August 20, 2025 • 34 mins
Anthony A. Luna’s journey from an at-risk youth in San Pedro to CEO of Coastline Equity is more than a real estate success story—it’s a story of resilience, mentorship, and mission-driven leadership.
In this episode, Anthony shares how the Boys & Girls Club changed his life, why mentorship saved him, and how he’s reimagining property management through a people-first approach. He also opens up about the industry’s biggest challenges, the importance of listening to both tenants and buildings, and the personal values that guide his work—especially the one that’s hardest to practice.
Plus, he talks about writing his book Property Management Excellence, co-leading with his wife, and proudly flying their “freak flag” as entrepreneurial partners.
If you think property management is just about leaky toilets, this episode will make you think again.
In this episode, Anthony shares how the Boys & Girls Club changed his life, why mentorship saved him, and how he’s reimagining property management through a people-first approach. He also opens up about the industry’s biggest challenges, the importance of listening to both tenants and buildings, and the personal values that guide his work—especially the one that’s hardest to practice.
Plus, he talks about writing his book Property Management Excellence, co-leading with his wife, and proudly flying their “freak flag” as entrepreneurial partners.
If you think property management is just about leaky toilets, this episode will make you think again.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is the Authority Company podcast Conversations with leaders that
are designing our future. I'm Joe Partivila, and my guest
today is proof that where you start doesn't define where
you end up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Anthony A.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Luna grew up on the proverbial wrong side of the
tracks and has gone on to become CEO of Coastline
Equity and the author of the new book Property Management Excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Once to at.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Risk youth, Anthony transformed his life through mentorship values and.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
A commitment to leadership rooted in service.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Today he's helping redefine property management by putting people first,
improving that profit and purpose can work together.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Anthony Luna, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you doing great? Joe, thanks for having me
appreciate the time.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And you know, a lot of people sort of find
themselves in college or they move out of their parents'
homes and that's where they evolve. But you, like me,
are backgrounds from the very beginnings sort of seeded our future.
And and in the book you write about how your
story begins where the one ten freeway ends, and so
(01:07):
I want to talk about that town of San Pedro
and how that's influenced you today, because, like I said,
most people maybe forget like their childhood hopefully as long
as it was good, you know, nothing traumatic happening. Most
people's like that, My childhood was good, it's fine, not
much of an impact. But for you and for me
as well, it seems like that was a huge driver
for the rest.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Absolutely, and I appreciate you pronouncing it correctly us locally
here actually we all pronounce it incorrectly, so locally we
call it San Pedro, even though it's a Latino I
know that that's incorrect, but right I'll call it San
Pedro during our conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So San Pedro is.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
A small community within LA And for those folks that
aren't super familiar with La beyond going to Disneyland or
going to Hollywood or down to La San Pedro is
a very sprawling metropolis. Whereas most downtown cities you have
kind of the core of the downtown is where the
heart of the city is. That is the complete opposite
of Los Angeles. There are many many cities or communities
(02:10):
or neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles that have their own unique
character and being an immigrant community Each neighbor kind of
has its own flavor culturally, with food, with people, with music.
In San Piedro's one of those neighborhoods. It is the
furthest south you can go in the city of Los Angeles.
Not to be mistaken with calling it South La South
La is actually kind of Central La, which is kind
(02:31):
of again La is a weird little place, weird big place.
But San Pedro is very much an immigrant community of
many migrants from Latino communities or Latino countries, many many Croatians.
We have the largest Croatian population outside of Croatia. We
have the largest population of Italians in California or here
in San Pedro. We actually have the little Italy of
(02:53):
San Pedro is in little Italy of La is in
San Pedro, and many many more migrant communities. And San
Pedro's also where the port of Los Angeles lives. So
the number one port that drives the US economy is
here in San Pedro, and that is the number two
port in the world, you know, second to the China.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
All right, so you give us the geography.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So what did all that that melting pot of immigrants,
different heritages.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
How did that sort of fueled you early on.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, very much a working class community in the prior
to prior to me being born in seventies eighties was
beyond working class, more of a poor community. It was
a navy town. There were navy shipyards in town, and
there was a very large drug and gang issue in
San Pedro and across the Harbor area of Los Angeles,
(03:45):
and that continued. That that drug and gang issue continued
all through the nineties and into the two thousands, and
that was kind of the life I was growing up into.
So grew up in a single parent household. Mom raised us, myself,
my Sybil, and drugs and gangs and alcohol were kind
of the norm in our community and later into probably
(04:09):
later into elementary school, middle school, and high school. Drugs
were in our home. My mom was in a long
term relationship with kind of our local neighborhood drug dealer,
which was kind of the That was kind of the
space I was growing up with in. And the place
that was my sanctuary away from home and away from
the chaos of our community was the Boys and Girls Club.
And that's really the place that shaped who I was
(04:31):
as a leader morally, ethically, kept me safe, physically and
emotionally and really was the driver of who I would
become later in life.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, you write about it the book The Boys and
Girls Club, the impact, and obviously it's impacted millions of
kids over the last you know, half century, And you
know that's kind of sort of where you learn from mentorship.
You you kind of laid the playing field there of,
like I think the home life that I was not
getting a lot of mentorship at home. So tell me
about some of those early mentors that were like, oh shit,
there's like a adults that care about people and and
(05:02):
do good things and go out of the way and
do good things.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And what was that like?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Was that almost like an awakening for you where like
you just didn't know how humans operated.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, if I were to go through the list of
Men's Forces and Boys and Girls Club, we need we
need far more than an hour to get the Joe.
But I think the two that really come to mind were,
you know, I mentioned in the book that kind of
the mom and dad of our teen center kind of
and you know who we saw as kids as the
mom and dad figures in our lives were Hilda and Leo,
And they were the director and assistant director of the
(05:33):
Boys and Girls Club, and Hilda was the staff person
the director of the club that was teaching us all
leadership skills and what it meant to be ethically and
morally right as a leader, and how to speak up
for our community and how to find our voice. And
it was never about her picking an issue or picking
a problem for us to focus on. It was her
(05:54):
helping us identify what are those things that are those
pain points in your community, that are the pain points
at school that you want to learn to advocate for
and change in your community, and really teach us how
to be change makers, you know, as early as twelve thirteen,
fourteen years old, and Leo was for many of us,
including myself, the first male role model that we could
look up to that looked like us, sounded like us,
(06:18):
listened to the same music as us. But strangely enough,
we couldn't figure out why Leo had never been to
jail or prison, because for most of us, that was
like the right of passage as a young man was
at some point, even if I know I want to
be a good person, I have to go to jailer prison,
because that's what every man in our lives had done.
So I think Leo, for me especially, was like that
first male figure that I could look up to. It
(06:40):
was like, Okay, there's another way other than what I'm
used to seeing with my dad or my stepdad or
my you know, every other man in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I know we can't list all the mentors, but
you do write about George Mayer in the book, who
coincidentally sort of led you down the career path, which
we will get into. But tell me about George and
how that led into what you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah. So George was a mentor of mine. He was
a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club. He was
introduced to the Boys and Girls Club from a family
member who was also volunteering on the other coast in
New York City, and realized there was a boys and
Girls club right down the road from his home, and
George was a successful businessman in the community that we
didn't really we didn't know. We had no way to
(07:23):
know George because George our window into the world as
kids growing up in San Pedro's pretty small. And George
was a local community member, member of his local temple
that was also in San Pedro, and not until he
decided to volunteer did we ever get introduced to George.
George exposed us to many of the parts of LA.
(07:46):
I mentioned all the different communities at LA that most
of us had never seen before because we never left.
