Podcasts about Midtown

Getting yourself educated about real estate enables you to manage the risks of investing and make wise decisions. Join us in this episode with Charlie Wessel as he talks about his amazing strategies for serving his investors, educating people about the opportunities of investing in real estate, and building connections with sponsors and other capital partners.Key Takeaways To Listen ForTips to raise capital before getting into a dealReasons to invest in commercial real estateBenefits of using a digital platform in keeping a solid campaignTypes of relevant information to share with investors  The importance and benefits of delegating tasks to a virtual assistantResources to unlock the freedom mindset Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeFree Apartment Syndication Due Diligence Checklist for Passive InvestorRocket Station CareersAbout Charlie WesselFounder of Cordell Capital, Charlie has also founded and managed several successful companies in the Charleston SC area.  He has been involved in Multifamily / Commercial Real Estate in one aspect or another since 2006. Active investor since 2016, he set up Cordell Capital to bring private equity to investment opportunities.The company provides conservative underwriting and extensive due diligence on your investment opportunities to make sure they're taking the most conservative approach to investing and building wealth alongside our investors. They currently own 364 doors in the Multifamily space and  a total of $23,950,000 assets under management.On February 23, 2021, they fully funded and closed the deal with 2200 Midtown apartment homes located in Greensboro, NC. Apart from this, they closed a deal with Abby Lake worth $8,600,000, and River Ridge worth $9,100,000. A total of $23,950,000 properties under management.Connect with Charlie Website: Cordell CapitalFacebook: Cordell CapitalLinkedIn: Charlie WesselTo Connect With UsPlease visit our website: www.bonavestcapital.com and please click here, to leave a rating and review!SponsorThinking About Creating and Growing Your Own Podcast But Not Sure Where To Start?Visit GrowYourShow.com and Schedule a call with Adam A. Adams

Discretion advised: Details in this report may be disturbing.Katherine “Katie” Janness takes her dog, Bowie, for a late-night walk in the Midtown area of Atlanta. Janness stops at a local bar to say hello to her girlfriend, who's working. When Janness' girlfriend gets off work, no one is home, but should have been. After unanswered phone calls and texts, Emma Clark uses the 'find my phone' app, which leads her to a horrifying discovery. Just inside Atlanta's popular Piedmont Park, 40-year-old Katherine Janness has been brutally attacked, stabbed more than 50 times, and her body horrifically mutilated. Letters have been carved into her abdomen and the amount of blood present indicates, Janness may have still been alive when it happened. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Katherine “Katie” Janness takes her dog, Bowie, for a late-night walk in the Midtown area of Atlanta. Janness stops at a local bar to say hello to her girlfriend, who's working.  When Janness' girlfriend gets off work, no one is home, but should have been. After unanswered phone calls and texts, Emma Clark uses the 'find my phone' app, which leads her to a horrifying discovery. Just inside Atlanta's popular Piedmont Park, 40-year-old Katherine Janness has been brutally attacked, stabbed more than 50 times, and her body horrifically mutilated.  Discretion advised: Details in this report may be disturbing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All Local for 12pm 11.17.21 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All Local Morning for 11/17/21 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been quite a while since College Station Economic Development Director Natalie Ruiz stepped up to the podcast microphone to update us on the restaurants, retailers, industries, and events that might be coming to CSTAT. In this discussion with College Station Communications Director Jay Socol, Natalie covers Midtown, Costco, Gringo's, the Wolf Pen Creek area, and how CS ranked so high on a list of Texas cities with the best tacos. All Up In Your Business is now available via: Podbean Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts iHeartRadio Spotify Stitcher YouTube Please subscribe, rate and recommend! Have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, or just want to say hi? Send to jsocol@cstx.gov. 

