it's leadership,
work ethic, whatever I can do tokind of sell myself and that's
probably kind of the first thingthat comes to mind, and, you
know, it was certainly within acompetitive environment. I think
I've always benefited from thatcompetitive perspective when it
(04:55):
comes to selling--whether you'reselling products or services,
you are selling yourself. Nowmore conventionally I think
then, you know, my first realjob probably fast forwards to
17-18 years old. I rememberworking at a local mall, the
County 8, it was a teen store, Idon't know if it's still around.
(05:15):
Because, you know, it's justlike selling jeans. And, you
know, I wasn't particularly goodat it. I certainly wasn't
passionate about it, but I wascomfortable doing it right.
Sales is about connection topeople. Right. And so that was
something that's always beenfairly comfortable for me, you
know, just meeting new peopleand finding ways to create
conversation and find commonground and connection. So those
(05:38):
are probably kind of my my earlymemories when it comes to
thinking about selling.
Mordecai Rosenberg (05:46):
Yeah, really interesting. So I totally get,
you know, with the soccertryouts that feeling of could be
hundreds of kids there. And atthe end of the day, how much
real time do the coaches get tosee you play? Right. And so what
did you do, as far as otherthings that you tried to do to
(06:09):
distinguish yourself? What weresome of those things?
Rob Rubano (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, you try to find time, right, when
you're off the field. It's onething when you're on the field,
and you're playing inscrimmages, and they have you
doing drills, but it's a wholeother thing. The day when you're
in the ODP camp, you're spendingthe majority of time actually
off the field, right. So you'rewith coaches, whether it's in
meetings, whether it's in thecafeteria, having lunch, or
dinner, right, and I justremember, I mean, I found time
(06:34):
to get face time, right, andkind of be a little bit
methodical about findingopportunities to communicate
things that I wanted to comeacross. I remember doing that
from very, very early age. Iguess I was maybe a bit
strategic. I think back, I don'tknow that I was so conscious or
aware of it at the time, but itwas kind of one of those things
(06:57):
that it grew, Mordecai, out ofnecessity, right? I felt like I
was at a disadvantage. And mymind was kind of, how do I try
to even the playing field orwhatever. At the end of the day,
it worked out and then went on,and played in college, but, you
know, it was just a good lifelesson, I think. Right? You
know, I grew up in Pittsburgh,my parents were both born in
(07:21):
other countries, and I'm a firstgeneration American now. And
there was not a lot handed to mysister and I kind of growing up.
So, you know, for me, it wasalways that feeling of needing
to sell myself. I have memoriesof that from a very young age.
Mordecai Rosenberg (07:39):
Yeah. It's interesting to think about what
it means to be off the field,you know, those things that
let's say, in our business,right, where your people know
what the sale looks like, right?
When you're in front of theclient presenting, and maybe
it's the email to the client,but it's interesting to think
(08:03):
about the things that are offthe field, so to speak, right,
that the client may be payingattention to.
Rob Rubano (08:12):
Well, I mean, think about it, right? I mean,
especially in real estate. Realestate is such a relationship
business, right? And there's alot of relationship businesses
out there, but real estate asmuch as any. And you tend to do
business with people you like,right, with people you find
connection with, with people youfind common ground with. So, I
would actually argue that a lotof our business, right, like we
(08:34):
all perform at a very highlevel. Right. So there's
certainly skill set involved.
But at the end of the day,assuming you have the right
people around you, and you havethe skill set, which it's a
competitive industry, right,from top to bottom, then the
ability to kind of findinterpersonal connection, I
(08:55):
think is key. It's the key tosuccess to have longevity in our
business. Yeah, especially kindof, with what I do, you know, a
little bit more specific on onthe institutional side. That's
really kind of a foundationalelement to have--a longer term
spirit, they can build a realbusiness.
Mordecai Rosenberg (09:15):
Yeah, I remember a number of years ago,
probably going back at least 10years, but I was chasing a large
tax exempt bond. It was like $60million of bonds, which was a
big deal. And I became friendlywith the secretary. Right. And
(09:39):
so I'd always talk to her andask her how her weekend was, and
I established a very goodrapport. I was just kind of
nice. And then I would talk tothe sponsor, and I had a good
conversation with them. Well,unbeknownst to me, the Secretary
was actually the sponsor's wife.
And so when it came down to themmaking a decision on who to
(10:07):
choose, you know, David, thesponsor says, well, you know, my
wife said, "You got to go withMordecai. He's just so nice and
kind." Right. And that's it. Sothat's an interesting example of
like that off the field.
behavior. Yeah, you just neverknow what has an impact.
Rob Rubano (10:30):
For sure. Look at your combination of factors,
right? I mean, at the end of theday, you got to add value,
right, you add value to yourclients, whether you're selling
services products, you know,working purely in an advisory
capacity. So that's where it allstarts, right? Like, how do I
add value? How do I help myclient make more money? How do I
help them make strategicdecisions that are gonna be
(10:50):
advantageous to growing theirbusiness? Right, and there's a
lot of obvious fundamentals,build the foundation, but at the
end of the day, I don't know,I've always found that generally
speaking in an all SQLsituation, people gravitate
towards business with peoplethat they find connection with,
common ground, want to spendtime with, and obviously have
(11:13):
trust and confidence.
Mordecai Rosenberg (11:15):
Yeah. That's really great. Really interesting
insight. So as far as your pathto commercial real estate. What
did that look like? Did youstart going out of school? Or
how did you get--
Rob Rubano (11:33):
Yeah, yeah. So I went to college, undergrad, back
east, and I actually have anengineering degree, undergrad. I
have a mechanical engineeringdegree. So it was somewhat of a
circuitous path. So afterschool, I worked as an engineer,
I was in DC. And there's a salesjob, actually, I worked for a
company called the TexacoLubricants company. And I sold
(11:54):
products, lubricant products tomanufacturing facilities, steel
mill, and an automotivemanufacturer, right. It was
these products they would usefor their equipment. So it was a
sales job. So I started thesales route, it was cool. I did
that for a few years. But I'vealways had a varying amount of
(12:16):
interests, pretty diverseinterests. So I moved, I wanted
to get out to the West Coast.
And I moved out to LA, basicallyin 1999 -2000. I left the
strobe. I knew I didn't want tostay in engineering and in
(12:38):
sales, in that capacity. I didsome other things, I kind of did
the entertainment thing forabout three, almost four years.
On the acting side. Yeah, Istudied a lot of theater as well
in school, in addition toplaying soccer. So I did some
theater, actually, when I was inDC, and then decided to kind of
(12:58):
make a go of it and came to therealization after about three
years, I wasn't very good, norwas I very passionate about it.
I had a little bit of a selfreflection period. Do I really
want to foil around for the next10 years trying to figure out if
it's something that a lot, and Imade, probably the most
important decision in my kind ofmid to late 20s, which was to go
(13:25):
back to school. And so I endedup going back to the Anderson
School at UCLA. And that was theconduit for me to go to
commercial real estate. So aconcentration in finance, in
real estate. And then afterAnderson I spent a little over a
year actually working for ahomebuilder. I was buying lambs,
(13:48):
what's called land acquisitionin that in that business, and
then I really transitioned intofinance side in 2005 to a
company, which was then calledSecured Capital, which was
acquired by Eastville-- becameEastville Security and I was
there for a long time beforemoving to Cushman about three
(14:10):
years ago. The last 17 yearsI've been just focused on
commercial real estate.
Mordecai Rosenberg (14:18):
Yeah. So the acting stint is interesting. So
was that a dream that you had asa kid, to take up acting?
Rob Rubano (14:29):
No, not really. I didn't grow up around the
theater. My parents didn'treally take me to the theater.
No, didn't really have much in acreative based family. I was
actually in college, you know,as playing soccer and taking
engineering classes, and I wasdating a girl from my sophomore
year, and she really knew shewanted to get this particular
(14:54):
class. And I was like, I don'treally have a lot of interest
and she kept pushing me sofinally we we both ended up
signing up to take this class.
And it was really shielded, I'mnot getting in the class, I
guess it was a fairlyoversubscribed class, and I
ended up getting into it. Justbecause I played soccer, we had
(15:15):
kind of preferential scheduling,because we have to schedule
around practices and games, etc.
So I have taken the class andactually loved it. And I found
that I actually had someaptitude for it, according to
some of the teachers that I hadat school. And so that was kind
of what launched a desire, ifyou will, in that I did, like I
(15:40):
said, I did some theater and youtalk about, you know, talking
about sales, talking aboutselling yourself and Mordecai,
no, when I think back on it, itwas actually an extremely
important stepping stone for me,right. As an actor, you know,
it's all about rejection, right?
I mean, you are your owncorporation, right? It was Rob
(16:00):
Incorporated. And you're workingon your craft, obviously, and
your instrument, everything fromyour voice. And, you know, you
doesn't matter who you are, youstart to develop a thick skin,
you have to, right, to survive,to have perseverance, I think in
(16:20):
that business. And I learned alot about myself, and it was
something that I would notchange in a million years. It
was a short part of my life, buta really significant learning
experience, from a personalperspective. And I think I
benefited from it, right, fromeverything from public speaking,
(16:45):
when I'm speaking to largegroups to just the confidence,
right, that when you're sellingservices, advisory services or
products, having an underlyingconfidence in what you're doing,
I think always is an importantingredient for success. Right.
You know, people want to believethat you have command over what
(17:08):
it is you're selling. And sothat was actually them. It
sounds silly, but it was animportant part of my evolution,
I think, ultimately, inbusiness, and on a personal
level.
Mordecai Rosenberg (17:20):
Yeah, I could see a couple of things
coming out of that, first, theidea of being all about
yourself, right and getting usedto rejection, you're acting in
some ways. I've never thoughtabout this, but really it's the
ultimate accountability. Right?
You know, if I'm selling aproduct, I can always blame
something else. I can blame thatoh, yeah, look at my product,
(17:43):
you know, the product isn'tgreat. What do you want me to
do? Or maybe my underwritermessed up. But if you're acting,
and you're on stage, trying out,it's just you. Right? And
sometimes they're going to sayno, right? So you have to
develop that idea of well,that's okay. And it may not be
(18:04):
the right fit, but it doesn'tmean that I am a bad actor or
salesperson. Right? That it justwasn't right. It just may not
have been the right fit.
Rob Rubano (18:18):
There's a business side to it as well, right, as an
actor, especially when you'restarting out, you're trying to
build a career, right? I thinkthere's the ability to kind of
strategically createopportunities for yourself. So I
was actually really good at thebusiness side of it. I worked
for a casting director over thattime, one of the most prominent
(18:40):
film casting directors inHollywood, and that created
opportunities. I got a couple ofsmall TV things from that. But I
actually had some fairlysignificant opportunities. I
just wasn't good enough. Right.
