October 29, 2021 • 34 mins
In this episode of GreyCast, Hosts Ari Firoozabadi and Mike Hehir are joined by Fletcher Hultman, a senior investment associate with Greysteel East Coast Affordable Housing team. Fletcher shares his journey from moving to Richmond for his wife's acceptance into Georgetown University to connecting with Henry Matthias and joining Ari. He discusses his initial uncertainties as a broker, growing the team, and the importance of honesty and culture at Greysteel.
The conversation covers Fletcher's background, education, and transition to brokerage, providing valuable insights into the world of affordable housing.
Takeaways
Positive Meeting of Minds: Connecting with Henry Matthias
Ensuring Solid Deals in Affordable Housing
From Novice Broker to Knowledgeable Expert
Understanding Affordable Housing DealsThe Culture of Greysteel
Navigating the Affordable Housing Market
Complex Housing Market: Unraveling its Unique Structure
Journey to Success: From Analyst to Brokerage
Growing in the Affordable Housing Industry
Quotes
"Our astounding trajectory came from embracing curiosity and asking questions instead of pretending to know it all.". - Fletcher Hultman
"We've grown fantastically as a team, thanks to the culture that provides flexibility to operate our business as we see fit." - Fletcher Hultman
Featured in this Episode
Fletcher Hultman
Director
Profile: https://greysteel.com/team/fletcher-hultman/
Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhultman/
Email: fhultman@greysteel.com
Contact: 202-839-3485
Chapters
00:01 - Introduction
02:09 - A Move for Opportunity: Richmond to Georgetown University
03:45 - Connecting with Henry Matthias: A Positive Meeting
05:20 - From Uncertainty to Expertise: Embracing the Broker Role
08:12 - Understanding Affordable Housing Deals: Dedication and Learning
12:51 - Starting Strong: Fletcher's Involvement and Hard Work
15:03 - Building an Excellent Team: Credit to the Analysts
16:45 - Thriving on Team Culture: The Secret to Success
18:30 - Growing Together: Fletcher's Satisfaction with Team Progress
21:15 - Honesty in Growth: The Greysteel Philosophy
22:50 - Praise for the Affordable Housing Team: Expertise at Greysteel
25:32 - Leadership Team: Asking Questions and Building Relationships
31:42 - Honesty and Culture at Greysteel: High-level Knowledge and Appreciation
34:30 - Outro
The conversation covers Fletcher's background, education, and transition to brokerage, providing valuable insights into the world of affordable housing.
Takeaways
Positive Meeting of Minds: Connecting with Henry Matthias
Ensuring Solid Deals in Affordable Housing
From Novice Broker to Knowledgeable Expert
Understanding Affordable Housing DealsThe Culture of Greysteel
Navigating the Affordable Housing Market
Complex Housing Market: Unraveling its Unique Structure
Journey to Success: From Analyst to Brokerage
Growing in the Affordable Housing Industry
Quotes
"Our astounding trajectory came from embracing curiosity and asking questions instead of pretending to know it all.". - Fletcher Hultman
"We've grown fantastically as a team, thanks to the culture that provides flexibility to operate our business as we see fit." - Fletcher Hultman
Featured in this Episode
Fletcher Hultman
Director
Profile: https://greysteel.com/team/fletcher-hultman/
Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhultman/
Email: fhultman@greysteel.com
Contact: 202-839-3485
Chapters
00:01 - Introduction
02:09 - A Move for Opportunity: Richmond to Georgetown University
03:45 - Connecting with Henry Matthias: A Positive Meeting
05:20 - From Uncertainty to Expertise: Embracing the Broker Role
08:12 - Understanding Affordable Housing Deals: Dedication and Learning
12:51 - Starting Strong: Fletcher's Involvement and Hard Work
15:03 - Building an Excellent Team: Credit to the Analysts
16:45 - Thriving on Team Culture: The Secret to Success
18:30 - Growing Together: Fletcher's Satisfaction with Team Progress
21:15 - Honesty in Growth: The Greysteel Philosophy
22:50 - Praise for the Affordable Housing Team: Expertise at Greysteel
25:32 - Leadership Team: Asking Questions and Building Relationships
31:42 - Honesty and Culture at Greysteel: High-level Knowledge and Appreciation
34:30 - Outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We got into the math in apretty big way, and I spent nights
and weekends, you know, andyou know, and obviously during the working
day just making sure I understood allof the call them individual components of you
know, what makes these deals tick. Hello, this is Ari Fuzabody.
(00:22):
I am the CEO of Gray Steal. Gray Steals a national boutique top fifteen
commercial real estate capital market services fromI want to welcome and also thank you
for joining Greatcasts today. This showis an open and light conversation around entrepreneurship,
life and the lessons we learn alongthe way. When I was younger,
I was always looking for folks Icould find inspiration from and to inform
(00:45):
my path. And I hope thatthe young people that are listening to Greatcasts
today find value in hearing the experiencesour guests share. I would love to
hear from any of you that arelistening in. Feel free to reach out
to me on LinkedIn, my socialmedia channel of choice. Hey, everyone,
thanks for joining us for another editionof the Gray Cast podcast. I'm
your host Mike here, and ontoday's show, we're speaking with Fletcher Holton.
(01:10):
Fletcher is a grad of Virginia CommonwealthUniversity and is currently a senior investment
associate with the East Coast Affordable Housingteam here at Gray Steal. A couple
of things that I took away fromtoday's conversation with Fletcher. You know,
this was a young man that wantedto be an attorney. He worked his
(01:30):
way with a law firm through school, commuted eighty miles each way to VCU
in pursuit of an economics degree.He really, you know, aside from
Maddy, followed his other interests.He learned to speak some Russian in Eagle
Scout, which, for those ofyou that know is is no easy task.
(01:52):
So kind of his pre grad Stealcareer is interesting. But really his
breakdown of affordable housing for those thatmaybe you to that sector of the industry,
is really informative. He breaks itdown in a really clear and concise
way, and I think there isa lot of value to gain, certainly
that part, but really the wholething. Fletcher is a really good young
(02:16):
person who has who has done agreat job here and helped grow our East
Coast affordable housing business tremendously. Ihope you will enjoy this conversation as much
as I did. Thank you forlistening. Welcome Fletcher, Thanks Mike.