The one ten against San Pedro is this little peninsula
at the very end of Los Angeles and LA. We
jokingly have this historically terrible metro system that slowly started
to get better. But we didn't leave Sant Peter because
there's no way to leave town. And George was taking
us to downtown LA, into usc games and to you know,
(08:10):
plays and art festivals and exposing us to things that
I think most kids in LA saw on the weekends
with their family on a day to day. So that's
kind of our relationship started. And it wasn't until later
in life, when I started to get into property management
that I finally realized George had owned a property management
business all these years and I just never knew it.
I just knew that George had successful businesses, and that's
(08:32):
really all I knew about them as a kid.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's funny, so let's talk about their property management because
I think Anthony Poy say as a little kid. You
probably weren't dreaming of like you were dreaming. Probably can
get out of Saint Peter. But I want to be
in property management in a real estate one day. How
did I always love these these very like niche sort
of industries And how you fall into it? Because obviously
(08:56):
it's not like you were following dad into the family business.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Uh so tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, not at all. And and we joke in the
industry that nobody grows up wanting to be a property manager,
you know when you think of you know, I want
to be a firefighter. I want to be a police officer.
Maybe today you want to be a content creator. Nobody,
you know, the idea of what a property manager was
was fairly limited for at least for my for my perspective,
it wasn't until I was I was actually after college,
I was living in northern California, came back to San
(09:23):
Pedro for my dream job at the time. I went
to college to explore public service and to work in nonprofits,
and that's what I was doing. I was working at
the local boys and girls club that I grew up in.
After coming home from college and met my now wife,
who was a colleague of mine at the Boys and
Girls Club and realized, we're both in this nonprofit space.
One of us is going to have to probably leave
(09:44):
the nonprofit space to you know, earn a living, to
start to build a family together. And when she went
back to grad school, that's what I did. I started
my first kind of property management career in first property
management business, and that was my entry into real estate.
I knew I wanted to to be in real estate,
and knew I wanted to eventually own real estate, and
I felt like that was the way to get introduced
(10:07):
to real estate investors and learn the business. And over
time I realized, you know, I really like property management.
I really love managing multi family projects and commercial projects,
especially projects that needed work. I love to find out
a property that you know, maybe was distressed and needed
some renovation and need some help.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And now there's a niche within a niche there. Like
you mentioned, there's a multifamily, there's commercial. Was there one
that you gravitated more towards the most or did you
feel like being you know, what do they say about
having many irons in the fire, you know, diversifying.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
What were you doing early on so early on I
was doing multifamily. So my first client, first property owner
I was ever working with, was investing heavily multifamily in
Long Beach here in California, and he was buying distressed,
generally historical buildings, building that had some character to them,
that had some age to them, and he was renovating
(11:01):
them and turning in into luxury apartment buildings. And that's
where I really learned the business and really fell in
love with that part of the market. George Mayor, who
I eventually joined as his junior partner coast Inequity, was
one hundred percent commercial, so it wasn't until I joined
cosin Equity that I learned the commercial side of the business. Today,
I try to keep a blend of the two.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And so tell us about your your current You know,
you've traveled this road and obviously a big part of
it is entrepreneurship and starting your own shingle. When did
you feel like you were comfortable and you knew you
had enough knowledge to do what you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's that's a loaded question, that's a good question, But Joe,
I think you know, I probably I'm the type of
person probably like a many entrepreneurs that will jump out
of the plane as they're building the parachute. And I
don't think I had all the knowledge I needed to
really get started, but I was willing to take the
risk and better myself. And luckily I have a partner
both in life and in business that she was willing
(12:00):
to jump to. But I was very green when I
started my first business, and I was very green when
I came out as a partner, and luckily had a
mentor that I had a long standing relationship with that
really sought more like an apprenticeship and let me teach
you the commercial side of the business, and I'll let you.
His idea was like, I'll let you stay in multifamily.
I really don't want to know multifamily. You keep doing that,
(12:21):
I'll teach you the commercial side, and over time, over
the last decade, we built a portfolio that was blended
between the two product types.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
All right, So you joined Coastline Equity in seventeen five
years later you become the CEO. Tell us about that
short amount of time, because for a lot of people,
that seems like, wow, that's a blink. You went from
you know, merging companies and started then all of a
sudden being the CEO. Tell us what those five years
were like and how they set you off for success.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
In you know, in twenty two.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, it was a lot of learning, It was a
lot of growth, It was a lot of running a
lot of different programs all at once. We have a
portfolio that blends, you know, that goes from lunt all
the way down to North County San Diego, so pretty
wide range. And when I first started with Cosine Equity
as a partner, George was his idea was, I'm going
(13:10):
to give you basically the hardest product that we have
in the portfolio. I'm going to give you the properties
that have a problem, that have an issue, that have
active construction. And that was the best decision he could
have made for me and for the business was to
give me all the problem children, let me. Let me
figure out those those parts of the business and figure
out where the biggest challenges were. And I think that
gave me a nice crash course into the commercial side
(13:31):
of the business. The other side of things that I
think property managers have an advantage over real estate investors
with is a real estate investor might be buying one
or two or maybe three properties, but it becomes a
certain point where their capital and their equity limitations stop
them from being able to acquire more properties and learn
at a faster rate. Whereas a commercial third party property manager,
(13:55):
I have one hundred and fifty to one hundred and
sixty five clients at any one time that may have one, two,
or ten properties, so I'm able to learn at a
speed that's that's substantially different than your traditional real estate investor.
And I think most property managers have that advantage.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So it's the best of both worlds in essence, you forever,
because like I said, there are probably some people who
come in there just on the equity side and then
the investing side, but don't have that other experience. And
you were able to blend those two things and it's
obviously worked pretty well for you over the last few years.
And you know, you in your book, even though you
talk about you know, brass tax and facts, you get
a little spiritual and you're write about listening to buildings.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Is this sort of like the force?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know, does it flow through you tell me about
the practical side of listening to buildings.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I think it is a little bit like the force,
because I know I have staff that current informer that
joke like if I don't go on a property with
them again that there are parts of the portfolio that
I don't see as often as i'd like to work
as the team is responsible for that most days. But
when I walk onto property, I definitely can see and
feel things a little bit differently. And this idea of
listening to the properties is really about not just trying
(15:04):
to find a solution that's going to fix the problem today,
but determining what caused that problem to begin with, so
we can find the real root cause. And there's a
story to talk about or a property to talk about
in the book that's here locally in the Peninsula and
has a lot of ground movement like most most areas
of this area of this region, and previous property managers
(15:24):
would just paint over problems quite literally, or use quick
crete to kind of like quickly band aid over issues
and paint over them and pretending they didn't exist. And
what's that does is just create, you know, these mounds
of problems that will eventually resurface and will eventually be
tenx the cost and tenex the problem. And really it's
about teaching the team how to really determine what is
(15:45):
the property telling you, What are you really seeing and
what are you really hearing from not only the physical asset,
but from the tenants. What complaints are you hearing from
the tenants about when it rains or you know, when
it's windy. What are they hearing, what are they noticing?
What disturbances do they have in their apartment or in
their office? And usually that can start to give us
the hints that we need to find the core of
the issue.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Wow, that's good. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I think we've all many of us have lived in
multi family places where you know, the property management comes
and goes and the culture of property management. You probably
know this better than I do, but people who live
there and be like, my god. You can go from
one property manager that takes a place and makes it
feel like you're living in the ritz Carlton, and it
could be just like a working class you know, apartment building,
(16:27):
to then having a property manager who gives less than
two shits. Pardon my friend, Anthony, So tell me about
this arcane, mysterious world of property manager because we all
know about it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
We talked about how you kind of fell into it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But like the the just the shocks of like the differences,
because it's I mean, there's probably nuanced differences, but man,
when you see it on the ground, like you talk
about putting band aids over bullet holes, Like, what's up
in that world?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Anthony, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's It's the reason I wrote the book. You know,
it's it's a I wish it. It's the book that
I wish I had ten years ago. Is really what
it felt like writing the industry. You know, the gaps
are huge. Like you described, you have property managers that
truly care and truly see the asset like their own.