That's the bottom line. I justwasn't, I really wasn't. I mean,
I was very candid with myself,in terms of self reflection, and
having self awareness, whichultimately was the driver for me
(19:02):
to make the decision quitequickly, right, after only a few
years. Maybe I can hone my craftand get a lot better, which I
had full confidence that I coulddo if I committed to it for long
enough. But I had no idea howlong that would take. That would
take two years or 10 years. AndI wasn't willing to make that
(19:26):
bet. Right. I wasn't willing totake that risk. But I have a
significant amount of admirationfor for those who succeed in
that business because it istough. It's not easy. I mean,
yeah, commercial real estate acakewalk comparison.
Mordecai Rosenberg (19:45):
Yeah, I get that. Another thing that I think
is interesting about acting isthat, look, people are very
attracted to confidence. Youknow, and you don't always feel
confident. Right? But sometimesyou have to fake it right? Which
(20:07):
is not to say that you have to,if you don't know something,
it's okay to say that you don'tknow. But you still have to come
in and appear confident. Iremember when I was dating--I'm
married a second time now andone practice, and then I got it
got it right. But I rememberwhen I was dating my now wife,
(20:29):
that lots of times, I wouldn'tfeel confident and I would ask
myself like, well, what wouldClint Eastwood do? Yeah. And
just try to act. And so I wouldkind of act confident and
eventually, if you act that way,you start to feel that way. Does
that resonate? As far as likeyour sales experience also?
Rob Rubano (20:49):
Maybe early on, like, really kind of early, I
think, oh, for me, as Ideveloped my career, right, in
turn to really advance it, itbecomes equally important, well,
probably more important toultimately have mastery over
what you're doing. Right. Imean, sure, operate at a high
(21:10):
level again, today, like I said,the real single most important
thing, in our business is addingvalue. Right, is being an
advisor. Right? And that'sultimately what people pay you
fees to do in our business. Soyes, I think when you're, you
know, when you're meeting withpeople for the first time, or
transacting on them on, youknow, you're talking about
(21:31):
obviously, significantinvestments, oftentimes with
with very tight timelines. Yeah,I mean, exuding confidence that
you have the ability to executeand advise them, to help them be
successful is key, but you gotto back it up. Right, you have
to be right back it up time andtime again. So you know, which
(21:53):
one's more important, theprobably equally important, but
I think, over over time, havereal longevity, you know, the
ability to execute and, youknow, having the skill set
necessary. Probably trumps it,but yeah, I mean, I think
confidence is not I mean, ittranscends sales, or, you know,
(22:15):
just, I think, confidence ingeneral, there's, you know,
people are attracted to those tohave an air of confidence about,
right, because it makes themfeel, you know, we're kind of
more secure that they're ingrants.
Mordecai Rosenberg (22:27):
Right. So, right. Yeah. So, let's talk
about your current business,because I think in some ways,
there are similarities to tryingout for that soccer team. Right.
And that, you know, there's lotsof so you are a an advisor,
(22:48):
right to owners of real estate,across all asset classes. So
multifamily office, industrialretail. So, when you're sitting
down with an institutionalclient, right, and they say,
Well, look, there's two dozenadvisors that we have access to,
(23:13):
what do you do differently fromanyone else? What do you say?
Rob Rubano (23:19):
Yeah, I think first of all, we're in the advisory
side, right, whether you'reselling assets, or financing
assets, like I am, or sellingloans on the secondary market.
Number one, we're in the datapoint this, right, so, you know,
access to understanding what,what are the most aggressive
(23:41):
terms out there that are gettingdone? You know, that there's the
first part, which is the abilityfrom a structural perspective,
just to understand, I tend tofocus on larger stuff, right. So
we do a lot of single asset willborrower securitization
portfolios in large singleassets. Right. So there's a
(24:03):
whole kind of formulaic part tobeing able to understand how to
size those fields, right, from,you know, tranche them out and
backlog for all the bond levelsare trading better, right? So
there's that component, but ifyou take a step back from that,
right, at the end of the day,having access and an
understanding of data pointsthat are in the market, so it's
(24:26):
almost like a self fulfillingprophecy right, once you have
created more flow, right, andyou have billions of dollars in
the market at any one giventime, like we are fortunate to
have, it helps, right, becauseyou have such an understanding
of exactly where the market isat any given time for different
(24:46):
types of profiles, right, thatcan be for a transitional office
building that maybe someone justconverted to a more creative
office and they're at least upto a hotel that's coming up out
of COVID. Maybe it's still kindof a more urban CBD type of
convention type hotel to, youknow, a stabilized multifamily.
(25:10):
Right. And so I think that's onekey differentiator, right,
because, you know, not everybodyhas access to the same amount of
data, that's current real timein the market. And then I think
the other the other thing forme, when I made the move over to
Cushman, right, the thing I wasmost focused on was building the
(25:34):
team around me. Right, and, youknow, making sure that the team
I felt have, you know, thenecessary skill set to traffic
and what it is we, we specializein, be focused on, right. So,
um, I think those are alldifferentiators. Right? You
know, you guys on my team? Youknow, they all pretty much most
most books, most come frominvestment banks, right, not
(25:56):
from traditional brokerageworld. And so, yeah, I think
it's, I think it's a combinationof factors with how you try to
differentiate yourself. Andthen, you know, obviously, the
platform that you work with himis is obviously a component of
that as well. Right. And, youknow, for, for me, the vast
majority of our business,repetitive clients, right at the
(26:18):
clients, we transact on anongoing basis. And so for us,
every deal is about 30 ofexecution, right, every deal
about performing for thatclient, right, in the day, you
know, you're kind of the old andyou're only finished your last
deal, right? There's truth.
Right? I think that becomesultimately a differentiator,
(26:41):
right? When you have, you know,the ability to consistently
transact, you're in you're out,transact with larger
institutional clients, that inof itself becomes a
differentiator. Right. So Ithink, right, we kind of break
it down. fFr me, I always kindof go back to things question,
(27:01):
which is, you know, how do youadd value for this client? And I
think, I think if you can dothat on a consistent basis, then
you, you know, you could havesuccesses starting to build a
bigger?
Mordecai Rosenberg (27:16):
Yeah. So let's say, we asked one of your
clients, right, why do you keepon going back to Rob, right,
like, what do you like, what,what does Rob do? Like, what's
his special sauce? Right, thatkeeps you coming back? And not
(27:39):
in terms of trade secrets, butwhat I find is that really all
salespeople have anyone in thesales industry, they've got
their own unique way of goingabout it. Sometimes they don't
even realize it, but anythingcome to mind as far as like,
because your book of business istremendous, you know, you've
(28:02):
done 10s of billions of dollarsof transactions, which not a lot
of people can say, so there'sgot to be some magic there.
Rob Rubano (28:12):
And I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, honestly,
it's not. Right. I mean, I thinkwhen you're kind of working
within the world we're working,you know, candor, right, is
everything. The ability to beable to advise clients. I mean,
they're making big decisions,right. They're, oftentimes
making significant acquisitions.
Right. And they have tounderwrite, that was a big part
(28:35):
of ultimately realizing theirreturn profiles, and they have a
certain amount of diligence timebefore they have to make big
decisions going on or fundableon, sometimes hundreds of
millions of dollars. Right. So,you know, it's not about at that
point selling, it's aboutunderstanding, what is the most
efficient way for them to meettheir objectives? Right, and how
(28:58):
to execute? And then ultimately,you have to deliver on that.
Right. So that's the first thingfirst and foremost, and then
once you're going through theprocess of transacting, we try
to take it to another level interms of communication with
clients. Right. And, you know,it's a significant amount of
(29:20):
communication, collaboration.
Always having the climate isdifferent clients are different
borrowers act differently interms of how involved they want
to be in the process, so thatthere's some variability or
range there. But I think mostclients, for the most part, like
to be well informed. Right? Andso we tend to be pretty hands on
(29:42):
with bias. And then I think atthe end of the day, it's just
again, it's having the team inplace that has the ability to
execute on a consistent basis atthat high level. So I think all
those are all ingredients thatmake up the special sauce for us
that you're talking about.
Mordecai Rosenberg (30:03):
Yeah, so I'm gonna just like dig in a little
bit more, if you don't mind. So,let's say, you know, if
someone's in the industry, let'ssay they're at a, you know, an
Eastville or CBRE or JLL, likeus. So there's a presumption
(30:23):
that if they're doing businessthat they know the market,
right, so they have data. Right?
So how do you get that firstshot? Right? If they say, look,
we've been closing with thisother firm, like, we've had a
good experience, so thanks, butclearly you're making inroads.
So how do you get that firstbite of the apple?
Rob Rubano (30:47):
I mean, look, I think the reality is it can come
in a number of different ways,number of different forms.
Right? I have the advantage ofworking within a platform that
has a number of differentbusiness lines, that many of our
clients access, right, whetherit's hiring us for all assets,
hiring us to properly managetheir assets, hiring us to lease
(31:09):
their asset, hiring us to doconstruction services on their
assets, hiring us to value theirassets with appraisals. Right.
So oftentimes, there's multipletouch points, you need to be
strategic about how to accessthose. So sometimes it's a new
client, our ability to accessthat client originally came from
(31:31):
another touchpoint within thefirm, right, and oftentimes,
we're pretty strategic about howwe access those other touch
points, right? There's thatcomponent of it, and as you
know, that goes hand in handwith a sales platform, right,
obviously, you know, in yourlending business, on the
multifamily side, right. So,when we're selling assets, a big
(31:53):
part of our job is to make surethat we're helping our sales
team ultimately deliver to theirclient, which their job is to
sell at the highest price,right? So that is oftentimes a
key component of maximizingvalue, right? So we play a
significant role in helping todrive maximum value when assets
(32:16):
are being sold. And that'sobviously an inroad into buyers,
right. So sometimes newborrowers, clients of ours come
from the fact that we sold themassets. Other times, we're
fortunate that we have a fairamount of inbound inquiries, a
lot of that is based off oftransactions that we've had in
the market. I'll give you anexample. We recently did a
(32:40):
fairly complicated portfoliofinancing for what I would call
an outdoor lodging brand, a kindof a rising company within kind
of the the outdoor lodgingspace, and that kind of outdoor
destination now seems to besomething with significant
(33:02):
interest, both equity and on thedebt side as well. And because
we transacted on that, we haveanother sponsor that come to us
with another kind of floorbusiness plan, although
different, more entertainmentoriented destination, real
estate, and got engaged to workon their behalf. Right. So I
(33:25):
don't, and then there's othertimes where it's just business
that we pursue, right, and we,you know, we knock on doors,
and, you know, we, you know, wework ourselves to create an
opportunity to get in and pitchbusiness, right. So it can come
from any one of those avenues. Ithink the key is, you have to be
good at all. Right. You know,and you have to pursue all of
(33:49):
them. I mean, you know, that yougot to work but I think maybe
you said like what ultimately,you know, the key to success. In
most businesses, a lot of itrevolves around work ethic and
hustle, right? I mean, I couldpossibly since I was six years
old. And so if you try to do itstrategically, you try to use
(34:13):
your time wisely in the time ofyour team. I mean, fortunately,
for all of us, for many of us,within the sector right now,
just given where capital flowsare and how much capital is
looking to be deployed bothequity and debt. You know,
there's enough to go around, anda lot of people continue to be
quite busy. Going back into2022.