(02:36):
Happy to be on here. Yeah, no, we're I'm excited for you
to join us. You know,I know Fletcher and I have kind of
worked around each other, but reallythis is the first time we're kind of
sitting down and having a full blownconversation. So we're gonna learn all things
Fletcher together. So Hey, thefirst thing I wanted to ask you about
(02:57):
is Russian. So do you whenyou speak Russian? Fluently? Fluently and
yet but I get by if Ineeded to. Yes, I have a
go to phrase, which is noshkagavro Parowski, which essentially means I only
speak a little Russian. The genesisof why Russian is pretty simple. It
(03:20):
was to impress a girl. Itworked out she married me. Are you
seriously? Yeah? So you married? Is she from Russia? Actually from
Ukraine, but it's her family's traditionallyRussian. Oh, very cool. I
assume you've you've been to the Ukraineand or Russia. Not yet, it's
(03:40):
it's on the list. She hasnot been back to Eastern Europe since coming
to the States, and like,oh eight, but it's it's on the
list of places to go. Yeah, that's very cool. So do her
folks speak Russian? And you weretrying to impress you were trying to impress
the parents some version of that.Yeah. Basically, I've done a lot
(04:04):
of dumb things for a girl,but nothing ever is productive is learning a
language. So that's prett impressive,you know. I'll tell you this real
quick. When when I was backin school, we did this trip where
we went all over the Baltic Seaand we spent a night in Saint Petersburg
and luks were short. I endedup by myself lost and late for the
(04:26):
ship, and I was in frontof a museum called the Hermitage, and
I couldn't find anybody who spoke English, and I don't know like Russian obviously,
so I'm looking around and who doI see walking down like the middle
of the square is Andreasy and StephaneGraff yea where a Yankee had. I'm
the most obvious American you've ever seen. And I go and I try to
(04:47):
talk to him and try to getdirections, and yeah, they blew me
right off. So I mean theEnglish desk and I was the last bow
back on the ship before it sayssale, So that could have used you.
Yeah, well yeah, maybe maybenext time we can go together.
All right, Well I'm then thenthe other thing I was reading your bio,
(05:08):
so tell me you were an EagleScout? Yeah, I am.
Is that that something you keep forever? Yeah, it's you know, it's
you earn it and uh, itdoesn't go away. There's very little to
go from there. There's a fewthings you can pick up after eagle,
but you know, kind of onceyou once you hit eagle, that's that's
more or less the top. Iliterally am a card carrying Eagle Scout.
(05:31):
They give you this gold card,at least they did, uh fifteen years
ago. I have a plastic goldencard that says I'm an Eagle Scout.
So that's pretty incredible. So youhow long did you do scouts for it?
And what was your capstill? Like, do you have like a final
project to become an Eagle Scout?Yes, and so it's it's a leadership,
(05:51):
call it orientation. But it givesyou know, seventeen eight your own
kids, you know, who coulduse the direction and the experience. It
gives them an opportunity to really takea project from A to B and be
the person managing the project and notbe the person necessarily doing the work.
(06:12):
Now, I definitely did some workwhat my project was, and I was
in the Scouts for eight or tenyears something something to that effect with hills
and valleys over time. But meand a group of guys built a bridge
in a community park. So Igrew up in somewhat rural central Virginia area
(06:34):
called Greene County, and there wasa community park that the local municipality had
been working on over time, andthey had these fantastic big soccer fields.
To get to the soccer fields fromthe parking lot, you had to cross
this piece of low lying earth thatfrequently, when it rained, would be
(06:55):
a muddy mess. So I gotthe county's blessing and they bought me a
bunch of would and me and somereally children built a bridge at with thankfully
the direction of license contractors, becauseit had that not been the case,
there's no way it would have stayedthere. It's still there today, actually
was there a couple of months ago. Good look, I'm glad they didn't
(07:16):
get you for any you know,child labor laws and uh, you know,
we promote the work of children onthis podcast. So yeah, no,
for sure. We uh it wasOSHA approved or something like that.
Okay, good dude, I'm trulyall hard, little hard hats definitely.
So all right, So you grewup in Greene County in Virginia, you
do you do the scouts kind oftake me through, Like, how'd you
(07:40):
pick Virginia Commonwealth VCU? You?Uh, obviously you know Virginia School.
I'm sure you you know, youhad your pick of all these great schools.
You know what was it about VCUthat that drew you? So?
VCU for me, I mean theybasically, I mean they gave me a
lot of opportunity. So when I'mgone out of high school, I started
(08:01):
working. I was focused more onwork than I was on my academics,
and I you know, I wasin community college for a period of time,
but the whole time I was working, and I had this idea in
my head that I wanted to bea lawyer, and so I started working
with this legal group. And youknow, VCU to me was both opportunity
(08:24):
and flexibility. What my undergraduate careerlooked like, it was very busy.
I still worked nearly what I wouldcall a heavy part time working load,
and then was taking essentially full timeclasses of VCU, but the class structure,
the actual academic strength of the programs. They have a really strong focus
(08:50):
on getting kids good information and actuallymaking sure you learn it. And so
for me, I needed to makethe most efficient use of my time because
I lived I did not have atraditional academic career in the sense that I
did not live on campus. Iactually lived about eighty miles away, and
so I was working in the Charlottesville, Virginia area and driving to Richmond three
(09:13):
sometimes four days a week to goto school. And I needed to make
sure that every minute of my timeat school was spent being productive. And
what I got out of VCU wasI mean professors who responded, They provided
information in the manner that made sense, and I mean it was, you
(09:35):
know, a solid group of people. I was able to connect with it
there and we still speak with today. So for me, I mean they
opened a lot of doors for meand gave me the flexibility to pursue what
I wanted to do on the workfront, which I never stopped doing, but
(09:56):
also make sure I actually got graduatedfrom the program. There's a lot of
schools that just by nature of howthey schedule their classes. They it makes
it very challenging to graduate while alsoworking in an efficient amount of time.
So that was the real key forme is I was able to marry the
two things that I really knew Iwanted to do and do them quickly.
(10:20):
That's pretty incredible. You know,I had a similar run. I did
community college. I worked my waythrough community college to go to my four
year school and kind of grow fromthere. You know, I can't claim
that I had the same work ethic. I was just trying to get to
a good school. So like aparty, Yeah, but no, I
mean, look, that's you know, you learned you certainly if you didn't
(10:43):
have it going in, you learntime management probably better than most. And
frankly, the greatest thing I kindof think I heard in that is that
you learn not to go be anattorney. Yeah. No, Well,
the folks I worked for, andI love them to death, but they
definitely disabused me of that idea quickly. I did not know what it really
meant to be a lawyer. Anduh, I mean I worked with them
(11:07):
for several years and I understood atthe end of what it was. And
it's a good profession. It's anecessary profession. I thought I could at
the end of the day when Ineeded to make a decision, I thought
I could go do something else withouttaking on three years of additional education.
And it's worked out well for me. Yeah, now that that's great.
(11:30):
You know, I've seen I've seena lot of people have great obviously law
careers, and we work with somegreat attorneys, great great attorneys you know
here in you know, in Charlotte. But I've also seen you know,
friends start law school and leave,and I've seen a lot a lot of
attorneys you know, leave come overand come over to the brokerage side.
(11:52):
So I mean, to save yourself, you know, some of that middle
ground is I think great. Ifyou have that doubt, I think it
was. It was pretty intelligent tokind of switch, to know enough to
switch, you know, to pivot, and to kind of start. So
you went so you really did it. You went right into into real estate
out of school, right, Imean it looked like you were doing acquisitions
(12:15):
and asset management. That's right.So I left school and I, you
know, without having a whole longstory about it, my now wife and
I we were both graduating. Itroughly the same time. We were focusing
on jobs actually in the DC market, so I had interviewed a ton with
a lot of great firms in theDC area. Then she got this kind
(12:39):
of more or less a godfather offerfor someone right out of school to go
work for the Federal Reserve Bank ofRichmond. So we totally shifted course went
to Richmond, Virginia, and Iwas able to connect with a gentleman in
the Richmond area who primarily syndicates equityand now actually I've kept up with him.