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The Munich-based digital signage consultancy invidis has been doing an annual yearbook publication for the past decade that is something of an industry bible for the European and Middle Eastern markets, and with each annual edition it gets a little more detailed and broader in its scope. The company does a German version and another one in English to service the rest of the region. There are many, many industry reports out there purporting to have a real understanding and data about the digital signage industry, but most of those reports are expensive and frankly not worth the money.  The invidis yearbook, in contrast, is rich in detail, and full of insights from people who know the business at an expert level. And the best part, it's a free download - with the report bankrolled by sponsor advertisers. I caught up with Florian Rotberg, one of the principals at invidis, to talk about this year's insights, and why the focal point for 2021 was on what they call green signage. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Florian. Thank you for joining me. You're just back from Dubai!  Florian Rotberg: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it was very exciting in Dubai at Expo 2020, and we spent a few days there. It was still very hot, but it's fascinating to see how immersive signage can be in today's show. Yeah. There's digital signage all through the Expo site, right?. Florian Rotberg: It's fascinating. It's LED with a lot of projections. During normal times, you don't see that much projection, but in this special country pavilion, there were 180 of them, it's fascinating to see. It's also great to see what works and what doesn't because some of the countries run out of money or never really had a good plan and you feel it immediately. So you enter the room and go, “oh, that's crap, I'm leaving,” and unfortunately, sometimes you have to wait two to three hours at some of the very popular pavilions. So then it's not a good experience, but in general, it's fascinating to see what's the coolest thing. It's not only LED and projection, but it's also how that's really integrated in architecture and not only how it integrated into the room, but also a lot of mirrors. So one of my favorite things, and I've talked about it many times before, it's really how you combine signage, how you combine LED or projection with mirror. You can do fantastic things and you see some really cool pavilions.  Yeah. There was a new observatory that just opened up in New York, overlooking Madison Avenue in Midtown and it's got a big LED wall, but it's also three levels of mirrored ceilings and floors and walls and everything else and reflects like crazy. I was trying to wrap my head around it, but it's that kind of thing where it becomes just an infinite space.  Florian Rotberg: Exactly, and it feels immersive and it can create great experiences there, and we took 1400 photos and 70 hours of video, so we'll put everything together in the next week we would publish it on Invidis Meets World on YouTube where you can watch it and we will show a lot of other stuff also obviously. What is invidisXworld? Florian Rotberg: So invidisXworld is something we started before the pandemic, and we decided because signage is so much about content, so much about the whole room, it's not only the digital canvas, but how people move in front of the screen and what a brand or the vendors really want to achieve.  And so we decided, we have to travel. We have to go there. We have to talk with the people who designed it, and we have to just experience ourselves and then to tell the audience how it really feels. So we just hired the camera team, and we went off to Sweden and to Berlin which is still both in Europe, so it was easier to reach, and we spent a week there and talked with dozens of experts and visited museums. Some of the museums just opened for us because they were all closed because of a lockdown, and we went to Volvo, to H&M, to different places, to headquarters and talk with the guys who are responsible for that. It's a fascinating show and people like it and we get quite good feedback.  So we're working in a visual medium, and you're actually using video?  Florian Rotberg: Yes!  How clever.  Florian Rotberg: To be honest, I always thought photos are so cool, it's so easy, but unfortunately video is so much better, but it's very expensive. It's not just you spending a week somewhere, you have a whole camera team, and almost like a broadcast team, we have a video guy, sound guy, a producer, and you have to feed them and that is sometimes difficult. So you have to manage them almost like kids, but at the end of the day, you get some really good footage afterwards and it's worth the trouble. For people who haven't been to Dubai, as you say, it's fascinating. I find it extremely weird, but the degree of digital signage there, all these projects, and a lot of them are big budget projects, are they instructive or are they one-offs where you look at them and go, that's really cool, but, that's not something that's ever going to scale? Florian Rotberg: It's changing. In the past, it was just about the “wow of the moment” and afterwards, they all forgot about it. Nobody cared about maintenance, and after a year it just looked horrible, because nobody invested in content and nobody cared about it, and to be honest, even till today, the majority of the digital touchpoints are still not really connected to any backend systems or so and there are various reasons for that. One is when they open something and then they forget about it. People change jobs really fast. So even the person who is responsible for that leaves a job after a year or so, and so nobody has ownership anymore, and last but not least, these countries are relatively small, so reaching scale is very difficult, even for big chains, maybe maybe 40 stores or so getting scale is difficult.  And they're interested in the “wow” and unfortunately not so much until four to five or seven year long contracts. But you said it's changing?  Florian Rotberg: Yep. It's changing, getting smarter, getting more connected. To be honest, the region is the most digitally advanced region with a very young population. They have two-three mobile phones, and they're very open to all of this stuff. So it is changing, and we talked, while we were there, to one of the biggest telecommunication companies there, and we were at one of their flagship stores and they now have 170 stores and they have really good connections, and they really think in customer journeys.  We also visited a smart hospital, which was really cool. You identify yourself when you enter the hospital with your ID card and then it takes a photo of you and then you walk through the hospital and it detects you and makes sure that you're in the right room, that the right person is there and everything. So very smart and they're really starting to think about journeys and to improve processes. So at the smart hospital, the process before was three days with all the examinations until you got to stand for your visa renewal, and now it's down to 30 minutes, which is incredible, and this is only possible with digital. So I wanted to chat for a number of reasons, but the principal one was the yearbook that Invidis puts out. Could you explain what that is and how it works?  