Mordecai Rosenberg (34:37):
Yet, so you make a good point about the
source of transactions. Yeah.
And it dawns on me that youreally have a number of
different clients that you'remanaging, right? Because you're
on the one end, you have theowner, right, who's the
borrower. You also have thelender, and you have to interact
(34:59):
with them. And I'd like to gointo that in a couple of
minutes. And then the third oneis you have your internal
potential your internalsalesperson. And in some ways,
like the internal broker, orsalesperson, that person in some
ways can be the toughest client,because they're now going out on
(35:19):
a limb, right? Because let'ssay, if they're representing the
sale of an asset, right, thatthey can control. But as soon as
they let someone else into thetent, and now if you're not able
to come through for the buyer,now they're gonna blame you for
not being able to close on time.
(35:41):
Right? So there's exposure. Sohow easy is it to kind of build
trust? How do you do that? Howdo you build trust internally
and get them to take that risk?
Rob Rubano (35:48):
You're absolutely right. You do it by executing,
right? By performing. Right. Andso, you know, early in my career
there, without question, there'sthat trust building. I mean,
oftentimes, you have investmentskills, folks who are working on
behalf of very importantclients, they transact with a
lot. And what I said, you'reonly as good as your last deal,
(36:10):
right. So that component iscritically important. And so,
fortunately, kind of hopefullypast that point in my career,
but I've been through it, right,where, you know, you build that
trust over time by executing,and ultimately adding value,
right, you ultimately add valueto your colleague, by helping
(36:30):
them add value to their clients.
Right. Yeah. So again, it goesback to that kind of initial
comment that I had, where Ithink at the end of the day,
when you're in sales or advisorybusiness, it's about adding
value. And, I think that's apretty good core tenet to start
from. And you're absolutelyright. And so you know, you do
that by transaction. I mean,that's really, to me, the only
way to build trust, you have todo it by performing, right, by
(36:53):
executing and performing, andthen the truck kind of builds on
its own.
Mordecai Rosenberg (36:59):
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think at the end
of the day everyone wants to bea hero to their client. Right.
And what I have realized is thatwhen you think about what it
means to be a hero, like whoyour heroes have been in your
life, or who you've been a heroto it, often times, it comes
(37:20):
down to clarity and confidence.
And you might have had a coachin high school or younger, where
maybe you had a winning season,but maybe you guys had a losing
season. But the coach gave youthe confidence, he showed you
(37:40):
something about how to thinkabout your game, and so, for
you, I would imagine that theway for you to be a hero to the
broker, is to enable them to bea hero to their client, right.
So probably a lot of justconfidence is from your ability
to execute. And then clarityprobably comes from that
(38:01):
communication that you talkedabout, and just really keeping
them informed. And to understandif there it looks, nothing is
without its risks. But if you'reclear about it, I think that's
what people want.
Rob Rubano (38:13):
Yeah, transparency is obviously always critically
important. Right. Andtransparency helps build trust.
And I think in this business, somuch of it is interpersonal
relationship driven and trustdriven, right. So, I think one
(38:34):
of the reasons we've beensuccessful kind of building our
platform has been this inherentfundamental philosophy, that
revolves around collaboration,right, that revolves around
working as a team, right? So youknow, I think you think about a
platform, like a Cushman, or aJLL, or Newmark, whatever it may
be, at the end of the dayclients want the power of the
(38:59):
platform, right? So even ifyou're selling or you're hiring
someone to sell a small, youknow, multifamily building in
Phoenix or something like that,right, you know, or maybe, maybe
it's maybe it's not small, butyou want the power of knowing
that not only are you going tohave the expertise of a local
(39:19):
salesperson, specializes in thatmarket. But because, look I
mean, global capital isinterconnected, right, and it's
global in nature, right? So, youwant to know that you have
access to that whole national orsometimes on certain deals,
global platform, and that comesfrom knowing that you're working
(39:42):
with an advisor, thatfundamentally works in
collaboration, right. And, youknow, we spend a lot of time
kind of building that. And I dothink in today's world, in
today's environment, today'smarket, it's almost essential,
right? It's difficult to grow abusiness, appreciable scale
(40:03):
without without having that realphilosophy to get that way in
which you do it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (40:09):
Yeah. Makes a ton of sense. So the other
category of clients that youhave are partners, right? Are
your lenders, right? You'regoing out to a number of a lot
of different lenders, what doesit take to be a good lending
partner to you? I'm sure there'ssome lenders that you probably
(40:29):
keep coming back to, and thereare probably others who you
tried once, and then we'll nevergo back to them again. So what
does it mean to be a goodlending partner to you guys?
Rob Rubano (40:38):
I think for us, it starts with a transparent
process. Right, it's certainlyof execution is so key in our
business, that it's difficult toadvise a client to select a
lender, maybe it's a lender,maybe we worked in the past, we
haven't, but if we don't reallyhave a good understanding of
(41:00):
their process, right, whetherit's an approval process, their
committee process, theirdiligence process, how they are
working documentation, all thosethings are really critical,
right? So, the lenders that wetend to transact with the most
obviously have to becompetitive, different types of
(41:23):
lenders have different types ofcapital, but just speaking in
broad generalities here are theones who have a transparent
process to what they say they'regoing to do. I mean, there's
always, depending on the type oftransaction that there's always
market risk on certain types ofexecutions, etc, you can kind of
(41:46):
box some of that stuff in, butreally a fundamental
understanding that when you moveforward with them, barring
something from a unforeseenchange perspective, they're
going to execute, right, it'sgoing to be similar to how to do
look when you sign it up, orwhen under contract, right. So,
fortunately, for us, when we doso much, when you're doing it
almost 10 billion last years,you're doing that much, we have
(42:08):
a lot of transaction historywith most lenders that are out
there, and it but it's true. Imean, they're there, there's no
question, right, especially in acompetitive environment like
this one, you know, when you'resitting down with borrowers
doing bid sheets that may havefour or 510, well, of lenders,
you know, our view on 30 ofexecution with those various
vendors is an importantcomponent of the selection
(42:30):
process, right? It's not justabout economics. It's not even
necessarily just aboutstructure, right? It's all about
if you execute.
Mordecai Rosenberg (42:38):
Yeah, they have to get their deal closed.
So you make sure that someone'sat the finish line when you get
there. That's the transparency.
What about, let's say, theclient experience in terms of,
well, there's a couple of partsthere. Right. So let's say, as
far as how to speed factor in.
(43:02):
If someone is getting you aquote more quickly, how much
does speed play a role ifsomeone is getting you a term
sheet in 24 hours versus 48? Or72? Does that make a difference?
Rob Rubano (43:21):
Yeah, I think that's defined by the specific
transaction timeline. Right?
It's a very tight timeline. Andwe'll typically always have some
level of timeline that we putforth to a lender. And if it's a
transaction timeline, thengetting it on time is going to
be paramount. And the train willprobably leave the station
(43:44):
without you. Having said that, Ithink, if there's not that point
in time, a real materialthreshold as it relates to the
timeline. And critically, right,you want to create a market,
right? And the borrower's hireus create a market right to
build up and give them theability to have leverage to
(44:05):
negotiate ultimately, the besteconomics and the best terms. So
generally speaking, unless thetimeline takes it, I'd say it's
less impactful. Right.
Mordecai Rosenberg (44:22):
Yeah. That definitely does make a lot of
sense. Do customers come to youwho have direct relationships
with banks, will they still cometo you just to kind of keep them
honest and make sure thatthey're that? Yeah, because how
many banks? Can you really keepa handle on as just a developer?
Rob Rubano (44:48):
Great question.
Yeah. I mean, just by nature ofkind of where our businesses
focus with kind of largerinstitutional clients. The
reality is, many of our clients,not only do they have a direct
lending relationships, theyoftentimes have people
internally that manage thoserelationships and oversee the
placement of tech on theirportfolio of assets. Right. So
(45:09):
and I think that actually speaksto the value that we add as an
advisor. Right? Because weweren't often hand in hand with
those internal finance people,and then a long list of clients
that we work with day in and dayout that have people in that
role, I think that our abilityto number one, create a market,
(45:31):
right, which often times willinclude more than just a typical
table of existing relationshiplenders that one client may or
may not have, and that could bedictated by the type of
transaction it is timeline, etc.
And then, again, to having thatmarket just further increases
(45:52):
the ability to negotiate, right.
A lot of our Congress focused onnon economic stuff, right, we
kind of learned the absolutebest non economic structural
terms you can get in the market.
And the markets move fairlysignificantly along those lines.
And then sometimes, like,sometimes it was, you know, we
play the role of bad guy, right,where we're the ones kind of
doing the grinding. From alender perspective. I mean,
(46:15):
there's been times or times whenwe get hired, where, you know,
we're literally hired to managea process with a lender that's
already been selected. So theanswer is, yeah, I mean, I think
it's much more common than not,that our borrowers have
substantial lenderrelationships.
Mordecai Rosenberg (46:33):
Yeah, I remember, again, a number of
years ago, that a client of ourswas a partner with a very, very
large New York City baseddeveloper, and they had an
existing relationship with anational lender, and they did
(46:54):
10s of billions of dollars ofagency business with them. So,
you know, our client brought usin to compete and to get another
voice. And they wanted us tolook at FHA as an option. And
what we found was that, I mean,there's a lot of buildup in
terms of the rate but you get a,let's say, you get just one
number, that's the interestrate, but how much of it is
(47:18):
servicing, guarantee, investorspread? What we found was that
this lender, that was working inthis, we're talking about,
probably the top borrower, andone of their top borrowers in
the country, they were paddingit by like, 10 or 15 basis
points of additional servicingfee, which it was on a $450
million loan was was wasequivalent to about like $15
(47:42):
million in value. You know, sothey ended up not selecting us,
they ended up going with theirthe other lender, but yes,
seeing that they were able tonegotiate the price. Yeah, they
meet their lender, match thepricing. So, no matter how
intelligent someone thinks theyare, it's good to get a second
(48:07):
opinion, go to market and clearit, see what what reality is.