(13:00):
He is a private equity fund managernow buying real estate assets. But
we were very focused on the grossrey anchored retail center as well as modest
office spaces, but really just veryfocused around income producing defensive properties is how
(13:20):
to describe his strategy. And youknow, that's about in an up cycle,
that's about the best guy you canlearn from, because someone who's very
focused on fundamental does this make senseanalysis of real estate. And he was
very focused is very focused on identifyingoutside risks and trying to mitigate them.
(13:43):
So, I mean I worked forhim for you know, a fairly relatively
brief amount of time, but itwas like I mean, it was.
It was a fire host of aneducation for sure. Yeah, and you
know, just to gain that perspective, I too in my first kind of
post kind of real estate gig developer. You know, it was always about
(14:05):
the exit strategy and it really hedid operate in a defensive way and it
was invaluable. It has stuck withme my entire career and will always you
know, particularly with with my ownpersonal investment, but also the way we
advise our clients. Right, Soyeah, I mean it doesn't take doesn't
take years to learn how important thatis. But yeah, yeah, I
(14:28):
mean it's it's I mean, it'sit's critical. Yeah, So take me
to take me to kind of gracedeals. So then you jumped. So
really it was July of eighteen youcame over as an affordable housing analyst.
Is that? Is that right?That's right? So in early eighteen you'll
notice a pattern here. So mywife got into Georgetown University for a master's
(14:50):
program and that caused us to,you know, need to move from Richmond
to the DC metro area. Andyou know, I had had options at
that point, if I know,if I wanted to try to stay with
what I was doing, if Iwanted to make a change, and you
know, so I started looking aroundand I connected with Henry Matthias, who
(15:13):
leads the East Coast affordable practice herewith with Ari and we had a really
good meeting of the minds. Itwas a situation where I'm very focused from
an underwriting perspective on representing reality andyou know, making sure that we've baked
in, you know, all ofthe real risks and you know that our
(15:35):
underwriting is I want to make surethat you know, from an underwriting perspective,
it was something that was realistic anddefensible. And you know, when
I came over as an analyst andthe affordable housing world with Art, with
Arian Henry, the impression I gotfrom them is that that's identically what they
wanted as well. And you know, I could tell you that's that's exactly
(15:56):
what we're doing over here. Butyou know, I and I came over
initially, I wasn't sure if Iwanted to be a broker. You know,
I didn't know a single thing aboutaffordable housing. I had only been
to a couple of tax credit seminarswhile working in real estate and Richmond,
and I was pretty pretty green.We got into the math in a pretty
big way. And I spent nightsand weekends, you know, and you
(16:19):
know, and obviously during the workingday just making sure I understood all of
the call them individual components of youknow, what makes these deals tick,
how do people earn money doing this? And you know, all the pieces
and parts to put them together.And over the next year and some change,
you know, we really started rampingup. It was this understanding of
(16:41):
what are the key elements of eachdeal and from every single perspective, that's
what's that's what's helped us do well. Yeah, you know, I've I've
seen your underwriting and I've I've beenyou know, a part of a couple
of your guy's proposals, and it'sit's it's always very well thought out.
And the way you guys explain yourmath, your assumptions, it's really it
(17:06):
really is based in in good logicand backed up by numbers. So let's
back up real quick though. Youknow, for those that are listening that
that may not know the nuances ofaffordable housing. You know, typically a
multi family you see you know,market rate deals, which is the average
complex that that you may drive byor go and lease and then there's a
(17:27):
different ways that people create affordable housing. So a lot of that is tax
credit based, and there are severaldifferent ways in which these are implemented and
handled. Can you talk just alittle bit about that and maybe get into
lie tech versus you know, Sectioneight half just kind of very top line.
(17:48):
Let you give us a little bitof just oversight on the affordable housing
space. Definitely, let start withSection eight, you know, because I
think in general it's a it's aprogram that a lot of people, at
least at a high level, arefamiliar with. Most people know Section eight
from tenant based vouchers, where alandlord will accept a voucher, the tenant
pays thirty percent of their income andthe voucher from the local housing authority pays
(18:14):
the rest of the rent to thelandlord. When we look at Section eight
properties, we're looking at properties thathave what's called a project based contract,
so instead of a voucher with thelocal housing authority, that same dynamic with
the tenant, you know, inthirty percent of their income exists with HUD,
the federal agency Housing and Urban Development, And you know, over the
(18:38):
seventies and eighties, they a lotof properties were built and redeveloped, and
they qualified to get these contracts,and so it's something that stays with the
property and it's a very stable streamof revenue to the property because what they're
essentially saying is is that so longas you fill the property with people who
(18:59):
meet these incomes criteria, you know, you will get one hundred percent of
the rent o to you. Youknow, you can kind of theorize why
that would be attractive. You know, from from a financial risk perspective,
those project based Section eight contracts areit's a pretty low risk way to own
real estate because you have a lotof revenue certainty. So now there's a
(19:21):
lot of those that exist out inthe world. Now the tax credit system,
so whereas a project based Section eightcontract is a rental subsidy, the
tax credit system is a development subsidy. And the way it works, you
know, the traditional Mike, ifyou and I were to go buy a
property, you know, and wewere going to go fifty fifty on it,
(19:44):
you and I would go get aloan. Let's say it's a it's
a million dollar property, and wewere putting down twenty percent, so you
know, we collectively put in twohundred thousand dollars. We're going to go
to the bank and ask for aloan for eight hundred thousand dollars, and
we're going to show up on closingday and you know, we're going to
shake hands with the seller and youknow, go our separate ways. The
way the tax credit system works ata high level is similar, but there's
(20:11):
a few more moving pieces you areable to so it only works if you're
either a building new or be substantiallyrehabilitating a property. What this provides is
is it looks out on an asstabilized basis, and we ask the question
of how much debt could could theproperty support once it's fully stabilized, and
(20:37):
we look at what they expected,either new construction budget or rehabilitation budget is.
And there's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of architects and lawyers
and things of that nature who needto be involved in these development projects.
And it does add some cost,and so there's a fairly material soft cost
component here. But for their trouble, the developers that take the time and
(21:03):
you know, work through all thecall it brain damage to go and structure
these transactions, they actually can earna developer fee, and so that can
be wrapped into the deal. Itcan be structured a few different ways.