They look at it as if they were the owner.
(17:16):
They care about their tenants like they're really their neighbors
because they are and truly care about the impact that
property and their decisions make on the community at large.
And then you have the others, And unfortunately, there are
a lot of those others in the industry. I talk
about that idea of like really wanting to root out
those bad apples out of the industry, and I think
(17:39):
slowly that is starting to happen. I think we're starting
to see more and more property managers that truly understand
the impact they can make and the impact that they
will make if they truly treat the property and the
tenants differently. But in general, the industry, the industry's gone
through a lot in the probably the last four or
five years since COVID. When COVID hit, we lost about
(17:59):
forty five percent of the workforce nationwide and they never
came back. And a big part of that is that
the industry is not it's not an easy world. You know,
most days you're when you're talking with a tenant, you're
only talking with them when there's a problem. So your
job is to deal with other people's problems, issues, concerns,
leaky toilets. You know, it's a lot of problems and
a lot of issues, and it can lead to burnout.
(18:20):
And during the days of COVID, when everybody was working
from home or they weren't working from home, there on
the field, a lot of us were working twelve sixteen
hour days without vacations because at least here in southern California,
you couldn't really go anywhere anyways. So I think by
the time the first kind of open doors happened during COVID,
a lot of the industry left and never came back,
(18:42):
but that has allowed for this new generation. I think
of property managers new and old in terms of age,
that are really interested in doing it differently.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's great. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So and the backup the day I worked in radio
and New York and we used to get paid appearances
and we used to go to like store openings and
stuff like that, you know, street fairs.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh that's good, sort of goofy stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And I remember the worst ones to go to were
mobile phone stores because the only people they go to
mobile phone stores are there to complain at their phone's
not working.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So it was always like the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Like I took the money and ran, but like it
was like the worst two hours of my life. And
property management is a bit like that, and you kind
of describe it like you don't really know that there's
a problem.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's you know, perfect.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
And something analogous to it is like an offensive lineman
in football. No one knows the name of the offensive
lineman until they give.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It a sack.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So how does that work in your world where you're
only hearing the bad stuff?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
How do you know when good stuff is happening?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
How do you know, I mean Anthony lu Is listening
to the building, so that helped, But like, how do
most people know that property management is doing good job
of property management?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah? And what I described is I think how most
of the industry works, you know, the way that we
approach things and the way i'm you know, I speak
about it in the book, is that there are ways
to absolutely be more active and be as preventative as
we are with preventive maintenance on a building, we can
do the same thing with tenants, where we're checking with them,
you know, more organically, whether it's phone calls to check in,
(20:11):
you know, monthly phone calls if there is a problem
on rent. It's also you know, doing things like net
promoter score surveys and really assessing is this tenant happy
with the building, with management, with the community that we're
trying to cultivate, and doing things like residence satisfaction or
tenant satisfaction events, and really finding other touch points beyond
just the maintenance request or the upset phone caller email,
(20:33):
and really being much more proactive than I think historically
the industry has been good.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Good, good to know, and you know this will led
you to writing this book and you outline five core
values of listening, integrity, owner mindset, quality of life, and legacy.
Which of these for you has been the hardest to
learn and live by. Is there one of those that
you could pick and be like, oh, that's that one's hard,
Or maybe it could be just like a deal of choice,
(20:58):
like for every person, it's different.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Which of those was the most difficult for you?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I think for me, probably the most difficult was the
fourth principle of quality of life and really understanding that, hey,
we can't take care of our tenants and our clients
effectively if we're not caring for ourselves and our teams.
And I think, again, going back to the high burnout
and turnover rate that we have in the industry, you
described it having this constant dwarf property managers. If we're
not caring for ourselves and our teams in a way
(21:25):
that fills our cup, then we're never going to be
able to do the job well. And I can remember
the days, and I still fall back into that habit
where it's you know, hey, I didn't realize I've worked
seven days twelve hours, you know, twelve hours each day,
and before you realize that, I'm at burnout, So really
making sure that we're trying to deliver a stress fee
environment not only for our tenants and not only for
(21:45):
our clients, but for our team as well.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Wow, and you know.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You describe you know, a lot of your work is
in Southern California. Southern California is one of those places
that it's like, you go five hundred yards, it's different
you're going to go there's a ton of multifamily and
a ton of single family. So it's like, so when
it comes to that sort of diversity of properties, is
it is it harder to kind of maintain when there's
(22:11):
so much of it? Because sometimes it really depends on
the company, right if like, if you're a small shingle,
you could probably oh, you've got a couple of properties,
But when.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You have so many, how much harder does it to
sort of keep.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That culture running where you kind of don't lose track
or keep your eye off the ball.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, it's been a challenge for us, even within the
product types. And I think that's part of the reason
that a few years ago we stopped accepting clients, accepting
new clients that were not multifamily, you know, larger scale
apartment buildings and commercial properties, because we found that when
we were trying to do the type of property management
that we want to deliver on a single family home
(22:48):
or a duplex or a triplex, it wasn't as easy
to do at scale with all the various product types.
I think you can still absolutely and we have. We
have colleagues that are delivering the same principles in smaller
product like single families and duplexes, but we've really found
a challenge in doing it in every single product type
consistently and at the same quality. So for us, it's
(23:09):
been about making the decision that hey, we can really
only take clients above our certain size to be able
to do it consistently and do it well right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You know, I do a work on an affordable housing podcast,
so I know enough about the housing industry to be dangerous.
And we all know, even if you're not in the industry,
know about the housing crunch and all the difficulties with
finding homes in Los Angeles. I'm sure it's just as
it's harder than ever because of the fact that for
people who have low paying jobs, they need to live
(23:38):
near these sort of high value areas without having to
commute two hours.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So tell me about that balance.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And this happens in a lot of large cities where
it's like, Okay, great, we want to have a restaurant
in downtown LA, but like our workers need to go
two hours because they can't afford to live anywhere near
Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So tell me about the housing.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Like, just you know, on the ground there in Los Angeles,
what's happening there now?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, it's not going well at all. And you know
when catastrophes like the fire in Altadena or the fire
and policy has happened, it only makes the problem worse
because the housing crisis just compounds because now you have
affluent neighbors moving into what little housing stock we have available.
(24:22):
So and that has been been an issue for many,
many years. The City of Los Angeles had a great
effort a few years ago to really eliminate a lot
of the red tape around affordable housing, and it really
created some great momentum for us, and it was an
area that my wife and I have continued to advocate
for is really making housing access and affordable housing available
(24:43):
at every price range. And in the last few months,
the CLA is kind of pulled back on those efforts
and put the red tape back up. So the days
of that red tape being gone and being able to
get shovels in the ground in sixty five days is
slowly turning back into one year, two year, three year plans.