Florian Rotberg: Some people call it the Bible of the industry. I'm not sure if I would call it that, but yeah, it's an annual book we have been publishing for 11 year now and it's free to download on Invidis.com and it basically gives a yearly update about the latest trends. We have lots of rankings there, especially this year since it was quite interesting. You know, like the largest CMS providers worldwide, and which verticals are most important for digital signage, etc. We just give an analysis of the market, what has happened and also an outlook on what trends are coming up and what to understand, and the main topic this year is Green Signage. I know many of your listeners are based in North America, but over here in Europe, it's a huge topic. During the pandemic, the interest in more sustainable solutions has improved dramatically, and so more and more brands are looking to also operate their signage networks more sustainably, and what's most interesting when we did all the research is that 80% of the carbon footprint of a digital signage project is during operations. So for five-six years, the whole thing is operating. It's not so much the production, it's not so much the shipping. Yes, it's still 10-20%, but 80%, that's the biggest lever, and so it's not only about buying a more sustainable, more conscious signage solution, but it's really about how to improve existing installations. And there are so many things you can improve and you can reduce power consumption with the right content. Turning it off at night, it's so unfortunate that the majority of the signage runs 24/7 even if there are no people around. Kiosks systems, they all run 24.7. There's no reason if a kiosk system is somewhere on a factory floor and the floor is closed or in the evening, or at night, it's still running. In the beginning, especially with LEDs, obviously they consume a lot of power. So there are a lot of levers and ways to be more conscious and more sustainable.  Do you think part of that is simply the early days of the legacy of digital signage software and hardware is that you were afraid to kind of power it down cause it would come back?  Florian Rotberg: Exactly. Yeah, that's the main thing, at least that's what the technical integrators always say. Some, especially on some more recent screens, turn off the sensors, the light sensors and everything because the marketing department wanted the red as close as possible to their official red and obviously that doesn't work if you change the brightness of the screen but things are changing really fast. And what's most interesting now with the pandemic and about sustainability is that signage has become a CEO topic for the first time. In the past years, they never really cared about digital signage, but now they really have to report it to their shareholders: how they could improve operations, where they could reduce the carbon footprint and digital signage plays an important role. Interesting. The yearbook is primarily focused on Europe and the Middle East, right? Florian Rotberg: Yes. That's how we started. We started this in Germany and then we extended it and now it's more or less all over Europe and every year we add a few more countries. Last big thing was the Nordics, and currently we're working on France, Spain and UK, so next year, we will also have rankings for these countries, and yeah, especially in Europe most markets were quite national markets and now some bigger international players are really growing and Europe is seen as one market, and so it's important to have all of them and that includes the UK.  Yeah, despite Brexit. Is what happens in Europe indicative of what is happening globally or is it its own thing?  Florian Rotberg: The whole green stuff is probably the most advanced in Europe. Yeah, you don't hear about it in North America. Honestly, I've never heard anybody bring it up. Florian Rotberg: Yeah, but over here, especially in the Nordics, it's very important, and just for example, electricity is 10 times more expensive in Germany compared to Korea, for example. Even the designers and the engineers who create new solutions, they're not aware of how important power consumption is and life is changing, and I think this whole climate debate we are currently having, I think it will become more important, not only in Europe, but also in the US.  I know that Europe and the Middle East primarily, I've heard other people talk about the real action these days being in China and in India and I wonder how hard it must be, particularly with China, to try to wrap your arms around who the major players are, what activities are going on, any of those things?.  Florian Rotberg: Yeah, China is a very difficult market. There's a lot of potential but it's very difficult as an analyst, really, to look at the market and it's so different. Interestingly enough, there are a few bigger digital signage integrators based in Europe and North America who also have offices in China and they're pretty much doing this stuff for all the big luxury brands and so. So there's some European and then North American guys who really are trying to do stuff in Shanghai and the big cities, but the general market is just huge, and you probably talked to Chris Regal or so, because he's very successful in India and in China, but he's targeting more of the mid market and the European players, they're just looking at how to bring Italian and French brands to China. And those European brands and other brands, would they rather bring familiar companies into the country to do that for them, as opposed to hiring local firms?  Florian Rotberg: At the end of the day, that's the case, but that's also with North America, that's the success of the media to be honest. Media's strength in Europe is that they represent America, the American customers here. So what is happening in terms of the yearbook? Obviously we're hopefully coming out of a rather rough couple of years. I noticed in the report that the countries in Europe, at least that had a particularly rough time were France and the UK versus some of the other countries that were down, but not to the same level. Why did that happen? Florian Rotberg: Because of the lockdown. We had different levels and different lengths of lockdown, and just looking at Australia, they had a three months lockdown. Now that obviously has a huge impact because the stores were closed, and even if it's a brand that's willing to spend money and to upgrade the stores, they couldn't because technicians weren't allowed to enter the stores.  I know, in past discussions around this, that Europe's an interesting market in that dominant players in many respects are dominant by country, as opposed to across the continent?  Florian Rotberg: That has been the case, absolutely. But this is currently changing. So we have, we call them the Top 3, they are the three largest pure play digital signage integrators, and they've all been acquired more or less by private equity and now they're buying competitors in the big markets. All three of them really try to grow into a pan-European or international player.  But in relative terms to the North American guys, AVI, SPL, Diversified and Stratacache, they're tiny, right? Florian Rotberg: They are tiny. They hope to change that but they are very small. But to be honest if you look at AVI, SPL or even Diversified, they're not pure digital signage, they do a lot of Pro AV, IT stuff, so you should compare apples with apples, but still X times larger than the biggest in Europe. AVI, SPL just announced, I think, it's called the Experience Technology Group. So they seem to be recognizing that they need to get more serious about signage and venue based displays. Florian Rotberg: Oh, yeah, and I love what they do. They're really smart in creating this platform to manage different AV solutions and everything. So I think that it's a smart approach, and also now looking out to create more immersive experiences because if you have expertise there, you can really export it throughout the world. So that works quite well.  But in Europe, we still have the problem of 25 different languages and really creating concepts, which you need to understand the culture and yes, there's a big difference between Sweden and Spain or Italy and Ireland also. So really to understand that, and that was a reason why there were large local players and still, if you look how these big three or at least three for European sizes and how they're growing, they all built up little local creative teams and sales teams in each countries because you need to have this local expertise, you need to speak the language of the client, and you need to understand what they really want to achieve.  You've done a ranking of the Top 10 Global CMS software platforms, and I'm making some assumptions that there are some CMS platforms in China that you and I probably have never even heard of and that they are probably huge as well. But were you surprised by who showed up on this list?  