But at the end of the day, when you line up one of these
projects, all of your construction costsand acquisition costs and all of these things
(21:26):
they work together to form what theIRS calls the aggregate basis or the eligible
basis. Excuse me, and youare eligible, and there's four percent tax
credits and nine percent tax credits.We're not going to go into that here,
but you're basically your project will beeligible to produce on an annual basis
(21:49):
some amount of tax credits. Andwhat the state agency that supplies developers with
those tax credits does is they issuea letter and they've done their homework on
your deal. You've given them allyour underwriting and all of your proposals,
and they say, okay, great, we agree with your math. The
(22:11):
project is going to produce. Let'sjust say, for the sake of argument,
a million dollars per year of taxcredits. And the developer can take
that that piece of paper that says, your developer, your project will produce
a million dollars a year of taxcredits. They can take that to lots
of different folks who buy tax credits. And how it works is those tax
(22:36):
credits are it's a million dollars peryear for ten years. The way it
works is the developer takes it andthey're able to get that ten million dollars
up front. There are big banksand other organizations that they're in the business
of buying these tax credits or buyingthe future rights to these tax credits as
(22:57):
they are produced, and you know, they might give you, you know,
ninety to ninety five cents on thedollar, you know, somewhat location
and somewhat project depending, but youknow, you basically line up a permanent
loan and a construction loan, andyou know, you line up who's going
(23:18):
to buy your tax credits, andyou show up to the closing table with
debt and equity and the development subsidiesthe tax credit piece. You know,
if not for the tax credits,the majority of these deals would not make
e nine sense from it from atraditional perspective. Right. So, so,
I mean that's interesting, right,that's it's it's a completely different structure,
(23:41):
but it really it supports housing forthose that need it that couldn't pay
just privatized rental rates that go up, up with the market. So I
mean, really it's it's such anuanced business, but it's a it's a
large business, and it's a it'sa critically important business. So that's incredible.
(24:02):
And I think really the level ofunderstanding in detail you're able to provide
and how well you know this isis something that is a testament to tell
the work you did up front,you know, especially in those those first
kind of early days as an analyst. But then you know, I see
clearly, you know you jumped overto the investment associate side, so they
(24:23):
you know you were, you werepromoted onto the out the brokerage side,
and then and then really listened ayear later you were promoted again. So
and I know this from talking withHenry, what the important part of the
team you are over there. It'sbeen really in the time you've been there
since July of eighteen or here,you've you've really you've really you've learned a
(24:45):
very important business skill and you've grown, you know, with your team,
and it shows. I mean,if you saw the sales you know,
your sales trend line the East CoastAffordable team is incredible. I mean,
you guys have grown tremendou you know, the deal you did in the fourth
quarter, I think maybe the largestdeal you know, every Gray Steals history.
(25:07):
So I mean, kudos to you, and really what you've done here
in your time and really you know, a relatively short amount of time.
But let me hear it from you. I mean, how has your experience
been here from your standpoint? Howhas Gray Steal you know, brought you
up and giving you tools and youknow, how do you feel that that
it's gone so far and kind ofwhere do you see where do you see
(25:30):
it going from here? So that'sa great question. Part of the trajectory
has frankly been it's been from thetop down is the willingness to ask questions.
And what I mean by that isthe leadership team I work with to
let me ask questions of clients andpotential clients. There is, and there
(25:52):
are, I mean incentives in thisbusiness to appear as if you know everything
already and try to you know,sound like you're not to say that you
there's people who make themselves sound likethey're smarter than they actually are. That's
not what I mean, but thereis when as we are consulting with clients,
they're asking very important business questions,and it's an important component that we
(26:19):
understand every single thing that we're advisingthem. And so right from the get
go, you know, when Icame on board with Henry and Ari,
I identified very quickly that this stuffis complicated and it's going to require more
than just me reading. It's goingto require interaction with people who are out
(26:40):
working on this, you know,because you need to get the real world
perspective of what's possible and realistic,and you know, it's important. Our
trajectory has been astounding in part becauseI have been able and Ari and Henry
have had the humility, frankly,to ask questions. We could have very
(27:03):
easily just made it look like weknew what we were talking about and simply
moved on. And you know,it's opened the door for me to have
deep conversations with developers and clients andpotential clients and just have an open conversation
about I know this, this ishow I'm thinking about this problem. What's
your take on it? Is?Essentially how all of these have gone.
(27:26):
What that has yielded is an extremelyfast learning curve, you know, which
is what you largely what I attributeour sales volume too, is we were
able to very very quickly get upto speed on a very complicated topic and
apply real world knowledge from multiple crediblesources to real problems. And being able
(27:51):
to do that taught me at thebeginning that I am pretty good at speaking
to people and I like doing it. And as it relates to me making
the jump from analysts to brokerage,I had spent a lot of time,
you know, digging into our dealsand you know, talking to a lot
of people, you know, certainlydoing my own homework. But if there
(28:14):
was some type of discrepancy in ourthinking or we just wanted an external opinion,
that was an opportunity for me togo talk to somebody and ask them
an interesting question. And the realityof human natures that people like to talk
and people like to talk about thethings that they're doing. So very quickly
I was speaking the same language asa lot of our developer clients and they
(28:41):
were very receptive to it. Andthe information I took from those conversations I
applied to the next conversation with thenext guy, and the next one to
the next guy, and you know, pretty soon and what really prompted the
move from analysts to broker was weknew a lot of the same people and
I already had a relationship. Ifif Gray Steel was going to bring on
(29:06):
an additional broker and they to serviceEast Coast East Coast affordable assets, that
person would have to restart a lotof relationships, relationships that I basically already
had, you know, in justgenuine, honest outreach. It was a
very natural transition from my perspective andspeaking with other folks in the market,
(29:27):
it's a transition that I'm not certainthat there's too many other brokerage companies in
the world that would happily acknowledge thatthey knew less about a particular topic,
you know, four years ago thanthey did today. That's just the nature
to bet sometimes, but it isour reality. You know. We started
from pretty humble beginnings, and wetook the advice of people who knew more
(29:51):
than us, and we did everythingwe could to learn from them. And
at this point, I think peoplecome to us with questions because they know
we know what we're talking about,and that has been the differentiator. And
so, you know, the movefrom analysts to broker was natural because I
was already speaking to a lot ofthese a lot of these folks, and
(30:11):
the move allowed me to kind ofexpand the conversations I was already having,
and we were able to make reallyhealthy, long lasting relationships that we've been
developing for quite a while at thispoint and have been fantastic. You know,
we we've met a lot of greatpeople along the way. The move,
(30:32):
the promotion from associate to senior associatewas pretty straightforward. That same mentality
of you know, reaching out toa lot of people, you know,
having a lot of conversations, itnaturally transitioned to, you know, the
realization that there's a lot of peoplein the market who you know, if
(30:53):
it's a sale, if it's afinancing engagement, if it's you know,
some type of development consulting. Imean, we very quickly developed a reputation
in the marketplace as a as acredible, honest resource to go to.
And Henry are and I and youknow, and there's we're talking about the
East Coast, but you know,for the edification of the rest of the
(31:15):
podcast here, you know, there'sthere's Central Coast, and there's Central and
West Coast teams as well that whoalso know what they're doing but for us,
specifically in our niche in the EastCoast, we have a reputation of
being the honest broker and being ableto perform complicated math essentially, but being
(31:36):
able to kind of unpeel sticky onionsis the best way to think about it,
right, Well, you know,I think a lot of what you're
saying it really does come back totoo honesty, right, I mean,
honest with yourself that you don't knowwhat you don't know, and that you're
willing to go learn it. Andreally I think it speaks to the culture,
(31:56):
to the broader culture of grace dealin general. You know, That's
what I've down. You know,if you go back and listen to two
old you know, sales conferences,it's it's consistently someone telling coaching young brokers
to just be honest, you know, outworker competition, do a better job,
be honest when you don't know something. And I've heard that numerous times,
(32:16):
and I think I think it reallydoes speak to what you just kind
of took us through. But Iwill say the knowledge that the Affordable Housing
team has is incredible. I mean, again, I've listened and I know
just enough to know that it's verynext level, and it's it's always fun
to hear Henry, to hear yougo through go through this information and to
(32:40):
kind of to just find the kindof highest and best opportunity for sellers,
potential sellers, refinancers and creative structuring. So I appreciate all of that info.