Rob Rubano (48:11):
Yeah, I mean, when you think about it, right, is
fiduciary, right? In anenvironment where there's so
much capital looking to bedeployed. It's almost difficult
to justify not really creating amarket, right? Because it is
such a competitive environment,right, whether you're financing
an asset or selling an asset. Soyeah, I don't have a question, I
(48:36):
totally agree with you.
Mordecai Rosenberg (48:37):
Yeah. How do you handle, you know, one of the
things that I focus on atGreystone through the G2 group
is portfolio retention. And,you know, we want to make sure
that when a client is paying offour loan, that they're going to
use us for the refinance, right?
Or if they're gonna sell theproperty, hopefully, now we can
(48:58):
bring Cushman capabilities toprovide sales capabilities. And
if they're looking for somethingthat's not an agency, that we
can leverage your team toprovide a product that we don't
have. But you mentioned thatyou're only as good as your last
deal. How do you think aboutjust staying in touch with a
(49:18):
client, right, so you close aloan with them? And how often do
you maybe it's a 10 year loan?
Right? But how do you thinkabout just staying in touch with
them? Do you have a schedule ofwell, you know, every client you
talk to on a quarterly basis, oryou try to get together with
(49:38):
periodically, like, is there anykind of system that you have for
that?
Rob Rubano (49:41):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, fortunately for us, right, the
majority of our clients arelarger institutional owners,
right. So, if they have astabilized office building and
they want a 10 year fixed ratedebt, and we put that loan on,
we're typically working withthem on other stuff, right? It's
(50:05):
not like a one trick pony, whereit's like, okay, let's put this
in my database with a calendarreminder to call them, you know,
for years to just check in, orhave you read a lot of generally
speaking, ongoing dialogue. Andwe certainly have that maturity
tracking tools that we use, notonly on deals that we've done,
but on other aspects, to knowwhere maturities are coming,
(50:29):
etc. But I think just generallyspeaking, again, because you
know, the end of the day, we'rein a relationship business, and
you're selling services, it'salways advantageous to be in
front of clients as regularly aspossible. Right. And so,
obviously, going through thispandemic period, where you're
(50:52):
not traveling as much you're notseeing face to face is probably
been challenging. But we havetools like that, like this, you
and I are on right now, or youcan pick up the phone. And so
yeah, I mean, I think almostany business, like ours is much
based on our ongoingcommunication you can have with
(51:14):
clients, because we're alwaystrying to share information,
right? Again, you don't justbecause a client has debt on an
app, it doesn't mature for 10years of me, and that client
doesn't know what's happening inthe market on an ongoing basis,
right, we have such incrediblevisibility into data points,
(51:35):
that it's a really unique perchthat we have, right, and it's
something that we don't take forgranted. And we're appreciative
of. And, you know, I think thatin of itself, from my
perspective, and my experience,is something that gives us the
(51:57):
ability to add value to clientson an ongoing basis, right,
everybody wants it, especiallywhen you're going through things
like COVID, and, or, you know,other other kind of macro
disruptions to the market,right, where, you know, it's
difficult to have visibility anddata points, etc. I mean, for us
now, I mean, I spent almost allmy time with clients talking
about, you know, inflation andinterest rates, because things
(52:18):
from a macro perspective, youknow, giving our view on, you
know, you know, everybody won't,you know, kind of think about
like, you know, with the Fedand, you know, dialing back to E
and you know, how they're goingto manage inflation, clearly
the, you know, the benchmarkrates are gonna move, what's
gonna happen to spreads, whatwill the indexes are gapping
(52:39):
out, you know, obviously, somuch of my time is spent, you
know, fundamentally, you know,advising or, you know,
discussing, talking about themarket from from a more of a
macro perspective on kind ofwhat our views are, is there
thinking ahead to throw inportfolio strategies, you know,
could be hedging strategies, youknow, etc.
Mordecai Rosenberg (53:00):
Yeah, that's great. So just a couple of last
questions before we. And becauseyou clear the market, I'm
curious--you see a lot of thetrends, like who is providing
the cap, who's providing thedebt, just looking at
multifamily? Because that's thearea that I know, if a lot of
(53:21):
the listeners are focused onmultifamily. Compared to, let's
say two years ago, what are youseeing, like, what are clients
looking for today compared totwo years ago?
Rob Rubano (53:38):
I think clearly the resonating theme of 2021 was
balance sheet that right, youknow, just given where Cap rates
are going in yields, cash flowprofiles, you know, it's been
much more difficult for theagents. That's carried forward
into 2022. Significant amountsof debt were floating around
(54:01):
balance sheets. Right. So, youknow, as yields have compressed,
fortunately, in a lot ofmarkets, it's been a couple of
bad performance at the assetlevel, right, was increasing
rents and property level on awide growth, which has obviously
been a huge positive. But thetrend the last two years, has
(54:25):
been the ability to try to stillget a level of appreciable
leverage by cap rates. Right.
And that's the flooding ratesslide has been much more
accommodative to that. From thebank perspective, they've been
able to be more accommodative byeffectively just compressing
their take out metrics, right.
(54:48):
So what was five to seven and ahalf percent exit that yield 12
months ago, is biasing to sixand a half percent takeout tend
to rise further. So they're notseeing as much leverage even
though cap rates are so, right,and then it's been really
(55:09):
beneficiary for your higheryielding, splitter, it honors ie
the desktops, right? To have theability to find comfort from a
credit perspective based moreon, you know, kind of propelling
metrics, right? What is myvalue? What does my loan basis
look like on a per key basis, inaddition to just your cash flow
(55:30):
metrics, right, so they've beenwilling to take a lower going in
that yield or cash flow profile,and they'll give adequate enough
leverage, or a buyer ofmultifamily to still be
competitive in a competitiveprocess, right, because, you
know, if you're in a good marketfor good multi, you know, you're
(55:51):
probably competing with somelevel with unlevered buyers, or
there's just, there's so muchcapital to be deployed. Right.
And you can talk about a lot ofthings from a macro perspective.
But at the end of the day,capital is maybe the most
significant thing to think aboutin our business, right? It's a
commercial real estate, right?
And global capital flows intointo the US. And so that in
(56:13):
itself, even as interest rates,if, as the benchmarks have
already been moving up, andwell, relative compressed, in
part, they haven't compressed asmuch as the indexes move down.
So coupons have gone up. And,you know, normally that would
mean that cap rates are gonna goup, right? But when you
counterbalance that, with anincredible amount of capital
(56:37):
looking to be deployed, vaccineshave downward pressure on going
in yields and cap rates back,they won't be seen. And that's
affected multi it's affectedindustrial part of those few
asset classes more than anyother. And thus, the trend that
we've seen has a lot of floatingrate balance sheet debt.
Mordecai Rosenberg (56:59):
Yeah. I think that's really an excellent
point that people would be goodto keep in mind or realize that
the run up in value inmultifamily. And in frankly, the
other asset classes, otherassets like the stock market.
Yes, the fundamentals arestrong. But this isn't just
(57:20):
about the fundamentals, right.
This is about capital. Right? Ifyou look at just the capital
that's being showered into theUS, it's got to find a home
somewhere.
Rob Rubano (57:32):
Just think about the non traded REIT vehicles, non
traded route vehicles, they'reraising significant amounts of
cash flow of capital, right on amonthly basis. Right. And then
you add leverage to thatcapital. Right. You know, just
just just that bucket level, ifit's false, it's significant. In
how it impacts the market,right? Yeah. Capital is king,
(57:56):
and there's plenty of it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (57:58):
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's also like what Ialways say that when multifamily
at least has gotten in trouble,at least for the last 20 years,
it's really never been about thefundamentals. It's not like
vacancy. You had situations inNew York City where vacancy
jumped in during COVID. But thepolicies were accommodating. In
(58:20):
general, when multifamily has aproblem it's because there's a
liquidity issue. It's becauseliquidity is being pulled from
the market. And whether or notit's the Russian ruble crisis,
or Lehman Brothers or the SNLcrisis, right? As a multifamily
investor, it's a goodinvestment, your risk is really
your loan maturity and you justhope that when your loan happens
(58:43):
to mature that you're not in oneof those moments where liquidity
isn't there. Rob, this has beenawesome. I really enjoyed the
conversation and some reallygreat insights for all the
listeners. So thank you for yourfor your time. And I think
people get a lot out of it. Sothank you.
Rob Rubano (59:02):
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Mordecai Rosenberg (59:04):
All right.
I'll talk to you soon. Thanks,Rob. Have a good one.
Hey, it's Mordecai. Welcome back to the
Origination podcast where wespeak to the top originators and
salespeople in the multifamilyand commercial real estate
industries to try to understandwhat separates the top
performers from the rest of thepacks. On this episode, I'll be
speaking with Rob Rubano. Rob isthe vice chairman in the Los
(00:36):
Angeles office of Cushman andWakefield. As you may have seen
at the end of last yearGreystone and Cushman formed a
partnership. And I'm reallyexcited to have Rob on the show.
He's the first person that I'mhaving from Cushman and I'm
excited about all the othertalented salespeople be able to
(00:57):
access for our podcastlisteners. Rob has been
responsible for financingtransactions to more than 70
billion, that's billion with aB. How does someone accomplish
such staggering numbers? Well,let's find out. So, without
(01:18):
further ado, let's talk to Rob.
Rob Rubano, welcome to theorigination podcast. It's a
delight to have you.
Rob Rubano (01:29):
Thanks, Mordecai.
It's great to be here.
Mordecai Rosenberg (01:32):
All right.
Well, Rob, I'm really excitedabout this episode, because we
recently announced the jointventure, the acquisition by
Cushman of 40% interest inGreystone and so there's a lot
of exciting partnershipshappening. And you're the first
Cushman guy that I've had on theon the podcast, I'm really
excited about it. So thank youfor for inaugurating.
Rob Rubano (01:56):
Well, I'm honored and looking forward to our
conversation today. And yeah,there's a lot of excitement
around the new partnership, Ithink, clearly a lot of energies
to be captured between theplatforms. So there are a lot of
reasons to be to be excitedabout it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (02:13):
That's right. But this episode is about
you, Rob. So let's talk aboutyou. Alright. So I'll start the
way I usually start, which is toask you, if you think back to
your earliest sales experience,and maybe it's when you were in
(02:33):
grade school, or high school,college, maybe after college,
but what come what comes to mindas far as early sales
experience?