Florian Rotberg: Some surprises, yes. I mean there's a small asterisk next to it. So it's just the best of our knowledge, obviously. I'm sure there are many but one big problem is always Samsung. They never report anything, and it's really difficult.  So the largest one is Stratacache. It's a little bit more than 3 million active licenses, and one of the surprises was that the top three players were Navori. I'm not sure if many of your listeners have heard about Navori. They're based in Switzerland. They're pretty big in North America actually.  Florian Rotberg: Yeah, not so much in Europe, funnily enough, even though they came out of Europe and yes, they have more than 1 million active subscribers. So that's quite cool, and then you see some more vertical ones who are growing through acquisitions a lot and socialists like BroadSign, it's great to see. We have followed BroadSign for more than 15 years now, and it's great to see how they have become the standard in the digital out-of-home industry. It's quite impressive. Yeah, they've risen to a level where they pretty much own that vertical and I always try to coach software companies that you really don't want to be a generalist. You want to have a focus on something and they probably more than anybody have done that in digital out-of-home.  Florian Rotberg: Yeah, but the same with Four Winds etc., they all are specialists, or at least they are focusing more and more on certain verticals. Yeah, Four Winds barely calls itself a digital signage company now. They're talking about the workplace and the same with Ops Space.  Florian Rotberg: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think there was just an announcement in that space today.  So what are you seeing in terms of trends in the industry? As you mentioned, the shift to, or the interest in green signage is one thing. What else are you seeing happening out there?  Florian Rotberg: The biggest challenge currently across the world is to manage the supply chain shortage. Unfortunately, that won't go away in 2022. If you read the Financial Times, if you talk to all the people, you just read it every day and most people expect that to last at least until the end of next year. And that's pretty bad news because the order books are as full as they were before. There's a lot of demand for signage at the end of the pandemic, and unfortunately 2022 will still be a difficult year. Secondly, we have a shortage of talents and whoever you talk to, I'm sure you also get calls about companies saying, we're desperately looking for a new manager and I get them every day and that's a huge issue and then shortage in diversity, shortages of women, of everything. It's still a very male dominated thing, and today InfoComm opened and I'm sure the majority of them are men, as always, and so we see these three shortages: supply chain, talent and diversity. When I get asked to organize panels particularly with an organization like the AVIXA, which has diversity initiatives and everything else, they really encourage me to make sure that I'm finding women and people of color and so on, and I'm completely supportive of that, but it's hard. Florian Rotberg: It is hard, yeah. It's not easy. I fully understand, but alsowhen you look more in the new work, in the hybrid world, it's all about hybrid and that's very challenging for everyone. It's easy to have everyone at home. It's easy to have everyone on location, but managing these hybrid workspaces is very difficult. How can you create meetings where everything feels included and often you communicate with eyes and with every single one that's very difficult to do when alf of the people are somewhere at home or so. So you need lots of creativity and innovative solutions to manage that. So that's also something which will definitely remain.  And we're seeing gimmicks coming up there, like this idea of the metaverse and using quasi holograms, so that it feels like you're sitting across from a real person when it's not obviously, do you see any potential for that stuff? Florian Rotberg: To be honest, it's a one way road because it's nice for the guys who are in the office, but for the guys who are sitting at home in front of this small screen, it doesn't help them at all, and you need to have both sides and you need to empower both sides, and so I think at the end of the day, it's difficult to solve and we haven't seen any solution. I think the cool part is teleportation stuff, and last week in Dubai, there was also an IT show. It was just the biggest and it was unbelievable how full it was like before the pandemic, and they had these cool mirrors and everything. So it looked like somebody was in the room, when obviously he wasn't. And so it's great to see, but it doesn't help people at home, and so that still remains a challenge.  And I wanted to go to that show. I've seen some videos of some booths from some companies, and it looked insane.  Florian Rotberg: It was, and a lot of booth people were waiting an hour more. Can you imagine that? Just to enter the booth because it was so full, it was unbelievable. We all had to wear a mask, no question about it, but we waited more than an hour just to get in. So yeah, it was amazing, and we produced lots of videos and we will publish that in the next couple of days. It's really cool stuff, especially in regards to retail technology, all the cool stuff, all the fancy things were robots and solar, but also AI and how it really works, and then some simpler solutions in all of these checkout carts and everything, and also these devices which measure you so you don't have to find the right size without using camera technology, because obviously that's something which most people don't like. And it's interesting to see what kind of solutions there are. Much of the stuff, it's really something where you're thinking, oh, it'd be great. If they would roll that out in the future, the majority of them are still in the prototype phase, but hopefully we will see lots of this coming up. Your report coined a term, “Deep Signage” which I had not seen before, but I understand it and this idea of integrating back office systems with other business systems within a company. It sounds like that, particularly in Dubai, is really coming into play.  Florian Rotberg: Yeah, we try to form this term, deep signage, because for us, it's important that you connect as much as possible, as long as digital is just a layout on something existing. It won't really offer the experiences everyone needs and the benefits. So you have to connect it to the back office, and especially when we talk about moving away from just digital signage CMS, all the way to a digital experience platform, then you need to mix everything and then really connect. So deep signage is something we believe is one step towards digital experience.  Yeah, and how do you define digital experience platforms?  Florian Rotberg: Oh, that's difficult. Yeah, when you download our book, we have a little picture there, and it's four stages. We start with a digital poster, which is the most simple one. Then we have digital signage, then we have a digital signage experience platform, and then the ultimate is digital experience platform, because there's a totally different approach to it, and when we talk about DXP, it's not digital signage or mobile or online, which is in focus, but it's really the data, it's the experience which is in focus regardless on which channel you play it out, and it's really orchestration of all of the different channels and different stories and media platforms, and that's what digital experience platform is about. But then many customers ask us who does it and who's good at it, and it's very difficult. There are only very few companies and most of them are totally vertically organized players like Zara,, I'm sure you know them, because they do everything, they own the factory, they own the warehouse, they own the shops, and they own the data and for them, it doesn't matter if you go into a store, try something out and decide to buy it online, because they own the whole value chain and this is one of the few companies who really are able to deliver a DXP and make the most of it, but more will come definitely.  