There are projects that are on the affordable side that
(25:03):
sometimes takes seven to ten years to get built. And
with the Olympics three years away from the La Olympics
hitting the area where we need to move faster, we
really need to address our housing issues before the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And part a lot of that too is just like
the culture of communities with nimbiism. Like, you know, I
think we all agree that, hey, we need to build
more housing, but like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Don't don't build that one by my house if you
don't mind.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
How you know, since you're in this industry, how much
does that I mean you mentioned regulations. I think we
California famously. You know, they're known for movie stars. You
know this is the coastlines and regulations. But tell me
about like nimbiism and how that plays.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
A part in all these struggles.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, it's a huge problem across the region. The state
of California did put in some laws they put some
laws in place to try to curtail that issue and
tried to legislate for each city to have a minimum
numbumber of apartments or housing stock that they needed to build.
With variant success. There are in some cities that have
just absolutely refused to comply or are slow walking that
(26:10):
that that decision. Others have embraced it, but without a
combination of legislation and curtilling the red tape and making
it easier for developers to be able to build housing stoff,
I think we're kind of at a standstill where it's
going to continue to be this issue that we can't
build fast enough.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I know we all saw in the media, especially during
you know, four or five years ago during COVID, there
was this quote unquote mass exodus out of LA that
was the headlines. That was absolutely not true. We have
continued to have an inflow into LA and that's not stopping.
We continue to have a population growth here and luckily,
for the first time in a decade, we did see
(26:48):
homelessness trend downwards by about ten percent, So it's positive
and we're moving in the right direction. But nimbism in general,
we've got multiple layers. I know, here in the city
of la we have this structure of neighborhood councils that
are a post post nineties piece of piece of government
that was added where there are elected neighborhood councils that
(27:10):
have a level of decision making around developments and they're
able to shut down developments really easily at the local level.
So it's working with those neighborhood councils to make sure
we continue to advocate for more housing stock. But you're
right that a lot of people are all for housing
until it's in the backyard.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Right And if you don't mind just a humor in
me for a moment, because I think, you know, you're
an expert in real estate, so i'd love to get
your take on this. Is that if you listen to
you know, gen Z right now, I think there's this
sort of general thought of I'm never going to own
a home. There's not gonna be home for me. I'm
never gonna be able to afford a home. The prices
(27:46):
are crazy, you know. And then you also see, you know,
it's funny on my TikTok. You'll see like these multimillionaires
saying owning homes of waste you should rent, you know.
And then of course there's the argument of like the
the impacts of a home has on people and family
and stuff like that. So tell me about that in
the future of real estate and this sort of this
broadly accepted notion that kids that are in their twenties
(28:09):
right now will never own home.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
I think I think there are absolutely solutions. I think
cities are getting more and more creative. You know, before
we hit record on this podcast, and I talked a
little bit about the home I live in with my family.
You know, it's here in la where we consider a
small lot home where the footprint is very small. It's
less than a square less than a thousand square feet footprint,
but it goes up four floors, and we love it.
We're you know, we love that we have a rooftop deck.
(28:34):
We get to enjoy we have to watch the sunrise
and sunset. So I think there are solutions that cities
need to be willing to look at. And I know
when we first bought this home, there were twenty two
homes put on this lot, and there were certainly, you know,
looks from neighbors in the community of like what is
that thing I think's huge. It's it's it's definitely different
than the rest of the neighborhood. But slowly we're seeing
(28:54):
more and more of these developments that can start to
fit into a community really nicely and add some character
of the community without completely destroying what's already been there.
So I think cities are going to get more creative
out of necessity, because I don't think home ownership is dead,
and I think there are still going to be people
that at some point will decide, hey, I'm ready to
put down roots and really really ready to buy a home,
(29:15):
and they're gonna need to have different housing stock at
different prices.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, no, it's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I always do a laugh at the people that say,
you know, don't buy a home. They're usually like multimillionaires
with like nine homes. So I was like, I always
take it's like, really, so why do you own homes? Like,
you know, I mean, one thing you can almost keep.
The one thing that Elon Musk has done is like
he doesn't I think he couched surface, Like he doesn't
need you've have homes anymore. So there is this idea
that you should have and I'm a new homeowner in
(29:43):
the last you know, three years.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
And I think some people are made for it, some
or not.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean the comfort of having a landlord and a
super come by and fix things and then all of
a sudden, you're the l landlord, you're the super. So
it's not for everyone. But I think, you know, like
you said, we just need to give people the options
and the ability to do that thing.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And I think again, it's probably a scary time for
somebody that's looking to buy with interest rates where they
are and no kind of you know, decrease in sight,
at least at my crystal balls, right, we're not We're
not heading towards a decrease unless it's artificial. So it's
a scary time to try to be a first time
home buyer and trying to enter this market right now,
especially for all of us in guessing yourself where it's
(30:25):
we bought at such low interest rates, we're probably not
willing to sell anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
No, No, And it is funny too though, Antheony.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You probably know the history bandized the If you were
to ask, like a boomer or great generation person about
interest rates, like in the eighties, the interest rates were
like double and triple what they are now, so it's
all relative. But yes, you know, we can all be like,
oh my god. And then of course people don't realize
the reason those interest rates were so low is because.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Of the O Way crash.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
They were trying to hype up, you know, of ownership
and selling and building and stuff like that. So it's just,
you know, everything happens for a reason and and hopefully
it kind of levels off and it maybe lowers a
tick so people aren't scared off by it. But at
the end of the day that those interest rates, they're
gonna be part of everyone's life, regardless of what the
number is, and you just have to figure out a
way to make the math work. And speaking of makeing work,
(31:15):
you know you've talked about your wife, and I always
wrap up these conversations taking folks bying the dedications book.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You leave a lengthy.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Dedication to your wife, Lauren, But tell us more about
that relationship, why it was important for you to dedicate
the book to her, and what impact she's had on you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Anthony.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, So, so Lauren is, like I mentioned earlier, is
my my business partner and all of our business ventures.
She's usually the person that when I give her the
crazy idea. She's just asking when are we pulling this off? Like,
when are you hitting the trigger on this one. She's
always been completely supportive. When I was ready to make
the jump one hundred percent to real estate and leave
the security of a nine to five at the Boys
(31:53):
and Girls Club with a you know, with a four
to one k and a salary and really take this risk,
there was no hesitation, and it was more of like
an encouragement of like, it's time for you to do
this thing. You've been talking about it. And that's really
been the case in all of the changes that have
happened over over our relationship the last decade. So again,
she's my She's my first editor on everything I put out,
(32:16):
whether it was the book or articles or anything else.
And really I don't think this book. I really know
that this book and a lot of what we've been
able to achieve in the last decade together wouldn't be
possible without her by my side.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So really tell me about the freak flag.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, you're you're right, because you know I don't give you,
don't give off any freaking thiss if you'd read the book.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
No more about you.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah, you don't seem like a very freaking guy, So
tell me about the freak flag flying.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, you know, it's it's this idea that we usually
are kind of the outliers in most rooms that we're in,
you know, whether it's we're in an entrepreneurial room and
people realize that, wait, wait, you guys are married in
your business partners, you guys have lost your mind, or
we're in a real estate room and we're the youngest
people by thirty years. So we used to we'd still
have this running joke of like, we're usually the freaks
in the room, and we just need to embrace that
(32:59):
and be okay with it, because there was a period
of time where I think both of us were a
little bit nervous with that, with being the outliers or
being the you know, the sore thumb sticking up in
the crowd, and even you know, in our own community.
There was this period of time where we really, I
really resisted this idea where we would walk into a
room together or separate, and they would introduce us as
(33:21):
the lunas, and I used to worry for my wife, like,
I want each of us to have her own identity.
I don't want you to be, you know, behind the scenes.
In a lot of ways, she runs all the parts
of the business that I hate doing that I'm not
great at, you know, insurance compliance, HR, you know, all
the things that I really need the help with. She runs.