Rob Rubano (02:42):
Yeah, sure. It's such an interesting question.
You know, I think when we thinkabout sales, the mind
immediately goes to sellingproducts, selling services. And
the reality is, we're allselling, you know, selling
everyday, you're sellingyourself. And so, yeah, I mean,
I think back to when I wasyoung, probably maybe a little
(03:02):
bit counterintuitive, but itreally probably revolves around
sports. I was a soccer player,that was my passion growing up,
and I played competitively froma young age. Now remember, you
know, it's probably going backto like, 12 13, 14 years old, at
that time, there was somethingcalled the Olympic Development
Program, ODP, for short, and ODPwas kind of the training ground
(03:25):
to go through to get into whatthey call the national pool to
make the national team andplaying in the Olympics and all
that stuff that. To get intothat Olympic development
program, you know, its meritbased, right. It's based on
ability and skill set. And onceyou get into it you have a lot
of guys, a lot of kids, a lot ofwhat's going on what age you are
around the country there, by andlarge at a similar level, right?
(03:50):
So then there's more of apolitical component to it, if
you will. And I remember beingvery cognizant of that from a
very young age, because it wassomething that I viewed as just
advantageous for me. I didn'thave older siblings that have
gone through, you know, you'remeeting a bunch of coaches, you
don't know, but other kids, youknow, have had interaction or
(04:10):
dealings with it, whether it wasthem or their parents with a lot
of nepotism, that sort of thing.
So, always remember, you know,I've vivid memories of being
that young and always thinkingabout how to sell myself, or how
to differentiate myself when youhave all these other players.
The other kids are bigger thanus, some are faster, but by and
large, everyone has a prettysimilar ability. So, you know,
you're off the field. And Iremember taking every advantage
(04:34):
to try to show the tangible,right, whether it's leadership,
work ethic, whatever I can do tokind of sell myself and that's
probably kind of the first thingthat comes to mind, and, you
know, it was certainly within acompetitive environment. I think
I've always benefited from thatcompetitive perspective when it
(04:55):
comes to selling--whether you'reselling products or services,
you are selling yourself. Nowmore conventionally I think
then, you know, my first realjob probably fast forwards to
17-18 years old. I rememberworking at a local mall, the
County 8, it was a teen store, Idon't know if it's still around.
(05:15):
Because, you know, it's justlike selling jeans. And, you
know, I wasn't particularly goodat it. I certainly wasn't
passionate about it, but I wascomfortable doing it right.
Sales is about connection topeople. Right. And so that was
something that's always beenfairly comfortable for me, you
know, just meeting new peopleand finding ways to create
conversation and find commonground and connection. So those
(05:38):
are probably kind of my my earlymemories when it comes to
thinking about selling.
Mordecai Rosenberg (05:46):
Yeah, really interesting. So I totally get,
you know, with the soccertryouts that feeling of could be
hundreds of kids there. And atthe end of the day, how much
real time do the coaches get tosee you play? Right. And so what
did you do, as far as otherthings that you tried to do to
(06:09):
distinguish yourself? What weresome of those things?
Rob Rubano (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, you try to find time, right, when
you're off the field. It's onething when you're on the field,
and you're playing inscrimmages, and they have you
doing drills, but it's a wholeother thing. The day when you're
in the ODP camp, you're spendingthe majority of time actually
off the field, right. So you'rewith coaches, whether it's in
meetings, whether it's in thecafeteria, having lunch, or
dinner, right, and I justremember, I mean, I found time
(06:34):
to get face time, right, andkind of be a little bit
methodical about findingopportunities to communicate
things that I wanted to comeacross. I remember doing that
from very, very early age. Iguess I was maybe a bit
strategic. I think back, I don'tknow that I was so conscious or
aware of it at the time, but itwas kind of one of those things
(06:57):
that it grew, Mordecai, out ofnecessity, right? I felt like I
was at a disadvantage. And mymind was kind of, how do I try
to even the playing field orwhatever. At the end of the day,
it worked out and then went on,and played in college, but, you
know, it was just a good lifelesson, I think. Right? You
know, I grew up in Pittsburgh,my parents were both born in
(07:21):
other countries, and I'm a firstgeneration American now. And
there was not a lot handed to mysister and I kind of growing up.
So, you know, for me, it wasalways that feeling of needing
to sell myself. I have memoriesof that from a very young age.
Mordecai Rosenberg (07:39):
Yeah. It's interesting to think about what
it means to be off the field,you know, those things that
let's say, in our business,right, where your people know
what the sale looks like, right?
When you're in front of theclient presenting, and maybe
it's the email to the client,but it's interesting to think
(08:03):
about the things that are offthe field, so to speak, right,
that the client may be payingattention to.
Rob Rubano (08:12):
Well, I mean, think about it, right? I mean,
especially in real estate. Realestate is such a relationship
business, right? And there's alot of relationship businesses
out there, but real estate asmuch as any. And you tend to do
business with people you like,right, with people you find
connection with, with people youfind common ground with. So, I
would actually argue that a lotof our business, right, like we
(08:34):
all perform at a very highlevel. Right. So there's
certainly skill set involved.
But at the end of the day,assuming you have the right
people around you, and you havethe skill set, which it's a
competitive industry, right,from top to bottom, then the
ability to kind of findinterpersonal connection, I
(08:55):
think is key. It's the key tosuccess to have longevity in our
business. Yeah, especially kindof, with what I do, you know, a
little bit more specific on onthe institutional side. That's
really kind of a foundationalelement to have--a longer term
spirit, they can build a realbusiness.
Mordecai Rosenberg (09:15):
Yeah, I remember a number of years ago,
probably going back at least 10years, but I was chasing a large
tax exempt bond. It was like $60million of bonds, which was a
big deal. And I became friendlywith the secretary. Right. And
(09:39):
so I'd always talk to her andask her how her weekend was, and
I established a very goodrapport. I was just kind of
nice. And then I would talk tothe sponsor, and I had a good
conversation with them. Well,unbeknownst to me, the Secretary
was actually the sponsor's wife.
And so when it came down to themmaking a decision on who to
(10:07):
choose, you know, David, thesponsor says, well, you know, my
wife said, "You got to go withMordecai. He's just so nice and
kind." Right. And that's it. Sothat's an interesting example of
like that off the field.
behavior. Yeah, you just neverknow what has an impact.
Rob Rubano (10:30):
For sure. Look at your combination of factors,
right? I mean, at the end of theday, you got to add value,
right, you add value to yourclients, whether you're selling
services products, you know,working purely in an advisory
capacity. So that's where it allstarts, right? Like, how do I
add value? How do I help myclient make more money? How do I
help them make strategicdecisions that are gonna be
(10:50):
advantageous to growing theirbusiness? Right, and there's a
lot of obvious fundamentals,build the foundation, but at the
end of the day, I don't know,I've always found that generally
speaking in an all SQLsituation, people gravitate
towards business with peoplethat they find connection with,
common ground, want to spendtime with, and obviously have
(11:13):
trust and confidence.
Mordecai Rosenberg (11:15):
Yeah. That's really great. Really interesting
insight. So as far as your pathto commercial real estate. What
did that look like? Did youstart going out of school? Or
how did you get--
Rob Rubano (11:33):
Yeah, yeah. So I went to college, undergrad, back
east, and I actually have anengineering degree, undergrad. I
have a mechanical engineeringdegree. So it was somewhat of a
circuitous path. So afterschool, I worked as an engineer,
I was in DC. And there's a salesjob, actually, I worked for a
company called the TexacoLubricants company. And I sold
(11:54):
products, lubricant products tomanufacturing facilities, steel
mill, and an automotivemanufacturer, right. It was
these products they would usefor their equipment. So it was a
sales job. So I started thesales route, it was cool. I did
that for a few years. But I'vealways had a varying amount of
(12:16):
interests, pretty diverseinterests. So I moved, I wanted
to get out to the West Coast.
And I moved out to LA, basicallyin 1999 -2000. I left the
strobe. I knew I didn't want tostay in engineering and in
(12:38):
sales, in that capacity. I didsome other things, I kind of did
the entertainment thing forabout three, almost four years.
On the acting side. Yeah, Istudied a lot of theater as well
in school, in addition toplaying soccer. So I did some
theater, actually, when I was inDC, and then decided to kind of
(12:58):
make a go of it and came to therealization after about three
years, I wasn't very good, norwas I very passionate about it.
I had a little bit of a selfreflection period. Do I really
want to foil around for the next10 years trying to figure out if
it's something that a lot, and Imade, probably the most
important decision in my kind ofmid to late 20s, which was to go
(13:25):
back to school. And so I endedup going back to the Anderson
School at UCLA. And that was theconduit for me to go to
commercial real estate. So aconcentration in finance, in
real estate. And then afterAnderson I spent a little over a
year actually working for ahomebuilder. I was buying lambs,
(13:48):
what's called land acquisitionin that in that business, and
then I really transitioned intofinance side in 2005 to a
company, which was then calledSecured Capital, which was
acquired by Eastville-- becameEastville Security and I was
there for a long time beforemoving to Cushman about three
(14:10):
years ago. The last 17 yearsI've been just focused on
commercial real estate.
Mordecai Rosenberg (14:18):
Yeah. So the acting stint is interesting. So
was that a dream that you had asa kid, to take up acting?
Rob Rubano (14:29):
No, not really. I didn't grow up around the
theater. My parents didn'treally take me to the theater.
No, didn't really have much in acreative based family. I was
actually in college, you know,as playing soccer and taking
engineering classes, and I wasdating a girl from my sophomore
year, and she really knew shewanted to get this particular
(14:54):
class. And I was like, I don'treally have a lot of interest
and she kept pushing me sofinally we we both ended up
signing up to take this class.
And it was really shielded, I'mnot getting in the class, I
guess it was a fairlyoversubscribed class, and I
ended up getting into it. Justbecause I played soccer, we had
(15:15):
kind of preferential scheduling,because we have to schedule
around practices and games, etc.
So I have taken the class andactually loved it. And I found
that I actually had someaptitude for it, according to
some of the teachers that I hadat school. And so that was kind
of what launched a desire, ifyou will, in that I did, like I
(15:40):
said, I did some theater and youtalk about, you know, talking
about sales, talking aboutselling yourself and Mordecai,
no, when I think back on it, itwas actually an extremely
important stepping stone for me,right. As an actor, you know,
it's all about rejection, right?