If you're a smaller company, is it something you can even contemplate at a different kind of scale? Florian Rotberg: No, it's not worth it. I think you need to be very large, to be honest, and to really put up a DXP project, you probably need a few million just for setting it up.  You mentioned private equity companies and some of the integrators in Europe, or are you seeing a lot of private equity activity? Florian Rotberg: Yes, it's unbelievable. So much money in the market. That's the reason that conservation is speeding up so fast, it's unbelievable.  Why do you think that is right now? Is it distressed companies?  Florian Rotberg: No. We were surprised not at all, but maybe that's also a European thing because the governments took care of that and so most of them kept their employees, which is a good thing now, because they didn't have to retrain new people so it's not about that.  It's more about that the crisis wasn't really an economic crisis. It was more of a human crisis, and so most companies still have a lot of money, except if you are a Chinese real estate company, then maybe you don't. But in general, they have a lot of money. The private equity companies, they're looking for new ways of spending it, and they all buy into the digitization of stationary retail. They fully understand that times have changed and you can only survive if you're fully digital, and so that's probably why they like it. And then there are also some of the trends like we have the first valuation of more than a hundred million in Europe for an integrator, and this is one of the thresholds where, you know, private equity likes to come into the market. Zeta Display, they were almost at a hundred million valuation and it's not much compared to the top three in the US but for Europe, that's quite big, and that that made it really interesting for many others.  You also, in the report, talk about changing roles of the different companies in the ecosystem and how there are dinosaurs, disruptors and discovers. What do you mean by that?  Florian Rotberg: Ah, that's quite interesting, especially when you look at software companies, some of them are reinventing themselves, and in the past,, there was the value chain and there were clearly defined roles. There was an integrator, the integrator usually owns the lead with the customer and he chose certain software and certain hardware and that was it basically, and then you did some stuff in the back and, but I think Chris Regal was the first one, when he quit Scala, he said “oh, I'm sick of just having 3-5% of the project, I want to have more”, and so he decided to build around software this whole end to end solution. And then other companies, software companies from Sweden and other parts of Europe, they're really also trying to change the way the value chain works. So they really want to be ISV+. So they want to do everything except hardware . Obviously the investors love that because that's every single sale which would have recurring revenue and nobody wants to touch hardware, and Chris Regal always tells us that you need to also to understand how to learn, to manage it. Otherwise the service you mentioned will be really expensive. So it's interesting to see if this ISV+ model will work out for them.  So that sounds like the dinosaurs are those who refused to adjust and adapt, and the disruptors are those that are doing things differently? Florian Rotberg: Yup. We have some smaller, more aggressive players coming into the market and also players like Spector, many people hadn't heard about them and now they have become really relevant  And there are also companies that, in some cases, are very large companies that can come into the market from outside, like consulting companies like Deloitte and so on and disrupt things as well, right? Florian Rotberg: Absolutely. On a different level, but yes, Accenture, Deloitte, all of these guys and they are really close to the big enterprise. So usually they do at least double digits, sometimes triple digit contracts with blue chip companies every year and they're trusted names. So it's an easy one for BMW, Adidas, Nike, or whatever to hire one of them and to ask them to create a new digital concept. Unfortunately, most of them don't know how digital signage works. Yeah. So they always invent this great stuff. It looks fantastic on PowerPoint and everything, but then at the end of the day, they need to subcontract it to the signage contractor to solve the whole thing and make it work, and we have also seen the big four have failed as a digital signage company, and so it's interesting, but eventually they will buy some digital signage companies I think. Or hire smart people, you know? Over here in North America, I think about Gensler and Publicis Sapient, and they have some super smart people working for them now who really get this space and get the technology and everything else. So they're getting there, but it's a very small percentage of people within very large companies..  Florian Rotberg: You mentioned Gensler, it's fascinating, and I'm sure we talked to the same people there and it's really fascinating how with new projects now, they make more money with digital stuff rather than the traditional architectural stuff. So that's fascinating. Not revenue wise, but from the bottom line, and that's interesting to see because if you do digital consulting, obviously your margin is higher than with your standard architectural work. So it's fascinating to see how architectural companies like this are really getting into the digital space and if you don't see it as just a layer really integrated, you need to plan it from day one.  Last question: Is there a piece of technology or an emerging technology that gets you particularly excited?  Florian Rotberg: We are both not the youngest anymore. We have seen many technologies come and go, and I know one thing that never works is 3D. So we were a little bit surprised to see how 3D in this false perspective on this LED wall worked, but I still think it's a hype, to be honest.  Analytics, sensors, and IOT will make a difference, no question about it. But it's not one technology, it's more, I think a mindset of connecting everything and measuring everything and adapting to the audience in the milliseconds. I think that's something we're changing. It's probably a whole range of different technologies.  Yeah, I'm of the same mindset. I tell people that the stuff that excites me would probably bore the pants off of them, and just in terms of its the operational stuff is being able to affect messaging based on what the data is telling you, and it may be really boring saying, go this way instead of that way, because that's too busy over there or whatever, but that's fabulous stuff and it makes a difference or whatever venue it is works.  Florian Rotberg: Exactly. It's more the stuff under the hood, which really gets me excited and that's also where you can really improve processes where you can really add value, and so that's what we are mostly working on, and obviously customers want to pay for the glittery stuff on top of the rest. But no, but that's where we see the biggest changes happening in the future.  So if people want to read the 2021 year book, how do they get it?  Florian Rotberg: It's free to download at invidis.com and I think you also published an article, so you can also find it on your website a link to that, but it's free to download, it's 200 pages and not only this year's edition, but if you also want to read some auditions, please come to our website a and download it there. And you're able to produce it for free because you get advertising sponsors to support it, right?  Florian Rotberg: Yes, but it's still more work than we get from advertisements, I can tell you that It was a pleasure catching up with you as always.  Florian Rotberg: Thanks for having me. 