Really, you know, that's kindof all I had for for you
today. You know, it's it'sreally great to hear you know, hear
what you've what you've done in likeI said, I mean, it's been
(33:05):
a good run for you. You'rea grace deal and I know I know
how well thought of you are,and I'm grateful to have a little time
to kind of speak with you,and hopefully you know, have a bunch
of other people, you know,hear your story. I think it's I
think it's can telling now, Mike. I really appreciate that the focus of
this conversation has been on me alot. You know, I was there
(33:27):
at the beginning. I did alot of work, but you know,
we have had the fortune of havingan analyst team, so you know,
I moved up backfield analytical firepower beneathus, and we've had the fortune of
some of the best hires you know, we can ask for. We've got,
you know, a gentleman who hasbeen with us on the analyst side,
(33:50):
you know from the I mean reallythe beginning of I'm gonna say the
beginning of this practice, but youknow, from from when we really put
our foot on the gas and it'syou know, we've we've really grown fantastically
as a team. Your spot onyou know, the culture here. It
provides a lot of flexibility to operateyour business in the way you see fit
(34:13):
and for us that's been critical.You know, we're obviously pleased with the
result. We've had our foot onthe gas for the past you know,
been the better part of four yearsor three years. It's been a ride.
I will definitely share that with you. Um, but it's been a
ride I would do again. We'llgood, We'll good. That's great to
here, and again, thank youso much for your time, and thanks
(34:35):
everybody for listening. And uh we'llbe back again next time. Thank you.
We got into the math in apretty big way, and I spent nights
and weekends, you know, andyou know, and obviously during the working
day just making sure I understood allof the call them individual components of you
know, what makes these deals tick. Hello, this is Ari Fuzabody.
(00:22):
I am the CEO of Gray Steal. Gray Steals a national boutique top fifteen
commercial real estate capital market services fromI want to welcome and also thank you
for joining Greatcasts today. This showis an open and light conversation around entrepreneurship,
life and the lessons we learn alongthe way. When I was younger,
I was always looking for folks Icould find inspiration from and to inform
(00:45):
my path. And I hope thatthe young people that are listening to Greatcasts
today find value in hearing the experiencesour guests share. I would love to
hear from any of you that arelistening in. Feel free to reach out
to me on LinkedIn, my socialmedia channel of choice. Hey, everyone,
thanks for joining us for another editionof the Gray Cast podcast. I'm
your host Mike here, and ontoday's show, we're speaking with Fletcher Holton.
(01:10):
Fletcher is a grad of Virginia CommonwealthUniversity and is currently a senior investment
associate with the East Coast Affordable Housingteam here at Gray Steal. A couple
of things that I took away fromtoday's conversation with Fletcher. You know,
this was a young man that wantedto be an attorney. He worked his
(01:30):
way with a law firm through school, commuted eighty miles each way to VCU
in pursuit of an economics degree.He really, you know, aside from
Maddy, followed his other interests.He learned to speak some Russian in Eagle
Scout, which, for those ofyou that know is is no easy task.
(01:52):
So kind of his pre grad Stealcareer is interesting. But really his
breakdown of affordable housing for those thatmaybe you to that sector of the industry,
is really informative. He breaks itdown in a really clear and concise
way, and I think there isa lot of value to gain, certainly
that part, but really the wholething. Fletcher is a really good young
(02:16):
person who has who has done agreat job here and helped grow our East
Coast affordable housing business tremendously. Ihope you will enjoy this conversation as much
as I did. Thank you forlistening. Welcome Fletcher, Thanks Mike.
(02:36):
Happy to be on here. Yeah, no, we're I'm excited for you
to join us. You know,I know Fletcher and I have kind of
worked around each other, but reallythis is the first time we're kind of
sitting down and having a full blownconversation. So we're gonna learn all things
Fletcher together. So Hey, thefirst thing I wanted to ask you about
(02:57):
is Russian. So do you whenyou speak Russian? Fluently? Fluently and
yet but I get by if Ineeded to. Yes, I have a
go to phrase, which is noshkagavro Parowski, which essentially means I only
speak a little Russian. The genesisof why Russian is pretty simple. It
(03:20):
was to impress a girl. Itworked out she married me. Are you
seriously? Yeah? So you married? Is she from Russia? Actually from
Ukraine, but it's her family's traditionallyRussian. Oh, very cool. I
assume you've you've been to the Ukraineand or Russia. Not yet, it's
(03:40):
it's on the list. She hasnot been back to Eastern Europe since coming
to the States, and like,oh eight, but it's it's on the
list of places to go. Yeah, that's very cool. So do her
folks speak Russian? And you weretrying to impress you were trying to impress
the parents some version of that.Yeah. Basically, I've done a lot
(04:04):
of dumb things for a girl,but nothing ever is productive is learning a
language. So that's prett impressive,you know. I'll tell you this real
quick. When when I was backin school, we did this trip where
we went all over the Baltic Seaand we spent a night in Saint Petersburg
and luks were short. I endedup by myself lost and late for the
(04:26):
ship, and I was in frontof a museum called the Hermitage, and
I couldn't find anybody who spoke English, and I don't know like Russian obviously,
so I'm looking around and who doI see walking down like the middle
of the square is Andreasy and StephaneGraff yea where a Yankee had. I'm
the most obvious American you've ever seen. And I go and I try to
(04:47):
talk to him and try to getdirections, and yeah, they blew me
right off. So I mean theEnglish desk and I was the last bow
back on the ship before it sayssale, So that could have used you.
Yeah, well yeah, maybe maybenext time we can go together.
All right, Well I'm then thenthe other thing I was reading your bio,
(05:08):
so tell me you were an EagleScout? Yeah, I am.
Is that that something you keep forever? Yeah, it's you know, it's
you earn it and uh, itdoesn't go away. There's very little to
go from there. There's a fewthings you can pick up after eagle,
but you know, kind of onceyou once you hit eagle, that's that's
more or less the top. Iliterally am a card carrying Eagle Scout.
(05:31):
They give you this gold card,at least they did, uh fifteen years
ago. I have a plastic goldencard that says I'm an Eagle Scout.
So that's pretty incredible. So youhow long did you do scouts for it?
And what was your capstill? Like, do you have like a final
project to become an Eagle Scout?Yes, and so it's it's a leadership,
(05:51):
call it orientation. But it givesyou know, seventeen eight your own
kids, you know, who coulduse the direction and the experience. It
gives them an opportunity to really takea project from A to B and be
the person managing the project and notbe the person necessarily doing the work.