I mean, you are your owncorporation, right? It was Rob
(16:00):
Incorporated. And you're workingon your craft, obviously, and
your instrument, everything fromyour voice. And, you know, you
doesn't matter who you are, youstart to develop a thick skin,
you have to, right, to survive,to have perseverance, I think in
(16:20):
that business. And I learned alot about myself, and it was
something that I would notchange in a million years. It
was a short part of my life, buta really significant learning
experience, from a personalperspective. And I think I
benefited from it, right, fromeverything from public speaking,
(16:45):
when I'm speaking to largegroups to just the confidence,
right, that when you're sellingservices, advisory services or
products, having an underlyingconfidence in what you're doing,
I think always is an importantingredient for success. Right.
You know, people want to believethat you have command over what
(17:08):
it is you're selling. And sothat was actually them. It
sounds silly, but it was animportant part of my evolution,
I think, ultimately, inbusiness, and on a personal
level.
Mordecai Rosenberg (17:20):
Yeah, I could see a couple of things
coming out of that, first, theidea of being all about
yourself, right and getting usedto rejection, you're acting in
some ways. I've never thoughtabout this, but really it's the
ultimate accountability. Right?
You know, if I'm selling aproduct, I can always blame
something else. I can blame thatoh, yeah, look at my product,
(17:43):
you know, the product isn'tgreat. What do you want me to
do? Or maybe my underwritermessed up. But if you're acting,
and you're on stage, trying out,it's just you. Right? And
sometimes they're going to sayno, right? So you have to
develop that idea of well,that's okay. And it may not be
(18:04):
the right fit, but it doesn'tmean that I am a bad actor or
salesperson. Right? That it justwasn't right. It just may not
have been the right fit.
Rob Rubano (18:18):
There's a business side to it as well, right, as an
actor, especially when you'restarting out, you're trying to
build a career, right? I thinkthere's the ability to kind of
strategically createopportunities for yourself. So I
was actually really good at thebusiness side of it. I worked
for a casting director over thattime, one of the most prominent
(18:40):
film casting directors inHollywood, and that created
opportunities. I got a couple ofsmall TV things from that. But I
actually had some fairlysignificant opportunities. I
just wasn't good enough. Right.
That's the bottom line. I justwasn't, I really wasn't. I mean,
I was very candid with myself,in terms of self reflection, and
having self awareness, whichultimately was the driver for me
(19:02):
to make the decision quitequickly, right, after only a few
years. Maybe I can hone my craftand get a lot better, which I
had full confidence that I coulddo if I committed to it for long
enough. But I had no idea howlong that would take. That would
take two years or 10 years. AndI wasn't willing to make that
(19:26):
bet. Right. I wasn't willing totake that risk. But I have a
significant amount of admirationfor for those who succeed in
that business because it istough. It's not easy. I mean,
yeah, commercial real estate acakewalk comparison.
Mordecai Rosenberg (19:45):
Yeah, I get that. Another thing that I think
is interesting about acting isthat, look, people are very
attracted to confidence. Youknow, and you don't always feel
confident. Right? But sometimesyou have to fake it right? Which
(20:07):
is not to say that you have to,if you don't know something,
it's okay to say that you don'tknow. But you still have to come
in and appear confident. Iremember when I was dating--I'm
married a second time now andone practice, and then I got it
got it right. But I rememberwhen I was dating my now wife,
(20:29):
that lots of times, I wouldn'tfeel confident and I would ask
myself like, well, what wouldClint Eastwood do? Yeah. And
just try to act. And so I wouldkind of act confident and
eventually, if you act that way,you start to feel that way. Does
that resonate? As far as likeyour sales experience also?
Rob Rubano (20:49):
Maybe early on, like, really kind of early, I
think, oh, for me, as Ideveloped my career, right, in
turn to really advance it, itbecomes equally important, well,
probably more important toultimately have mastery over
what you're doing. Right. Imean, sure, operate at a high
(21:10):
level again, today, like I said,the real single most important
thing, in our business is addingvalue. Right, is being an
advisor. Right? And that'sultimately what people pay you
fees to do in our business. Soyes, I think when you're, you
know, when you're meeting withpeople for the first time, or
transacting on them on, youknow, you're talking about
(21:31):
obviously, significantinvestments, oftentimes with
with very tight timelines. Yeah,I mean, exuding confidence that
you have the ability to executeand advise them, to help them be
successful is key, but you gotto back it up. Right, you have
to be right back it up time andtime again. So you know, which
(21:53):
one's more important, theprobably equally important, but
I think, over over time, havereal longevity, you know, the
ability to execute and, youknow, having the skill set
necessary. Probably trumps it,but yeah, I mean, I think
confidence is not I mean, ittranscends sales, or, you know,
(22:15):
just, I think, confidence ingeneral, there's, you know,
people are attracted to those tohave an air of confidence about,
right, because it makes themfeel, you know, we're kind of
more secure that they're ingrants.
Mordecai Rosenberg (22:27):
Right. So, right. Yeah. So, let's talk
about your current business,because I think in some ways,
there are similarities to tryingout for that soccer team. Right.
And that, you know, there's lotsof so you are a an advisor,
(22:48):
right to owners of real estate,across all asset classes. So
multifamily office, industrialretail. So, when you're sitting
down with an institutionalclient, right, and they say,
Well, look, there's two dozenadvisors that we have access to,
(23:13):
what do you do differently fromanyone else? What do you say?
Rob Rubano (23:19):
Yeah, I think first of all, we're in the advisory
side, right, whether you'reselling assets, or financing
assets, like I am, or sellingloans on the secondary market.
Number one, we're in the datapoint this, right, so, you know,
access to understanding what,what are the most aggressive
(23:41):
terms out there that are gettingdone? You know, that there's the
first part, which is the abilityfrom a structural perspective,
just to understand, I tend tofocus on larger stuff, right. So
we do a lot of single asset willborrower securitization
portfolios in large singleassets. Right. So there's a
(24:03):
whole kind of formulaic part tobeing able to understand how to
size those fields, right, from,you know, tranche them out and
backlog for all the bond levelsare trading better, right? So
there's that component, but ifyou take a step back from that,
right, at the end of the day,having access and an
understanding of data pointsthat are in the market, so it's
(24:26):
almost like a self fulfillingprophecy right, once you have
created more flow, right, andyou have billions of dollars in
the market at any one giventime, like we are fortunate to
have, it helps, right, becauseyou have such an understanding
of exactly where the market isat any given time for different
(24:46):
types of profiles, right, thatcan be for a transitional office
building that maybe someone justconverted to a more creative
office and they're at least upto a hotel that's coming up out
of COVID. Maybe it's still kindof a more urban CBD type of
convention type hotel to, youknow, a stabilized multifamily.
(25:10):
Right. And so I think that's onekey differentiator, right,
because, you know, not everybodyhas access to the same amount of
data, that's current real timein the market. And then I think
the other the other thing forme, when I made the move over to
Cushman, right, the thing I wasmost focused on was building the
(25:34):
team around me. Right, and, youknow, making sure that the team
I felt have, you know, thenecessary skill set to traffic
and what it is we, we specializein, be focused on, right. So,
um, I think those are alldifferentiators. Right? You
know, you guys on my team? Youknow, they all pretty much most
most books, most come frominvestment banks, right, not
(25:56):
from traditional brokerageworld. And so, yeah, I think
it's, I think it's a combinationof factors with how you try to
differentiate yourself. Andthen, you know, obviously, the
platform that you work with himis is obviously a component of
that as well. Right. And, youknow, for, for me, the vast
majority of our business,repetitive clients, right at the
(26:18):
clients, we transact on anongoing basis. And so for us,
every deal is about 30 ofexecution, right, every deal
about performing for thatclient, right, in the day, you
know, you're kind of the old andyou're only finished your last
deal, right? There's truth.
Right? I think that becomesultimately a differentiator,
(26:41):
right? When you have, you know,the ability to consistently
transact, you're in you're out,transact with larger
institutional clients, that inof itself becomes a
differentiator. Right. So Ithink, right, we kind of break
it down. fFr me, I always kindof go back to things question,
(27:01):
which is, you know, how do youadd value for this client? And I
think, I think if you can dothat on a consistent basis, then
you, you know, you could havesuccesses starting to build a
bigger?
Mordecai Rosenberg (27:16):
Yeah. So let's say, we asked one of your
clients, right, why do you keepon going back to Rob, right,
like, what do you like, what,what does Rob do? Like, what's
his special sauce? Right, thatkeeps you coming back? And not
(27:39):
in terms of trade secrets, butwhat I find is that really all
salespeople have anyone in thesales industry, they've got
their own unique way of goingabout it. Sometimes they don't
even realize it, but anythingcome to mind as far as like,
because your book of business istremendous, you know, you've
(28:02):
done 10s of billions of dollarsof transactions, which not a lot
of people can say, so there'sgot to be some magic there.
Rob Rubano (28:12):
And I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, honestly,
it's not. Right. I mean, I thinkwhen you're kind of working
within the world we're working,you know, candor, right, is
everything. The ability to beable to advise clients. I mean,
they're making big decisions,right. They're, oftentimes
making significant acquisitions.
Right. And they have tounderwrite, that was a big part
(28:35):
of ultimately realizing theirreturn profiles, and they have a
certain amount of diligence timebefore they have to make big
decisions going on or fundableon, sometimes hundreds of
millions of dollars. Right. So,you know, it's not about at that
point selling, it's aboutunderstanding, what is the most
efficient way for them to meettheir objectives? Right, and how
(28:58):
to execute? And then ultimately,you have to deliver on that.
Right. So that's the first thingfirst and foremost, and then
once you're going through theprocess of transacting, we try
to take it to another level interms of communication with
clients. Right. And, you know,it's a significant amount of
(29:20):
communication, collaboration.
Always having the climate isdifferent clients are different
borrowers act differently interms of how involved they want
to be in the process, so thatthere's some variability or
range there. But I think mostclients, for the most part, like
to be well informed. Right? Andso we tend to be pretty hands on
(29:42):
with bias. And then I think atthe end of the day, it's just
again, it's having the team inplace that has the ability to
execute on a consistent basis atthat high level. So I think all
those are all ingredients thatmake up the special sauce for us
that you're talking about.
Mordecai Rosenberg (30:03):
Yeah, so I'm gonna just like dig in a little
bit more, if you don't mind. So,let's say, you know, if
someone's in the industry, let'ssay they're at a, you know, an
Eastville or CBRE or JLL, likeus. So there's a presumption
(30:23):
that if they're doing businessthat they know the market,
right, so they have data. Right?
So how do you get that firstshot? Right? If they say, look,
we've been closing with thisother firm, like, we've had a
good experience, so thanks, butclearly you're making inroads.
So how do you get that firstbite of the apple?