The COVID shutdown impacted many local businesses and organizations. After 18 months local community theaters are finally flipping on the stage lights again and kicking off new seasons. However, as the doors reopen, there are some new audience requirements. KUNR's Kevin McCray reports. Annalize Sanders of Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company: Howdy, howdy. How y'all doing tonight? Patron: Good, how are you? Sanders: I just need to see your IDs and proof of vaccination before I let you in. I am at Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company in MidTown, Reno. It's opening night for their new show. A small table is stationed just outside the front door, where proof of covid vaccination is being verified by Annalize Sanders. All the local theaters got together and decided as a collective unit to require proof of COVID vaccination or a negative COVID test. These new requirements went into effect last month. Doug Mishler is managing artistic director of Restless Artists' Theatre in Sparks. “I think we

Gabe Saporta joins Finn Mckenty for a candid interview about: Gabe's return to the internet Why he started The Artist Group What's next with Cobra Starship And more! Check out The Artist Group. Follow The Punk Rock MBA on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Follow Finn McKenty on Instagram and Twitch. PRMBA Merch Produced and edited by Deanna Chapman. Support The Punk Rock MBA on Patreon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second hour of today's Andy and Randy are live from a rowdy crowd at Hudson Grille in Midtown as the celebrate the Braves and give keys to Falcons/Saints before they are joined later in the hour by Radi Nabulsi and Wendy Adams.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the first hour of today's show Andy and Randy are live from the Parade in Midtown celebrating the Braves World Series Win! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