And I wanted her to have her own identity because
(33:42):
she has her own identity, has her own personality. And
at some point she reminded me of like just let
us be the freaks. It's okay, Like I'm okay with
us having this like unified you know, identity when it
comes to our community in some ways awesome.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
We could read all about it and Property Management Excellence
a values based of coach to real estate and property investing.
His name is Anthony A Luna. Anthony, thanks so much
for the time. I appreciate it, and keep that freak
flag flying.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Thanks Jell. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And that's gonna do it for this episode.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
If you want to find out more information about Anthony
and her other amazing authors, go with the authority coompany
dot com.
This is the Authority Company podcast Conversations with leaders that
are designing our future. I'm Joe Partivila, and my guest
today is proof that where you start doesn't define where
you end up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Anthony A.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Luna grew up on the proverbial wrong side of the
tracks and has gone on to become CEO of Coastline
Equity and the author of the new book Property Management Excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Once to at.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Risk youth, Anthony transformed his life through mentorship values and.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
A commitment to leadership rooted in service.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Today he's helping redefine property management by putting people first,
improving that profit and purpose can work together.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Anthony Luna, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you doing great? Joe, thanks for having me
appreciate the time.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And you know, a lot of people sort of find
themselves in college or they move out of their parents'
homes and that's where they evolve. But you, like me,
are backgrounds from the very beginnings sort of seeded our future.
And and in the book you write about how your
story begins where the one ten freeway ends, and so
(01:07):
I want to talk about that town of San Pedro
and how that's influenced you today, because, like I said,
most people maybe forget like their childhood hopefully as long
as it was good, you know, nothing traumatic happening. Most
people's like that, My childhood was good, it's fine, not
much of an impact. But for you and for me
as well, it seems like that was a huge driver
for the rest.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Absolutely, and I appreciate you pronouncing it correctly us locally
here actually we all pronounce it incorrectly, so locally we
call it San Pedro, even though it's a Latino I
know that that's incorrect, but right I'll call it San
Pedro during our conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So San Pedro is.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
A small community within LA And for those folks that
aren't super familiar with La beyond going to Disneyland or
going to Hollywood or down to La San Pedro is
a very sprawling metropolis. Whereas most downtown cities you have
kind of the core of the downtown is where the
heart of the city is. That is the complete opposite
of Los Angeles. There are many many cities or communities
(02:10):
or neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles that have their own unique
character and being an immigrant community Each neighbor kind of
has its own flavor culturally, with food, with people, with music.
In San Piedro's one of those neighborhoods. It is the
furthest south you can go in the city of Los Angeles.
Not to be mistaken with calling it South La South
La is actually kind of Central La, which is kind
(02:31):
of again La is a weird little place, weird big place.
But San Pedro is very much an immigrant community of
many migrants from Latino communities or Latino countries, many many Croatians.
We have the largest Croatian population outside of Croatia. We
have the largest population of Italians in California or here
in San Pedro. We actually have the little Italy of
(02:53):
San Pedro is in little Italy of La is in
San Pedro, and many many more migrant communities. And San
Pedro's also where the port of Los Angeles lives. So
the number one port that drives the US economy is
here in San Pedro, and that is the number two
port in the world, you know, second to the China.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
All right, so you give us the geography.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So what did all that that melting pot of immigrants,
different heritages.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
How did that sort of fueled you early on.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, very much a working class community in the prior
to prior to me being born in seventies eighties was
beyond working class, more of a poor community. It was
a navy town. There were navy shipyards in town, and
there was a very large drug and gang issue in
San Pedro and across the Harbor area of Los Angeles,
(03:45):
and that continued. That that drug and gang issue continued
all through the nineties and into the two thousands, and
that was kind of the life I was growing up into.
So grew up in a single parent household. Mom raised us, myself,
my Sybil, and drugs and gangs and alcohol were kind
of the norm in our community and later into probably
(04:09):
later into elementary school, middle school, and high school. Drugs
were in our home. My mom was in a long
term relationship with kind of our local neighborhood drug dealer,
which was kind of the That was kind of the
space I was growing up with in. And the place
that was my sanctuary away from home and away from
the chaos of our community was the Boys and Girls Club.
And that's really the place that shaped who I was
(04:31):
as a leader morally, ethically, kept me safe, physically and
emotionally and really was the driver of who I would
become later in life.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, you write about it the book The Boys and
Girls Club, the impact, and obviously it's impacted millions of
kids over the last you know, half century, And you
know that's kind of sort of where you learn from mentorship.
You you kind of laid the playing field there of,
like I think the home life that I was not
getting a lot of mentorship at home. So tell me
about some of those early mentors that were like, oh shit,
there's like a adults that care about people and and
(05:02):
do good things and go out of the way and
do good things.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And what was that like?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Was that almost like an awakening for you where like
you just didn't know how humans operated.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, if I were to go through the list of
Men's Forces and Boys and Girls Club, we need we
need far more than an hour to get the Joe.
But I think the two that really come to mind were,
you know, I mentioned in the book that kind of
the mom and dad of our teen center kind of
and you know who we saw as kids as the
mom and dad figures in our lives were Hilda and Leo,
And they were the director and assistant director of the
(05:33):
Boys and Girls Club, and Hilda was the staff person
the director of the club that was teaching us all
leadership skills and what it meant to be ethically and
morally right as a leader, and how to speak up
for our community and how to find our voice. And
it was never about her picking an issue or picking
a problem for us to focus on. It was her
(05:54):
helping us identify what are those things that are those
pain points in your community, that are the pain points
at school that you want to learn to advocate for
and change in your community, and really teach us how
to be change makers, you know, as early as twelve thirteen,
fourteen years old, and Leo was for many of us,
including myself, the first male role model that we could
look up to that looked like us, sounded like us,
(06:18):
listened to the same music as us. But strangely enough,
we couldn't figure out why Leo had never been to
jail or prison, because for most of us, that was
like the right of passage as a young man was
at some point, even if I know I want to
be a good person, I have to go to jailer prison,
because that's what every man in our lives had done.
So I think Leo, for me especially, was like that
first male figure that I could look up to. It
(06:40):
was like, Okay, there's another way other than what I'm
used to seeing with my dad or my stepdad or
my you know, every other man in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I know we can't list all the mentors, but
you do write about George Mayer in the book, who
coincidentally sort of led you down the career path, which
we will get into. But tell me about George and
how that led into what you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah. So George was a mentor of mine. He was
a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club. He was
introduced to the Boys and Girls Club from a family
member who was also volunteering on the other coast in
New York City, and realized there was a boys and
Girls club right down the road from his home, and
George was a successful businessman in the community that we
didn't really we didn't know. We had no way to
(07:23):
know George because George our window into the world as
kids growing up in San Pedro's pretty small. And George
was a local community member, member of his local temple
that was also in San Pedro, and not until he
decided to volunteer did we ever get introduced to George.
George exposed us to many of the parts of LA.
(07:46):
I mentioned all the different communities at LA that most
of us had never seen before because we never left.
The one ten against San Pedro is this little peninsula
at the very end of Los Angeles and LA. We
jokingly have this historically terrible metro system that slowly started
to get better. But we didn't leave Sant Peter because
there's no way to leave town. And George was taking
us to downtown LA, into usc games and to you know,
(08:10):
plays and art festivals and exposing us to things that
I think most kids in LA saw on the weekends
with their family on a day to day. So that's
kind of our relationship started. And it wasn't until later
in life, when I started to get into property management
that I finally realized George had owned a property management
business all these years and I just never knew it.