(06:12):
Now, I definitely did some workwhat my project was, and I was
in the Scouts for eight or tenyears something something to that effect with hills
and valleys over time. But meand a group of guys built a bridge
in a community park. So Igrew up in somewhat rural central Virginia area
(06:34):
called Greene County, and there wasa community park that the local municipality had
been working on over time, andthey had these fantastic big soccer fields.
To get to the soccer fields fromthe parking lot, you had to cross
this piece of low lying earth thatfrequently, when it rained, would be
(06:55):
a muddy mess. So I gotthe county's blessing and they bought me a
bunch of would and me and somereally children built a bridge at with thankfully
the direction of license contractors, becauseit had that not been the case,
there's no way it would have stayedthere. It's still there today, actually
was there a couple of months ago. Good look, I'm glad they didn't
(07:16):
get you for any you know,child labor laws and uh, you know,
we promote the work of children onthis podcast. So yeah, no,
for sure. We uh it wasOSHA approved or something like that.
Okay, good dude, I'm trulyall hard, little hard hats definitely.
So all right, So you grewup in Greene County in Virginia, you
do you do the scouts kind oftake me through, Like, how'd you
(07:40):
pick Virginia Commonwealth VCU? You?Uh, obviously you know Virginia School.
I'm sure you you know, youhad your pick of all these great schools.
You know what was it about VCUthat that drew you? So?
VCU for me, I mean theybasically, I mean they gave me a
lot of opportunity. So when I'mgone out of high school, I started
(08:01):
working. I was focused more onwork than I was on my academics,
and I you know, I wasin community college for a period of time,
but the whole time I was working, and I had this idea in
my head that I wanted to bea lawyer, and so I started working
with this legal group. And youknow, VCU to me was both opportunity
(08:24):
and flexibility. What my undergraduate careerlooked like, it was very busy.
I still worked nearly what I wouldcall a heavy part time working load,
and then was taking essentially full timeclasses of VCU, but the class structure,
the actual academic strength of the programs. They have a really strong focus
(08:50):
on getting kids good information and actuallymaking sure you learn it. And so
for me, I needed to makethe most efficient use of my time because
I lived I did not have atraditional academic career in the sense that I
did not live on campus. Iactually lived about eighty miles away, and
so I was working in the Charlottesville, Virginia area and driving to Richmond three
(09:13):
sometimes four days a week to goto school. And I needed to make
sure that every minute of my timeat school was spent being productive. And
what I got out of VCU wasI mean professors who responded, They provided
information in the manner that made sense, and I mean it was, you
(09:35):
know, a solid group of people. I was able to connect with it
there and we still speak with today. So for me, I mean they
opened a lot of doors for meand gave me the flexibility to pursue what
I wanted to do on the workfront, which I never stopped doing, but
(09:56):
also make sure I actually got graduatedfrom the program. There's a lot of
schools that just by nature of howthey schedule their classes. They it makes
it very challenging to graduate while alsoworking in an efficient amount of time.
So that was the real key forme is I was able to marry the
two things that I really knew Iwanted to do and do them quickly.
(10:20):
That's pretty incredible. You know,I had a similar run. I did
community college. I worked my waythrough community college to go to my four
year school and kind of grow fromthere. You know, I can't claim
that I had the same work ethic. I was just trying to get to
a good school. So like aparty, Yeah, but no, I
mean, look, that's you know, you learned you certainly if you didn't
(10:43):
have it going in, you learntime management probably better than most. And
frankly, the greatest thing I kindof think I heard in that is that
you learn not to go be anattorney. Yeah. No, Well,
the folks I worked for, andI love them to death, but they
definitely disabused me of that idea quickly. I did not know what it really
meant to be a lawyer. Anduh, I mean I worked with them
(11:07):
for several years and I understood atthe end of what it was. And
it's a good profession. It's anecessary profession. I thought I could at
the end of the day when Ineeded to make a decision, I thought
I could go do something else withouttaking on three years of additional education.
And it's worked out well for me. Yeah, now that that's great.
(11:30):
You know, I've seen I've seena lot of people have great obviously law
careers, and we work with somegreat attorneys, great great attorneys you know
here in you know, in Charlotte. But I've also seen you know,
friends start law school and leave,and I've seen a lot a lot of
attorneys you know, leave come overand come over to the brokerage side.
(11:52):
So I mean, to save yourself, you know, some of that middle
ground is I think great. Ifyou have that doubt, I think it
was. It was pretty intelligent tokind of switch, to know enough to
switch, you know, to pivot, and to kind of start. So
you went so you really did it. You went right into into real estate
out of school, right, Imean it looked like you were doing acquisitions
(12:15):
and asset management. That's right.So I left school and I, you
know, without having a whole longstory about it, my now wife and
I we were both graduating. Itroughly the same time. We were focusing
on jobs actually in the DC market, so I had interviewed a ton with
a lot of great firms in theDC area. Then she got this kind
(12:39):
of more or less a godfather offerfor someone right out of school to go
work for the Federal Reserve Bank ofRichmond. So we totally shifted course went
to Richmond, Virginia, and Iwas able to connect with a gentleman in
the Richmond area who primarily syndicates equityand now actually I've kept up with him.
(13:00):
He is a private equity fund managernow buying real estate assets. But
we were very focused on the grossrey anchored retail center as well as modest
office spaces, but really just veryfocused around income producing defensive properties is how
(13:20):
to describe his strategy. And youknow, that's about in an up cycle,
that's about the best guy you canlearn from, because someone who's very
focused on fundamental does this make senseanalysis of real estate. And he was
very focused is very focused on identifyingoutside risks and trying to mitigate them.
(13:43):
So, I mean I worked forhim for you know, a fairly relatively
brief amount of time, but itwas like I mean, it was.
It was a fire host of aneducation for sure. Yeah, and you
know, just to gain that perspective, I too in my first kind of
post kind of real estate gig developer. You know, it was always about
(14:05):
the exit strategy and it really hedid operate in a defensive way and it
was invaluable. It has stuck withme my entire career and will always you
know, particularly with with my ownpersonal investment, but also the way we
advise our clients. Right, Soyeah, I mean it doesn't take doesn't
take years to learn how important thatis. But yeah, yeah, I
(14:28):
mean it's it's I mean, it'sit's critical. Yeah, So take me
to take me to kind of gracedeals. So then you jumped. So
really it was July of eighteen youcame over as an affordable housing analyst.