(11-5-21) Andy & Randy are in the middle of all the action as they react to the Braves Parade!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

(11-5-21) Andy & Randy react live as the Braves parade comes to Midtown! Plus, a chat with Jarvis Davis on the Falcons!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ray's Wings and Pizza specializes in bringing Buffalo New York eats to a state where the buffalo did roam once upon a time. Located in Midtown off of 31st and Farnam they have the wings bearing the name of buffalo and this is likely the only place in town where you can get a Buffalo New York style crust pizza loaded with toppings. Oh and….we have a special guest toward the end of the first half of the show that may provide you with useful information to help you navigate the wings of the prairie (read that in your choice of PBS nature show or wild west movie voice).

It's a Halloween Seshtacular episode! Let's get spooky!!

COVID-19 vaccines for younger children are expected next month; Vaccine skeptics are expected in Anchorage this weekend; Midtown voters have firmly rejected an effort to recall Anchorage Assembly member Meg Zaletel; The latest on Former Anchorage Baptist Temple pastor Jerry Prevo

DO GOOD: Donate to Social Causes: https://www.lefthandrob.net/p/social-racial-justice-charities.html Poetry Books: Read along with the podcast, get your own copy of the poems (also another great way to support the podcast): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VW4TXV6 Direct Cash Contribution: Support this podcast by buying me a ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/lefthandrob

In this Third episode we check in with Pastor Mendoza and his wife, Redet to see how things are going in their church in Midtown Reno. I pray you find encouragement and hope for your journey to being all God has called you to. If you are not a member of the Christian Fellowship Ministries and would like to find a church family near you go to: https://cfmmap.org to see what story God is waiting to write for you. :-) Check out more from the Midtown Church by going to: https://www.midtownrenopottershouse.com/ Our local Church Website is: https://www.renoforjesus.com/ If you are enjoying this Podcast please share with your friends, family, or anyone you feel may be encouraged by it. Also please rate or review the podcast so that it gets seen by more people. If you would like to reach out to the show you can email: Christcenteredconvos@gmail.com Connect with me on Instagram by Searching https://www.instagram.com/christcenteredconvospodcast/ to get updates on upcoming episodes and to let me know how you are liking the show! Venmo @Kristen-Ladd25 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christcentered/support

The Session Tank Tops are in!