I just knew that George had successful businesses, and that's
(08:32):
really all I knew about them as a kid.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's funny, so let's talk about their property management because
I think Anthony Poy say as a little kid. You
probably weren't dreaming of like you were dreaming. Probably can
get out of Saint Peter. But I want to be
in property management in a real estate one day. How
did I always love these these very like niche sort
of industries And how you fall into it? Because obviously
(08:56):
it's not like you were following dad into the family business.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Uh so tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, not at all. And and we joke in the
industry that nobody grows up wanting to be a property manager,
you know when you think of you know, I want
to be a firefighter. I want to be a police officer.
Maybe today you want to be a content creator. Nobody,
you know, the idea of what a property manager was
was fairly limited for at least for my for my perspective,
it wasn't until I was I was actually after college,
I was living in northern California, came back to San
(09:23):
Pedro for my dream job at the time. I went
to college to explore public service and to work in nonprofits,
and that's what I was doing. I was working at
the local boys and girls club that I grew up in.
After coming home from college and met my now wife,
who was a colleague of mine at the Boys and
Girls Club and realized, we're both in this nonprofit space.
One of us is going to have to probably leave
(09:44):
the nonprofit space to you know, earn a living, to
start to build a family together. And when she went
back to grad school, that's what I did. I started
my first kind of property management career in first property
management business, and that was my entry into real estate.
I knew I wanted to to be in real estate,
and knew I wanted to eventually own real estate, and
I felt like that was the way to get introduced
(10:07):
to real estate investors and learn the business. And over
time I realized, you know, I really like property management.
I really love managing multi family projects and commercial projects,
especially projects that needed work. I love to find out
a property that you know, maybe was distressed and needed
some renovation and need some help.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And now there's a niche within a niche there. Like
you mentioned, there's a multifamily, there's commercial. Was there one
that you gravitated more towards the most or did you
feel like being you know, what do they say about
having many irons in the fire, you know, diversifying.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
What were you doing early on so early on I
was doing multifamily. So my first client, first property owner
I was ever working with, was investing heavily multifamily in
Long Beach here in California, and he was buying distressed,
generally historical buildings, building that had some character to them,
that had some age to them, and he was renovating
(11:01):
them and turning in into luxury apartment buildings. And that's
where I really learned the business and really fell in
love with that part of the market. George Mayor, who
I eventually joined as his junior partner coast Inequity, was
one hundred percent commercial, so it wasn't until I joined
cosin Equity that I learned the commercial side of the business. Today,
I try to keep a blend of the two.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And so tell us about your your current You know,
you've traveled this road and obviously a big part of
it is entrepreneurship and starting your own shingle. When did
you feel like you were comfortable and you knew you
had enough knowledge to do what you're doing today.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's that's a loaded question, that's a good question, But Joe,
I think you know, I probably I'm the type of
person probably like a many entrepreneurs that will jump out
of the plane as they're building the parachute. And I
don't think I had all the knowledge I needed to
really get started, but I was willing to take the
risk and better myself. And luckily I have a partner
both in life and in business that she was willing
(12:00):
to jump to. But I was very green when I
started my first business, and I was very green when
I came out as a partner, and luckily had a
mentor that I had a long standing relationship with that
really sought more like an apprenticeship and let me teach
you the commercial side of the business, and I'll let you.
His idea was like, I'll let you stay in multifamily.
I really don't want to know multifamily. You keep doing that,
(12:21):
I'll teach you the commercial side, and over time, over
the last decade, we built a portfolio that was blended
between the two product types.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
All right, So you joined Coastline Equity in seventeen five
years later you become the CEO. Tell us about that
short amount of time, because for a lot of people,
that seems like, wow, that's a blink. You went from
you know, merging companies and started then all of a
sudden being the CEO. Tell us what those five years
were like and how they set you off for success.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
In you know, in twenty two.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, it was a lot of learning, It was a
lot of growth, It was a lot of running a
lot of different programs all at once. We have a
portfolio that blends, you know, that goes from lunt all
the way down to North County San Diego, so pretty
wide range. And when I first started with Cosine Equity
as a partner, George was his idea was, I'm going
(13:10):
to give you basically the hardest product that we have
in the portfolio. I'm going to give you the properties
that have a problem, that have an issue, that have
active construction. And that was the best decision he could
have made for me and for the business was to
give me all the problem children, let me. Let me
figure out those those parts of the business and figure
out where the biggest challenges were. And I think that
gave me a nice crash course into the commercial side
(13:31):
of the business. The other side of things that I
think property managers have an advantage over real estate investors
with is a real estate investor might be buying one
or two or maybe three properties, but it becomes a
certain point where their capital and their equity limitations stop
them from being able to acquire more properties and learn
at a faster rate. Whereas a commercial third party property manager,
(13:55):
I have one hundred and fifty to one hundred and
sixty five clients at any one time that may have one, two,
or ten properties, so I'm able to learn at a
speed that's that's substantially different than your traditional real estate investor.
And I think most property managers have that advantage.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So it's the best of both worlds in essence, you forever,
because like I said, there are probably some people who
come in there just on the equity side and then
the investing side, but don't have that other experience. And
you were able to blend those two things and it's
obviously worked pretty well for you over the last few years.
And you know, you in your book, even though you
talk about you know, brass tax and facts, you get
a little spiritual and you're write about listening to buildings.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Is this sort of like the force?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know, does it flow through you tell me about
the practical side of listening to buildings.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I think it is a little bit like the force,
because I know I have staff that current informer that
joke like if I don't go on a property with
them again that there are parts of the portfolio that
I don't see as often as i'd like to work
as the team is responsible for that most days. But
when I walk onto property, I definitely can see and
feel things a little bit differently. And this idea of
listening to the properties is really about not just trying
(15:04):
to find a solution that's going to fix the problem today,
but determining what caused that problem to begin with, so
we can find the real root cause. And there's a
story to talk about or a property to talk about
in the book that's here locally in the Peninsula and
has a lot of ground movement like most most areas
of this area of this region, and previous property managers
(15:24):
would just paint over problems quite literally, or use quick
crete to kind of like quickly band aid over issues
and paint over them and pretending they didn't exist. And
what's that does is just create, you know, these mounds
of problems that will eventually resurface and will eventually be
tenx the cost and tenex the problem. And really it's
about teaching the team how to really determine what is
(15:45):
the property telling you, What are you really seeing and
what are you really hearing from not only the physical asset,
but from the tenants. What complaints are you hearing from
the tenants about when it rains or you know, when
it's windy. What are they hearing, what are they noticing?
What disturbances do they have in their apartment or in
their office? And usually that can start to give us
the hints that we need to find the core of
the issue.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Wow, that's good. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I think we've all many of us have lived in
multi family places where you know, the property management comes
and goes and the culture of property management. You probably
know this better than I do, but people who live
there and be like, my god. You can go from
one property manager that takes a place and makes it
feel like you're living in the ritz Carlton, and it
could be just like a working class you know, apartment building,
(16:27):
to then having a property manager who gives less than
two shits. Pardon my friend, Anthony, So tell me about
this arcane, mysterious world of property manager because we all
know about it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
We talked about how you kind of fell into it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But like the the just the shocks of like the differences,
because it's I mean, there's probably nuanced differences, but man,
when you see it on the ground, like you talk
about putting band aids over bullet holes, Like, what's up
in that world?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Anthony, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's It's the reason I wrote the book. You know,
it's it's a I wish it. It's the book that
I wish I had ten years ago. Is really what
it felt like writing the industry. You know, the gaps
are huge. Like you described, you have property managers that
truly care and truly see the asset like their own.
They look at it as if they were the owner.