Is that? Is that right?That's right? So in early eighteen you'll
notice a pattern here. So mywife got into Georgetown University for a master's
(14:50):
program and that caused us to,you know, need to move from Richmond
to the DC metro area. Andyou know, I had had options at
that point, if I know,if I wanted to try to stay with
what I was doing, if Iwanted to make a change, and you
know, so I started looking aroundand I connected with Henry Matthias, who
(15:13):
leads the East Coast affordable practice herewith with Ari and we had a really
good meeting of the minds. Itwas a situation where I'm very focused from
an underwriting perspective on representing reality andyou know, making sure that we've baked
in, you know, all ofthe real risks and you know that our
(15:35):
underwriting is I want to make surethat you know, from an underwriting perspective,
it was something that was realistic anddefensible. And you know, when
I came over as an analyst andthe affordable housing world with Art, with
Arian Henry, the impression I gotfrom them is that that's identically what they
wanted as well. And you know, I could tell you that's that's exactly
(15:56):
what we're doing over here. Butyou know, I and I came over
initially, I wasn't sure if Iwanted to be a broker. You know,
I didn't know a single thing aboutaffordable housing. I had only been
to a couple of tax credit seminarswhile working in real estate and Richmond,
and I was pretty pretty green.We got into the math in a pretty
big way. And I spent nightsand weekends, you know, and you
(16:19):
know, and obviously during the workingday just making sure I understood all of
the call them individual components of youknow, what makes these deals tick,
how do people earn money doing this? And you know, all the pieces
and parts to put them together.And over the next year and some change,
you know, we really started rampingup. It was this understanding of
(16:41):
what are the key elements of eachdeal and from every single perspective, that's
what's that's what's helped us do well. Yeah, you know, I've I've
seen your underwriting and I've I've beenyou know, a part of a couple
of your guy's proposals, and it'sit's it's always very well thought out.
And the way you guys explain yourmath, your assumptions, it's really it
(17:06):
really is based in in good logicand backed up by numbers. So let's
back up real quick though. Youknow, for those that are listening that
that may not know the nuances ofaffordable housing. You know, typically a
multi family you see you know,market rate deals, which is the average
complex that that you may drive byor go and lease and then there's a
(17:27):
different ways that people create affordable housing. So a lot of that is tax
credit based, and there are severaldifferent ways in which these are implemented and
handled. Can you talk just alittle bit about that and maybe get into
lie tech versus you know, Sectioneight half just kind of very top line.
(17:48):
Let you give us a little bitof just oversight on the affordable housing
space. Definitely, let start withSection eight, you know, because I
think in general it's a it's aprogram that a lot of people, at
least at a high level, arefamiliar with. Most people know Section eight
from tenant based vouchers, where alandlord will accept a voucher, the tenant
pays thirty percent of their income andthe voucher from the local housing authority pays
(18:14):
the rest of the rent to thelandlord. When we look at Section eight
properties, we're looking at properties thathave what's called a project based contract,
so instead of a voucher with thelocal housing authority, that same dynamic with
the tenant, you know, inthirty percent of their income exists with HUD,
the federal agency Housing and Urban Development, And you know, over the
(18:38):
seventies and eighties, they a lotof properties were built and redeveloped, and
they qualified to get these contracts,and so it's something that stays with the
property and it's a very stable streamof revenue to the property because what they're
essentially saying is is that so longas you fill the property with people who
(18:59):
meet these incomes criteria, you know, you will get one hundred percent of
the rent o to you. Youknow, you can kind of theorize why
that would be attractive. You know, from from a financial risk perspective,
those project based Section eight contracts areit's a pretty low risk way to own
real estate because you have a lotof revenue certainty. So now there's a
(19:21):
lot of those that exist out inthe world. Now the tax credit system,
so whereas a project based Section eightcontract is a rental subsidy, the
tax credit system is a development subsidy. And the way it works, you
know, the traditional Mike, ifyou and I were to go buy a
property, you know, and wewere going to go fifty fifty on it,
(19:44):
you and I would go get aloan. Let's say it's a it's
a million dollar property, and wewere putting down twenty percent, so you
know, we collectively put in twohundred thousand dollars. We're going to go
to the bank and ask for aloan for eight hundred thousand dollars, and
we're going to show up on closingday and you know, we're going to
shake hands with the seller and youknow, go our separate ways. The
way the tax credit system works ata high level is similar, but there's
(20:11):
a few more moving pieces you areable to so it only works if you're
either a building new or be substantiallyrehabilitating a property. What this provides is
is it looks out on an asstabilized basis, and we ask the question
of how much debt could could theproperty support once it's fully stabilized, and
(20:37):
we look at what they expected,either new construction budget or rehabilitation budget is.
And there's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of architects and lawyers
and things of that nature who needto be involved in these development projects.
And it does add some cost,and so there's a fairly material soft cost
component here. But for their trouble, the developers that take the time and
(21:03):
you know, work through all thecall it brain damage to go and structure
these transactions, they actually can earna developer fee, and so that can
be wrapped into the deal. Itcan be structured a few different ways.
But at the end of the day, when you line up one of these
projects, all of your construction costsand acquisition costs and all of these things
(21:26):
they work together to form what theIRS calls the aggregate basis or the eligible
basis. Excuse me, and youare eligible, and there's four percent tax
credits and nine percent tax credits.We're not going to go into that here,
but you're basically your project will beeligible to produce on an annual basis
(21:49):
some amount of tax credits. Andwhat the state agency that supplies developers with
those tax credits does is they issuea letter and they've done their homework on
your deal. You've given them allyour underwriting and all of your proposals,
and they say, okay, great, we agree with your math. The
(22:11):
project is going to produce. Let'sjust say, for the sake of argument,
a million dollars per year of taxcredits. And the developer can take
that that piece of paper that says, your developer, your project will produce
a million dollars a year of taxcredits. They can take that to lots
of different folks who buy tax credits. And how it works is those tax
(22:36):
credits are it's a million dollars peryear for ten years. The way it
works is the developer takes it andthey're able to get that ten million dollars
up front. There are big banksand other organizations that they're in the business
of buying these tax credits or buyingthe future rights to these tax credits as
(22:57):
they are produced, and you know, they might give you, you know,
ninety to ninety five cents on thedollar, you know, somewhat location
and somewhat project depending, but youknow, you basically line up a permanent
loan and a construction loan, andyou know, you line up who's going
(23:18):
to buy your tax credits, andyou show up to the closing table with
debt and equity and the development subsidiesthe tax credit piece. You know,
if not for the tax credits,the majority of these deals would not make
e nine sense from it from atraditional perspective. Right. So, so,
I mean that's interesting, right,that's it's it's a completely different structure,
(23:41):
but it really it supports housing forthose that need it that couldn't pay
just privatized rental rates that go up, up with the market. So I
mean, really it's it's such anuanced business, but it's a it's a
large business, and it's a it'sa critically important business. So that's incredible.
(24:02):
And I think really the level ofunderstanding in detail you're able to provide
and how well you know this isis something that is a testament to tell
the work you did up front,you know, especially in those those first
kind of early days as an analyst. But then you know, I see
clearly, you know you jumped overto the investment associate side, so they
(24:23):
you know you were, you werepromoted onto the out the brokerage side,
and then and then really listened ayear later you were promoted again. So
and I know this from talking withHenry, what the important part of the
team you are over there. It'sbeen really in the time you've been there
since July of eighteen or here,you've you've really you've really you've learned a
(24:45):
very important business skill and you've grown, you know, with your team,
and it shows. I mean,if you saw the sales you know,
your sales trend line the East CoastAffordable team is incredible. I mean,
you guys have grown tremendou you know, the deal you did in the fourth
quarter, I think maybe the largestdeal you know, every Gray Steals history.