Rob Rubano (30:47):
I mean, look, I think the reality is it can come
in a number of different ways,number of different forms.
Right? I have the advantage ofworking within a platform that
has a number of differentbusiness lines, that many of our
clients access, right, whetherit's hiring us for all assets,
hiring us to properly managetheir assets, hiring us to lease
(31:09):
their asset, hiring us to doconstruction services on their
assets, hiring us to value theirassets with appraisals. Right.
So oftentimes, there's multipletouch points, you need to be
strategic about how to accessthose. So sometimes it's a new
client, our ability to accessthat client originally came from
(31:31):
another touchpoint within thefirm, right, and oftentimes,
we're pretty strategic about howwe access those other touch
points, right? There's thatcomponent of it, and as you
know, that goes hand in handwith a sales platform, right,
obviously, you know, in yourlending business, on the
multifamily side, right. So,when we're selling assets, a big
(31:53):
part of our job is to make surethat we're helping our sales
team ultimately deliver to theirclient, which their job is to
sell at the highest price,right? So that is oftentimes a
key component of maximizingvalue, right? So we play a
significant role in helping todrive maximum value when assets
(32:16):
are being sold. And that'sobviously an inroad into buyers,
right. So sometimes newborrowers, clients of ours come
from the fact that we sold themassets. Other times, we're
fortunate that we have a fairamount of inbound inquiries, a
lot of that is based off oftransactions that we've had in
the market. I'll give you anexample. We recently did a
(32:40):
fairly complicated portfoliofinancing for what I would call
an outdoor lodging brand, a kindof a rising company within kind
of the the outdoor lodgingspace, and that kind of outdoor
destination now seems to besomething with significant
(33:02):
interest, both equity and on thedebt side as well. And because
we transacted on that, we haveanother sponsor that come to us
with another kind of floorbusiness plan, although
different, more entertainmentoriented destination, real
estate, and got engaged to workon their behalf. Right. So I
(33:25):
don't, and then there's othertimes where it's just business
that we pursue, right, and we,you know, we knock on doors,
and, you know, we, you know, wework ourselves to create an
opportunity to get in and pitchbusiness, right. So it can come
from any one of those avenues. Ithink the key is, you have to be
good at all. Right. You know,and you have to pursue all of
(33:49):
them. I mean, you know, that yougot to work but I think maybe
you said like what ultimately,you know, the key to success. In
most businesses, a lot of itrevolves around work ethic and
hustle, right? I mean, I couldpossibly since I was six years
old. And so if you try to do itstrategically, you try to use
(34:13):
your time wisely in the time ofyour team. I mean, fortunately,
for all of us, for many of us,within the sector right now,
just given where capital flowsare and how much capital is
looking to be deployed bothequity and debt. You know,
there's enough to go around, anda lot of people continue to be
quite busy. Going back into2022.
Mordecai Rosenberg (34:37):
Yet, so you make a good point about the
source of transactions. Yeah.
And it dawns on me that youreally have a number of
different clients that you'remanaging, right? Because you're
on the one end, you have theowner, right, who's the
borrower. You also have thelender, and you have to interact
(34:59):
with them. And I'd like to gointo that in a couple of
minutes. And then the third oneis you have your internal
potential your internalsalesperson. And in some ways,
like the internal broker, orsalesperson, that person in some
ways can be the toughest client,because they're now going out on
(35:19):
a limb, right? Because let'ssay, if they're representing the
sale of an asset, right, thatthey can control. But as soon as
they let someone else into thetent, and now if you're not able
to come through for the buyer,now they're gonna blame you for
not being able to close on time.
(35:41):
Right? So there's exposure. Sohow easy is it to kind of build
trust? How do you do that? Howdo you build trust internally
and get them to take that risk?
Rob Rubano (35:48):
You're absolutely right. You do it by executing,
right? By performing. Right. Andso, you know, early in my career
there, without question, there'sthat trust building. I mean,
oftentimes, you have investmentskills, folks who are working on
behalf of very importantclients, they transact with a
lot. And what I said, you'reonly as good as your last deal,
(36:10):
right. So that component iscritically important. And so,
fortunately, kind of hopefullypast that point in my career,
but I've been through it, right,where, you know, you build that
trust over time by executing,and ultimately adding value,
right, you ultimately add valueto your colleague, by helping
(36:30):
them add value to their clients.
Right. Yeah. So again, it goesback to that kind of initial
comment that I had, where Ithink at the end of the day,
when you're in sales or advisorybusiness, it's about adding
value. And, I think that's apretty good core tenet to start
from. And you're absolutelyright. And so you know, you do
that by transaction. I mean,that's really, to me, the only
way to build trust, you have todo it by performing, right, by
(36:53):
executing and performing, andthen the truck kind of builds on
its own.
Mordecai Rosenberg (36:59):
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think at the end
of the day everyone wants to bea hero to their client. Right.
And what I have realized is thatwhen you think about what it
means to be a hero, like whoyour heroes have been in your
life, or who you've been a heroto it, often times, it comes
(37:20):
down to clarity and confidence.
And you might have had a coachin high school or younger, where
maybe you had a winning season,but maybe you guys had a losing
season. But the coach gave youthe confidence, he showed you
(37:40):
something about how to thinkabout your game, and so, for
you, I would imagine that theway for you to be a hero to the
broker, is to enable them to bea hero to their client, right.
So probably a lot of justconfidence is from your ability
to execute. And then clarityprobably comes from that
(38:01):
communication that you talkedabout, and just really keeping
them informed. And to understandif there it looks, nothing is
without its risks. But if you'reclear about it, I think that's
what people want.
Rob Rubano (38:13):
Yeah, transparency is obviously always critically
important. Right. Andtransparency helps build trust.
And I think in this business, somuch of it is interpersonal
relationship driven and trustdriven, right. So, I think one
(38:34):
of the reasons we've beensuccessful kind of building our
platform has been this inherentfundamental philosophy, that
revolves around collaboration,right, that revolves around
working as a team, right? So youknow, I think you think about a
platform, like a Cushman, or aJLL, or Newmark, whatever it may
be, at the end of the dayclients want the power of the
(38:59):
platform, right? So even ifyou're selling or you're hiring
someone to sell a small, youknow, multifamily building in
Phoenix or something like that,right, you know, or maybe, maybe
it's maybe it's not small, butyou want the power of knowing
that not only are you going tohave the expertise of a local
(39:19):
salesperson, specializes in thatmarket. But because, look I
mean, global capital isinterconnected, right, and it's
global in nature, right? So, youwant to know that you have
access to that whole national orsometimes on certain deals,
global platform, and that comesfrom knowing that you're working
(39:42):
with an advisor, thatfundamentally works in
collaboration, right. And, youknow, we spend a lot of time
kind of building that. And I dothink in today's world, in
today's environment, today'smarket, it's almost essential,
right? It's difficult to grow abusiness, appreciable scale
(40:03):
without without having that realphilosophy to get that way in
which you do it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (40:09):
Yeah. Makes a ton of sense. So the other
category of clients that youhave are partners, right? Are
your lenders, right? You'regoing out to a number of a lot
of different lenders, what doesit take to be a good lending
partner to you? I'm sure there'ssome lenders that you probably
(40:29):
keep coming back to, and thereare probably others who you
tried once, and then we'll nevergo back to them again. So what
does it mean to be a goodlending partner to you guys?
Rob Rubano (40:38):
I think for us, it starts with a transparent
process. Right, it's certainlyof execution is so key in our
business, that it's difficult toadvise a client to select a
lender, maybe it's a lender,maybe we worked in the past, we
haven't, but if we don't reallyhave a good understanding of
(41:00):
their process, right, whetherit's an approval process, their
committee process, theirdiligence process, how they are
working documentation, all thosethings are really critical,
right? So, the lenders that wetend to transact with the most
obviously have to becompetitive, different types of
(41:23):
lenders have different types ofcapital, but just speaking in
broad generalities here are theones who have a transparent
process to what they say they'regoing to do. I mean, there's
always, depending on the type oftransaction that there's always
market risk on certain types ofexecutions, etc, you can kind of
(41:46):
box some of that stuff in, butreally a fundamental
understanding that when you moveforward with them, barring
something from a unforeseenchange perspective, they're
going to execute, right, it'sgoing to be similar to how to do
look when you sign it up, orwhen under contract, right. So,
fortunately, for us, when we doso much, when you're doing it
almost 10 billion last years,you're doing that much, we have
(42:08):
a lot of transaction historywith most lenders that are out
there, and it but it's true. Imean, they're there, there's no
question, right, especially in acompetitive environment like
this one, you know, when you'resitting down with borrowers
doing bid sheets that may havefour or 510, well, of lenders,
you know, our view on 30 ofexecution with those various
vendors is an importantcomponent of the selection
(42:30):
process, right? It's not justabout economics. It's not even
necessarily just aboutstructure, right? It's all about
if you execute.
Mordecai Rosenberg (42:38):
Yeah, they have to get their deal closed.
So you make sure that someone'sat the finish line when you get
there. That's the transparency.
What about, let's say, theclient experience in terms of,
well, there's a couple of partsthere. Right. So let's say, as
far as how to speed factor in.
(43:02):
If someone is getting you aquote more quickly, how much
does speed play a role ifsomeone is getting you a term
sheet in 24 hours versus 48? Or72? Does that make a difference?
Rob Rubano (43:21):
Yeah, I think that's defined by the specific
transaction timeline. Right?
It's a very tight timeline. Andwe'll typically always have some
level of timeline that we putforth to a lender. And if it's a
transaction timeline, thengetting it on time is going to
be paramount. And the train willprobably leave the station
(43:44):
without you. Having said that, Ithink, if there's not that point
in time, a real materialthreshold as it relates to the
timeline. And critically, right,you want to create a market,
right? And the borrower's hireus create a market right to
build up and give them theability to have leverage to
(44:05):
negotiate ultimately, the besteconomics and the best terms. So
generally speaking, unless thetimeline takes it, I'd say it's
less impactful. Right.
Mordecai Rosenberg (44:22):
Yeah. That definitely does make a lot of
sense. Do customers come to youwho have direct relationships
with banks, will they still cometo you just to kind of keep them
honest and make sure thatthey're that? Yeah, because how
many banks? Can you really keepa handle on as just a developer?
Rob Rubano (44:48):
Great question.
Yeah. I mean, just by nature ofkind of where our businesses
focus with kind of largerinstitutional clients. The
reality is, many of our clients,not only do they have a direct
lending relationships, theyoftentimes have people
internally that manage thoserelationships and oversee the
placement of tech on theirportfolio of assets. Right. So
(45:09):
and I think that actually speaksto the value that we add as an
advisor. Right? Because weweren't often hand in hand with
those internal finance people,and then a long list of clients
that we work with day in and dayout that have people in that
role, I think that our abilityto number one, create a market,
(45:31):
right, which often times willinclude more than just a typical
table of existing relationshiplenders that one client may or
may not have, and that could bedictated by the type of
transaction it is timeline, etc.