(17:16):
They care about their tenants like they're really their neighbors
because they are and truly care about the impact that
property and their decisions make on the community at large.
And then you have the others, And unfortunately, there are
a lot of those others in the industry. I talk
about that idea of like really wanting to root out
those bad apples out of the industry, and I think
(17:39):
slowly that is starting to happen. I think we're starting
to see more and more property managers that truly understand
the impact they can make and the impact that they
will make if they truly treat the property and the
tenants differently. But in general, the industry, the industry's gone
through a lot in the probably the last four or
five years since COVID. When COVID hit, we lost about
(17:59):
forty five percent of the workforce nationwide and they never
came back. And a big part of that is that
the industry is not it's not an easy world. You know,
most days you're when you're talking with a tenant, you're
only talking with them when there's a problem. So your
job is to deal with other people's problems, issues, concerns,
leaky toilets. You know, it's a lot of problems and
a lot of issues, and it can lead to burnout.
(18:20):
And during the days of COVID, when everybody was working
from home or they weren't working from home, there on
the field, a lot of us were working twelve sixteen
hour days without vacations because at least here in southern California,
you couldn't really go anywhere anyways. So I think by
the time the first kind of open doors happened during COVID,
a lot of the industry left and never came back,
(18:42):
but that has allowed for this new generation. I think
of property managers new and old in terms of age,
that are really interested in doing it differently.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's great. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So and the backup the day I worked in radio
and New York and we used to get paid appearances
and we used to go to like store openings and
stuff like that, you know, street fairs.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh that's good, sort of goofy stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And I remember the worst ones to go to were
mobile phone stores because the only people they go to
mobile phone stores are there to complain at their phone's
not working.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So it was always like the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Like I took the money and ran, but like it
was like the worst two hours of my life. And
property management is a bit like that, and you kind
of describe it like you don't really know that there's
a problem.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's you know, perfect.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
And something analogous to it is like an offensive lineman
in football. No one knows the name of the offensive
lineman until they give.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It a sack.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So how does that work in your world where you're
only hearing the bad stuff?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
How do you know when good stuff is happening?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
How do you know, I mean Anthony lu Is listening
to the building, so that helped, But like, how do
most people know that property management is doing good job
of property management?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah? And what I described is I think how most
of the industry works, you know, the way that we
approach things and the way i'm you know, I speak
about it in the book, is that there are ways
to absolutely be more active and be as preventative as
we are with preventive maintenance on a building, we can
do the same thing with tenants, where we're checking with them,
you know, more organically, whether it's phone calls to check in,
(20:11):
you know, monthly phone calls if there is a problem
on rent. It's also you know, doing things like net
promoter score surveys and really assessing is this tenant happy
with the building, with management, with the community that we're
trying to cultivate, and doing things like residence satisfaction or
tenant satisfaction events, and really finding other touch points beyond
just the maintenance request or the upset phone caller email,
(20:33):
and really being much more proactive than I think historically
the industry has been good.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Good, good to know, and you know this will led
you to writing this book and you outline five core
values of listening, integrity, owner mindset, quality of life, and legacy.
Which of these for you has been the hardest to
learn and live by. Is there one of those that
you could pick and be like, oh, that's that one's hard,
Or maybe it could be just like a deal of choice,
(20:58):
like for every person, it's different.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Which of those was the most difficult for you?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I think for me, probably the most difficult was the
fourth principle of quality of life and really understanding that, hey,
we can't take care of our tenants and our clients
effectively if we're not caring for ourselves and our teams.
And I think, again, going back to the high burnout
and turnover rate that we have in the industry, you
described it having this constant dwarf property managers. If we're
not caring for ourselves and our teams in a way
(21:25):
that fills our cup, then we're never going to be
able to do the job well. And I can remember
the days, and I still fall back into that habit
where it's you know, hey, I didn't realize I've worked
seven days twelve hours, you know, twelve hours each day,
and before you realize that, I'm at burnout, So really
making sure that we're trying to deliver a stress fee
environment not only for our tenants and not only for
(21:45):
our clients, but for our team as well.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Wow, and you know.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
You describe you know, a lot of your work is
in Southern California. Southern California is one of those places
that it's like, you go five hundred yards, it's different
you're going to go there's a ton of multifamily and
a ton of single family. So it's like, so when
it comes to that sort of diversity of properties, is
it is it harder to kind of maintain when there's
(22:11):
so much of it? Because sometimes it really depends on
the company, right if like, if you're a small shingle,
you could probably oh, you've got a couple of properties,
But when.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You have so many, how much harder does it to
sort of keep.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That culture running where you kind of don't lose track
or keep your eye off the ball.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, it's been a challenge for us, even within the
product types. And I think that's part of the reason
that a few years ago we stopped accepting clients, accepting
new clients that were not multifamily, you know, larger scale
apartment buildings and commercial properties, because we found that when
we were trying to do the type of property management
that we want to deliver on a single family home
(22:48):
or a duplex or a triplex, it wasn't as easy
to do at scale with all the various product types.
I think you can still absolutely and we have. We
have colleagues that are delivering the same principles in smaller
product like single families and duplexes, but we've really found
a challenge in doing it in every single product type
consistently and at the same quality. So for us, it's
(23:09):
been about making the decision that hey, we can really
only take clients above our certain size to be able
to do it consistently and do it well right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You know, I do a work on an affordable housing podcast,
so I know enough about the housing industry to be dangerous.
And we all know, even if you're not in the industry,
know about the housing crunch and all the difficulties with
finding homes in Los Angeles. I'm sure it's just as
it's harder than ever because of the fact that for
people who have low paying jobs, they need to live
(23:38):
near these sort of high value areas without having to
commute two hours.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So tell me about that balance.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And this happens in a lot of large cities where
it's like, Okay, great, we want to have a restaurant
in downtown LA, but like our workers need to go
two hours because they can't afford to live anywhere near
Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So tell me about the housing.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Like, just you know, on the ground there in Los Angeles,
what's happening there now?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, it's not going well at all. And you know
when catastrophes like the fire in Altadena or the fire
and policy has happened, it only makes the problem worse
because the housing crisis just compounds because now you have
affluent neighbors moving into what little housing stock we have available.
(24:22):
So and that has been been an issue for many,
many years. The City of Los Angeles had a great
effort a few years ago to really eliminate a lot
of the red tape around affordable housing, and it really
created some great momentum for us, and it was an
area that my wife and I have continued to advocate
for is really making housing access and affordable housing available
(24:43):
at every price range. And in the last few months,
the CLA is kind of pulled back on those efforts
and put the red tape back up. So the days
of that red tape being gone and being able to
get shovels in the ground in sixty five days is
slowly turning back into one year, two year, three year plans.
There are projects that are on the affordable side that
(25:03):
sometimes takes seven to ten years to get built. And
with the Olympics three years away from the La Olympics
hitting the area where we need to move faster, we
really need to address our housing issues before the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And part a lot of that too is just like
the culture of communities with nimbiism. Like, you know, I
think we all agree that, hey, we need to build
more housing, but like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Don't don't build that one by my house if you
don't mind.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
How you know, since you're in this industry, how much
does that I mean you mentioned regulations. I think we
California famously. You know, they're known for movie stars. You
know this is the coastlines and regulations. But tell me
about like nimbiism and how that plays.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
A part in all these struggles.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, it's a huge problem across the region. The state
of California did put in some laws they put some
laws in place to try to curtail that issue and
tried to legislate for each city to have a minimum
numbumber of apartments or housing stock that they needed to build.