(25:07):
So I mean, kudos to you, and really what you've done here
in your time and really you know, a relatively short amount of time.
But let me hear it from you. I mean, how has your experience
been here from your standpoint? Howhas Gray Steal you know, brought you
up and giving you tools and youknow, how do you feel that that
it's gone so far and kind ofwhere do you see where do you see
(25:30):
it going from here? So that'sa great question. Part of the trajectory
has frankly been it's been from thetop down is the willingness to ask questions.
And what I mean by that isthe leadership team I work with to
let me ask questions of clients andpotential clients. There is, and there
(25:52):
are, I mean incentives in thisbusiness to appear as if you know everything
already and try to you know,sound like you're not to say that you
there's people who make themselves sound likethey're smarter than they actually are. That's
not what I mean, but thereis when as we are consulting with clients,
they're asking very important business questions,and it's an important component that we
(26:19):
understand every single thing that we're advisingthem. And so right from the get
go, you know, when Icame on board with Henry and Ari,
I identified very quickly that this stuffis complicated and it's going to require more
than just me reading. It's goingto require interaction with people who are out
(26:40):
working on this, you know,because you need to get the real world
perspective of what's possible and realistic,and you know, it's important. Our
trajectory has been astounding in part becauseI have been able and Ari and Henry
have had the humility, frankly,to ask questions. We could have very
(27:03):
easily just made it look like weknew what we were talking about and simply
moved on. And you know,it's opened the door for me to have
deep conversations with developers and clients andpotential clients and just have an open conversation
about I know this, this ishow I'm thinking about this problem. What's
your take on it? Is?Essentially how all of these have gone.
(27:26):
What that has yielded is an extremelyfast learning curve, you know, which
is what you largely what I attributeour sales volume too, is we were
able to very very quickly get upto speed on a very complicated topic and
apply real world knowledge from multiple crediblesources to real problems. And being able
(27:51):
to do that taught me at thebeginning that I am pretty good at speaking
to people and I like doing it. And as it relates to me making
the jump from analysts to brokerage,I had spent a lot of time,
you know, digging into our dealsand you know, talking to a lot
of people, you know, certainlydoing my own homework. But if there
(28:14):
was some type of discrepancy in ourthinking or we just wanted an external opinion,
that was an opportunity for me togo talk to somebody and ask them
an interesting question. And the realityof human natures that people like to talk
and people like to talk about thethings that they're doing. So very quickly
I was speaking the same language asa lot of our developer clients and they
(28:41):
were very receptive to it. Andthe information I took from those conversations I
applied to the next conversation with thenext guy, and the next one to
the next guy, and you know, pretty soon and what really prompted the
move from analysts to broker was weknew a lot of the same people and
I already had a relationship. Ifif Gray Steel was going to bring on
(29:06):
an additional broker and they to serviceEast Coast East Coast affordable assets, that
person would have to restart a lotof relationships, relationships that I basically already
had, you know, in justgenuine, honest outreach. It was a
very natural transition from my perspective andspeaking with other folks in the market,
(29:27):
it's a transition that I'm not certainthat there's too many other brokerage companies in
the world that would happily acknowledge thatthey knew less about a particular topic,
you know, four years ago thanthey did today. That's just the nature
to bet sometimes, but it isour reality. You know. We started
from pretty humble beginnings, and wetook the advice of people who knew more
(29:51):
than us, and we did everythingwe could to learn from them. And
at this point, I think peoplecome to us with questions because they know
we know what we're talking about,and that has been the differentiator. And
so, you know, the movefrom analysts to broker was natural because I
was already speaking to a lot ofthese a lot of these folks, and
(30:11):
the move allowed me to kind ofexpand the conversations I was already having,
and we were able to make reallyhealthy, long lasting relationships that we've been
developing for quite a while at thispoint and have been fantastic. You know,
we we've met a lot of greatpeople along the way. The move,
(30:32):
the promotion from associate to senior associatewas pretty straightforward. That same mentality
of you know, reaching out toa lot of people, you know,
having a lot of conversations, itnaturally transitioned to, you know, the
realization that there's a lot of peoplein the market who you know, if
(30:53):
it's a sale, if it's afinancing engagement, if it's you know,
some type of development consulting. Imean, we very quickly developed a reputation
in the marketplace as a as acredible, honest resource to go to.
And Henry are and I and youknow, and there's we're talking about the
East Coast, but you know,for the edification of the rest of the
(31:15):
podcast here, you know, there'sthere's Central Coast, and there's Central and
West Coast teams as well that whoalso know what they're doing but for us,
specifically in our niche in the EastCoast, we have a reputation of
being the honest broker and being ableto perform complicated math essentially, but being
(31:36):
able to kind of unpeel sticky onionsis the best way to think about it,
right, Well, you know,I think a lot of what you're
saying it really does come back totoo honesty, right, I mean,
honest with yourself that you don't knowwhat you don't know, and that you're
willing to go learn it. Andreally I think it speaks to the culture,
(31:56):
to the broader culture of grace dealin general. You know, That's
what I've down. You know,if you go back and listen to two
old you know, sales conferences,it's it's consistently someone telling coaching young brokers
to just be honest, you know, outworker competition, do a better job,
be honest when you don't know something. And I've heard that numerous times,
(32:16):
and I think I think it reallydoes speak to what you just kind
of took us through. But Iwill say the knowledge that the Affordable Housing
team has is incredible. I mean, again, I've listened and I know
just enough to know that it's verynext level, and it's it's always fun
to hear Henry, to hear yougo through go through this information and to
(32:40):
kind of to just find the kindof highest and best opportunity for sellers,
potential sellers, refinancers and creative structuring. So I appreciate all of that info.
Really, you know, that's kindof all I had for for you
today. You know, it's it'sreally great to hear you know, hear
what you've what you've done in likeI said, I mean, it's been
(33:05):
a good run for you. You'rea grace deal and I know I know
how well thought of you are,and I'm grateful to have a little time
to kind of speak with you,and hopefully you know, have a bunch
of other people, you know,hear your story. I think it's I
think it's can telling now, Mike. I really appreciate that the focus of
this conversation has been on me alot. You know, I was there
(33:27):
at the beginning. I did alot of work, but you know,
we have had the fortune of havingan analyst team, so you know,
I moved up backfield analytical firepower beneathus, and we've had the fortune of
some of the best hires you know, we can ask for. We've got,
you know, a gentleman who hasbeen with us on the analyst side,
(33:50):
you know from the I mean reallythe beginning of I'm gonna say the
beginning of this practice, but youknow, from from when we really put
our foot on the gas and it'syou know, we've we've really grown fantastically
as a team. Your spot onyou know, the culture here. It
provides a lot of flexibility to operateyour business in the way you see fit
(34:13):
and for us that's been critical.You know, we're obviously pleased with the
result. We've had our foot onthe gas for the past you know,
been the better part of four yearsor three years. It's been a ride.
I will definitely share that with you. Um, but it's been a
ride I would do again. We'llgood, We'll good. That's great to
here, and again, thank youso much for your time, and thanks
(34:35):
everybody for listening. And uh we'llbe back again next time. Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!