And then, again, to having thatmarket just further increases
(45:52):
the ability to negotiate, right.
A lot of our Congress focused onnon economic stuff, right, we
kind of learned the absolutebest non economic structural
terms you can get in the market.
And the markets move fairlysignificantly along those lines.
And then sometimes, like,sometimes it was, you know, we
play the role of bad guy, right,where we're the ones kind of
doing the grinding. From alender perspective. I mean,
(46:15):
there's been times or times whenwe get hired, where, you know,
we're literally hired to managea process with a lender that's
already been selected. So theanswer is, yeah, I mean, I think
it's much more common than not,that our borrowers have
substantial lenderrelationships.
Mordecai Rosenberg (46:33):
Yeah, I remember, again, a number of
years ago, that a client of ourswas a partner with a very, very
large New York City baseddeveloper, and they had an
existing relationship with anational lender, and they did
(46:54):
10s of billions of dollars ofagency business with them. So,
you know, our client brought usin to compete and to get another
voice. And they wanted us tolook at FHA as an option. And
what we found was that, I mean,there's a lot of buildup in
terms of the rate but you get a,let's say, you get just one
number, that's the interestrate, but how much of it is
(47:18):
servicing, guarantee, investorspread? What we found was that
this lender, that was working inthis, we're talking about,
probably the top borrower, andone of their top borrowers in
the country, they were paddingit by like, 10 or 15 basis
points of additional servicingfee, which it was on a $450
million loan was was wasequivalent to about like $15
(47:42):
million in value. You know, sothey ended up not selecting us,
they ended up going with theirthe other lender, but yes,
seeing that they were able tonegotiate the price. Yeah, they
meet their lender, match thepricing. So, no matter how
intelligent someone thinks theyare, it's good to get a second
(48:07):
opinion, go to market and clearit, see what what reality is.
Rob Rubano (48:11):
Yeah, I mean, when you think about it, right, is
fiduciary, right? In anenvironment where there's so
much capital looking to bedeployed. It's almost difficult
to justify not really creating amarket, right? Because it is
such a competitive environment,right, whether you're financing
an asset or selling an asset. Soyeah, I don't have a question, I
(48:36):
totally agree with you.
Mordecai Rosenberg (48:37):
Yeah. How do you handle, you know, one of the
things that I focus on atGreystone through the G2 group
is portfolio retention. And,you know, we want to make sure
that when a client is paying offour loan, that they're going to
use us for the refinance, right?
Or if they're gonna sell theproperty, hopefully, now we can
(48:58):
bring Cushman capabilities toprovide sales capabilities. And
if they're looking for somethingthat's not an agency, that we
can leverage your team toprovide a product that we don't
have. But you mentioned thatyou're only as good as your last
deal. How do you think aboutjust staying in touch with a
(49:18):
client, right, so you close aloan with them? And how often do
you maybe it's a 10 year loan?
Right? But how do you thinkabout just staying in touch with
them? Do you have a schedule ofwell, you know, every client you
talk to on a quarterly basis, oryou try to get together with
(49:38):
periodically, like, is there anykind of system that you have for
that?
Rob Rubano (49:41):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, fortunately for us, right, the
majority of our clients arelarger institutional owners,
right. So, if they have astabilized office building and
they want a 10 year fixed ratedebt, and we put that loan on,
we're typically working withthem on other stuff, right? It's
(50:05):
not like a one trick pony, whereit's like, okay, let's put this
in my database with a calendarreminder to call them, you know,
for years to just check in, orhave you read a lot of generally
speaking, ongoing dialogue. Andwe certainly have that maturity
tracking tools that we use, notonly on deals that we've done,
but on other aspects, to knowwhere maturities are coming,
(50:29):
etc. But I think just generallyspeaking, again, because you
know, the end of the day, we'rein a relationship business, and
you're selling services, it'salways advantageous to be in
front of clients as regularly aspossible. Right. And so,
obviously, going through thispandemic period, where you're
(50:52):
not traveling as much you're notseeing face to face is probably
been challenging. But we havetools like that, like this, you
and I are on right now, or youcan pick up the phone. And so
yeah, I mean, I think almostany business, like ours is much
based on our ongoingcommunication you can have with
(51:14):
clients, because we're alwaystrying to share information,
right? Again, you don't justbecause a client has debt on an
app, it doesn't mature for 10years of me, and that client
doesn't know what's happening inthe market on an ongoing basis,
right, we have such incrediblevisibility into data points,
(51:35):
that it's a really unique perchthat we have, right, and it's
something that we don't take forgranted. And we're appreciative
of. And, you know, I think thatin of itself, from my
perspective, and my experience,is something that gives us the
(51:57):
ability to add value to clientson an ongoing basis, right,
everybody wants it, especiallywhen you're going through things
like COVID, and, or, you know,other other kind of macro
disruptions to the market,right, where, you know, it's
difficult to have visibility anddata points, etc. I mean, for us
now, I mean, I spent almost allmy time with clients talking
about, you know, inflation andinterest rates, because things
(52:18):
from a macro perspective, youknow, giving our view on, you
know, you know, everybody won't,you know, kind of think about
like, you know, with the Fedand, you know, dialing back to E
and you know, how they're goingto manage inflation, clearly
the, you know, the benchmarkrates are gonna move, what's
gonna happen to spreads, whatwill the indexes are gapping
(52:39):
out, you know, obviously, somuch of my time is spent, you
know, fundamentally, you know,advising or, you know,
discussing, talking about themarket from from a more of a
macro perspective on kind ofwhat our views are, is there
thinking ahead to throw inportfolio strategies, you know,
could be hedging strategies, youknow, etc.
Mordecai Rosenberg (53:00):
Yeah, that's great. So just a couple of last
questions before we. And becauseyou clear the market, I'm
curious--you see a lot of thetrends, like who is providing
the cap, who's providing thedebt, just looking at
multifamily? Because that's thearea that I know, if a lot of
(53:21):
the listeners are focused onmultifamily. Compared to, let's
say two years ago, what are youseeing, like, what are clients
looking for today compared totwo years ago?
Rob Rubano (53:38):
I think clearly the resonating theme of 2021 was
balance sheet that right, youknow, just given where Cap rates
are going in yields, cash flowprofiles, you know, it's been
much more difficult for theagents. That's carried forward
into 2022. Significant amountsof debt were floating around
(54:01):
balance sheets. Right. So, youknow, as yields have compressed,
fortunately, in a lot ofmarkets, it's been a couple of
bad performance at the assetlevel, right, was increasing
rents and property level on awide growth, which has obviously
been a huge positive. But thetrend the last two years, has
(54:25):
been the ability to try to stillget a level of appreciable
leverage by cap rates. Right.
And that's the flooding ratesslide has been much more
accommodative to that. From thebank perspective, they've been
able to be more accommodative byeffectively just compressing
their take out metrics, right.
(54:48):
So what was five to seven and ahalf percent exit that yield 12
months ago, is biasing to sixand a half percent takeout tend
to rise further. So they're notseeing as much leverage even
though cap rates are so, right,and then it's been really
(55:09):
beneficiary for your higheryielding, splitter, it honors ie
the desktops, right? To have theability to find comfort from a
credit perspective based moreon, you know, kind of propelling
metrics, right? What is myvalue? What does my loan basis
look like on a per key basis, inaddition to just your cash flow
(55:30):
metrics, right, so they've beenwilling to take a lower going in
that yield or cash flow profile,and they'll give adequate enough
leverage, or a buyer ofmultifamily to still be
competitive in a competitiveprocess, right, because, you
know, if you're in a good marketfor good multi, you know, you're
(55:51):
probably competing with somelevel with unlevered buyers, or
there's just, there's so muchcapital to be deployed. Right.
And you can talk about a lot ofthings from a macro perspective.
But at the end of the day,capital is maybe the most
significant thing to think aboutin our business, right? It's a
commercial real estate, right?
And global capital flows intointo the US. And so that in
(56:13):
itself, even as interest rates,if, as the benchmarks have
already been moving up, andwell, relative compressed, in
part, they haven't compressed asmuch as the indexes move down.
So coupons have gone up. And,you know, normally that would
mean that cap rates are gonna goup, right? But when you
counterbalance that, with anincredible amount of capital
(56:37):
looking to be deployed, vaccineshave downward pressure on going
in yields and cap rates back,they won't be seen. And that's
affected multi it's affectedindustrial part of those few
asset classes more than anyother. And thus, the trend that
we've seen has a lot of floatingrate balance sheet debt.
Mordecai Rosenberg (56:59):
Yeah. I think that's really an excellent
point that people would be goodto keep in mind or realize that
the run up in value inmultifamily. And in frankly, the
other asset classes, otherassets like the stock market.
Yes, the fundamentals arestrong. But this isn't just
(57:20):
about the fundamentals, right.
This is about capital. Right? Ifyou look at just the capital
that's being showered into theUS, it's got to find a home
somewhere.
Rob Rubano (57:32):
Just think about the non traded REIT vehicles, non
traded route vehicles, they'reraising significant amounts of
cash flow of capital, right on amonthly basis. Right. And then
you add leverage to thatcapital. Right. You know, just
just just that bucket level, ifit's false, it's significant. In
how it impacts the market,right? Yeah. Capital is king,
(57:56):
and there's plenty of it.
Mordecai Rosenberg (57:58):
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's also like what Ialways say that when multifamily
at least has gotten in trouble,at least for the last 20 years,
it's really never been about thefundamentals. It's not like
vacancy. You had situations inNew York City where vacancy
jumped in during COVID. But thepolicies were accommodating. In
(58:20):
general, when multifamily has aproblem it's because there's a
liquidity issue. It's becauseliquidity is being pulled from
the market. And whether or notit's the Russian ruble crisis,
or Lehman Brothers or the SNLcrisis, right? As a multifamily
investor, it's a goodinvestment, your risk is really
your loan maturity and you justhope that when your loan happens
(58:43):
to mature that you're not in oneof those moments where liquidity
isn't there. Rob, this has beenawesome. I really enjoyed the
conversation and some reallygreat insights for all the
listeners. So thank you for yourfor your time. And I think
people get a lot out of it. Sothank you.
Rob Rubano (59:02):
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Mordecai Rosenberg (59:04):
All right.
I'll talk to you soon. Thanks,Rob. Have a good one.
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