With variant success. There are in some cities that have
just absolutely refused to comply or are slow walking that
(26:10):
that that decision. Others have embraced it, but without a
combination of legislation and curtilling the red tape and making
it easier for developers to be able to build housing stoff,
I think we're kind of at a standstill where it's
going to continue to be this issue that we can't
build fast enough.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I know we all saw in the media, especially during
you know, four or five years ago during COVID, there
was this quote unquote mass exodus out of LA that
was the headlines. That was absolutely not true. We have
continued to have an inflow into LA and that's not stopping.
We continue to have a population growth here and luckily,
for the first time in a decade, we did see
(26:48):
homelessness trend downwards by about ten percent, So it's positive
and we're moving in the right direction. But nimbism in general,
we've got multiple layers. I know, here in the city
of la we have this structure of neighborhood councils that
are a post post nineties piece of piece of government
that was added where there are elected neighborhood councils that
(27:10):
have a level of decision making around developments and they're
able to shut down developments really easily at the local level.
So it's working with those neighborhood councils to make sure
we continue to advocate for more housing stock. But you're
right that a lot of people are all for housing
until it's in the backyard.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Right And if you don't mind just a humor in
me for a moment, because I think, you know, you're
an expert in real estate, so i'd love to get
your take on this. Is that if you listen to
you know, gen Z right now, I think there's this
sort of general thought of I'm never going to own
a home. There's not gonna be home for me. I'm
never gonna be able to afford a home. The prices
(27:46):
are crazy, you know. And then you also see, you know,
it's funny on my TikTok. You'll see like these multimillionaires
saying owning homes of waste you should rent, you know.
And then of course there's the argument of like the
the impacts of a home has on people and family
and stuff like that. So tell me about that in
the future of real estate and this sort of this
broadly accepted notion that kids that are in their twenties
(28:09):
right now will never own home.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
I think I think there are absolutely solutions. I think
cities are getting more and more creative. You know, before
we hit record on this podcast, and I talked a
little bit about the home I live in with my family.
You know, it's here in la where we consider a
small lot home where the footprint is very small. It's
less than a square less than a thousand square feet footprint,
but it goes up four floors, and we love it.
We're you know, we love that we have a rooftop deck.
(28:34):
We get to enjoy we have to watch the sunrise
and sunset. So I think there are solutions that cities
need to be willing to look at. And I know
when we first bought this home, there were twenty two
homes put on this lot, and there were certainly, you know,
looks from neighbors in the community of like what is
that thing I think's huge. It's it's it's definitely different
than the rest of the neighborhood. But slowly we're seeing
(28:54):
more and more of these developments that can start to
fit into a community really nicely and add some character
of the community without completely destroying what's already been there.
So I think cities are going to get more creative
out of necessity, because I don't think home ownership is dead,
and I think there are still going to be people
that at some point will decide, hey, I'm ready to
put down roots and really really ready to buy a home,
(29:15):
and they're gonna need to have different housing stock at
different prices.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, no, it's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I always do a laugh at the people that say,
you know, don't buy a home. They're usually like multimillionaires
with like nine homes. So I was like, I always
take it's like, really, so why do you own homes? Like,
you know, I mean, one thing you can almost keep.
The one thing that Elon Musk has done is like
he doesn't I think he couched surface, Like he doesn't
need you've have homes anymore. So there is this idea
that you should have and I'm a new homeowner in
(29:43):
the last you know, three years.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
And I think some people are made for it, some
or not.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean the comfort of having a landlord and a
super come by and fix things and then all of
a sudden, you're the l landlord, you're the super. So
it's not for everyone. But I think, you know, like
you said, we just need to give people the options
and the ability to do that thing.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And I think again, it's probably a scary time for
somebody that's looking to buy with interest rates where they
are and no kind of you know, decrease in sight,
at least at my crystal balls, right, we're not We're
not heading towards a decrease unless it's artificial. So it's
a scary time to try to be a first time
home buyer and trying to enter this market right now,
especially for all of us in guessing yourself where it's
(30:25):
we bought at such low interest rates, we're probably not
willing to sell anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
No, No, And it is funny too though, Antheony.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You probably know the history bandized the If you were
to ask, like a boomer or great generation person about
interest rates, like in the eighties, the interest rates were
like double and triple what they are now, so it's
all relative. But yes, you know, we can all be like,
oh my god. And then of course people don't realize
the reason those interest rates were so low is because.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Of the O Way crash.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
They were trying to hype up, you know, of ownership
and selling and building and stuff like that. So it's just,
you know, everything happens for a reason and and hopefully
it kind of levels off and it maybe lowers a
tick so people aren't scared off by it. But at
the end of the day that those interest rates, they're
gonna be part of everyone's life, regardless of what the
number is, and you just have to figure out a
way to make the math work. And speaking of makeing work,
(31:15):
you know you've talked about your wife, and I always
wrap up these conversations taking folks bying the dedications book.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You leave a lengthy.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Dedication to your wife, Lauren, But tell us more about
that relationship, why it was important for you to dedicate
the book to her, and what impact she's had on you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Anthony.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, So, so Lauren is, like I mentioned earlier, is
my my business partner and all of our business ventures.
She's usually the person that when I give her the
crazy idea. She's just asking when are we pulling this off? Like,
when are you hitting the trigger on this one. She's
always been completely supportive. When I was ready to make
the jump one hundred percent to real estate and leave
the security of a nine to five at the Boys
(31:53):
and Girls Club with a you know, with a four
to one k and a salary and really take this risk,
there was no hesitation, and it was more of like
an encouragement of like, it's time for you to do
this thing. You've been talking about it. And that's really
been the case in all of the changes that have
happened over over our relationship the last decade. So again,
she's my She's my first editor on everything I put out,
(32:16):
whether it was the book or articles or anything else.
And really I don't think this book. I really know
that this book and a lot of what we've been
able to achieve in the last decade together wouldn't be
possible without her by my side.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So really tell me about the freak flag.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, you're you're right, because you know I don't give you,
don't give off any freaking thiss if you'd read the book.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
No more about you.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah, you don't seem like a very freaking guy, So
tell me about the freak flag flying.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, you know, it's it's this idea that we usually
are kind of the outliers in most rooms that we're in,
you know, whether it's we're in an entrepreneurial room and
people realize that, wait, wait, you guys are married in
your business partners, you guys have lost your mind, or
we're in a real estate room and we're the youngest
people by thirty years. So we used to we'd still
have this running joke of like, we're usually the freaks
in the room, and we just need to embrace that
(32:59):
and be okay with it, because there was a period
of time where I think both of us were a
little bit nervous with that, with being the outliers or
being the you know, the sore thumb sticking up in
the crowd, and even you know, in our own community.
There was this period of time where we really, I
really resisted this idea where we would walk into a
room together or separate, and they would introduce us as
(33:21):
the lunas, and I used to worry for my wife, like,
I want each of us to have her own identity.
I don't want you to be, you know, behind the scenes.
In a lot of ways, she runs all the parts
of the business that I hate doing that I'm not
great at, you know, insurance compliance, HR, you know, all
the things that I really need the help with. She runs.
And I wanted her to have her own identity because
(33:42):
she has her own identity, has her own personality. And
at some point she reminded me of like just let
us be the freaks. It's okay, Like I'm okay with
us having this like unified you know, identity when it
comes to our community in some ways awesome.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
We could read all about it and Property Management Excellence
a values based of coach to real estate and property investing.
His name is Anthony A Luna. Anthony, thanks so much
for the time. I appreciate it, and keep that freak
flag flying.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Thanks Jell. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And that's gonna do it for this episode.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
If you want to find out more information about Anthony
and her other amazing authors, go with the authority coompany
dot com.
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