Shooting at Midtown high-rise leaves 2 dead, including suspected gunman; Abrams' group launches campaign pushing Medicaid expansion; Massive Georgia solar energy project coming to South Georgia

My guest is Sam Calagione the man behind @dogfishhead with a new book out co-written with his wife and GM. News from @lefthandbrewing Colorado Strong @heavyseasbeer Luki Brewing, Alamo Drafthouse opens in Manhattan. Other Half opens in Midtown. Full reviews of @wildeastbrewing Grandiversary celebration and my brunch at Source in Philly. Details on a short race to help a local food bank in #NJ and so much more. @njcraftbeer  @hoppedupnetwork@sjbeerscene#metalforever#drinklocal#drinkcraftnotcrap#stouts#ipas#lagers#ales#sours#hops#pilsners#porters#gastropub#speakeasy  #growler#beer#jerseybeers#fcancer#smallbusinessowners#beerfestivals#beertours#music#savenjbeer#podcasts#crowlers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Midtown "townie" priced off of her bus line. A retiree on fixed income forced out of her home of 17 years. Kansas City renters are facing substantial rent hikes, with serious repercussions.

Let's hang out at the Fresh Specialty Show Event!

Sugar Factory in Midtown is in the spotlight for two new great milkshakes! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Managing Partner of XPAN Law Partners, Rebecca Rakoski, and Senior Account Manager at Contango IT, Schellie Percudani, talk about cybersecurity, especially for small businesses. Today, Rebecca and Schellie talk about business privacy and security practices, cost-effective steps that you can take to protect your business, and the importance of cybersecurity insurance. Why do small businesses have to worry about cybersecurity? Hear about ransomware attacks and how to react to them, data privacy laws and how they impact your business, and the value of hiring lawyers, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “What we all have in common between the small businesses and the large businesses is we're all human.” “You're only as good as your last backup.” “You can't have privacy without security.” “You definitely don't want to be fudging any kind of information. You definitely want transparency.” There are four basic things that you can do as a business owner: enable multi-factor authentication, provide security awareness training, monitor and patch your systems, and enable software and hardware encryption. “Encryption is your Get Out Of Jail Free card in most jurisdictions.” “60% of small businesses will go out of business within 6 months of a data breach without liability insurance.” “The first thing that businesses need to do is take a proactive posture.” “If you look at data breaches, if it's not caused by an employee in the company, it's caused by an employee at one of their vendors.” “Make sure you put yourself in a legally defensible position.”   More About Schellie Percudani Schellie is a Senior Account Manager at Contango IT located in Midtown, Manhattan. With 75 people, Contango IT services their clients through 4 key areas of technology. IT Service/Support - We offer unlimited onsite and remote support for all covered users and devices with up to 60-90 second response time. In that same fixed monthly price, we also include asset management, budgeting breakdowns, disaster recovery planning, compliance requirement review and planning, technology road mapping, and a lot more. IT Infrastructure / Cabling - Moving offices? Contango IT handles the technology side of the move through Cabling and IT setup. Cybersecurity - 45 people strictly in Cybersecurity keeps Contango IT on top of the biggest buzz In technology. Risk? Compliance? Reach out, looking to help in any way possible. Even if it is just second opinion or advice. Custom Programming - Front-end or Back-end development, Android, iOS, Web-based and much more. Winners of the Microsoft Best Use of Technology Award and the NYU Stern New Venture Competition Any technology questions, reach out! With hundreds of clients over 4 services, Contango IT has seen it before.   More About Rebecca Rakoski Rebecca L. Rakoski is the managing partner at XPAN Law Partners. Rebecca counsels and defends public and private corporations, and their boards, during data breaches and responds to state/federal regulatory compliance and enforcement actions. As an experienced litigator, Rebecca has handled hundreds of matters in state and federal courts. Rebecca skilfully manages the intersection of state, federal, and international regulations that affect the transfer, storage, and collection of data to aggressively mitigate her client's litigation risks. Rebecca is on the Board of Governors for Temple University Health Systems, and an adjunct professor at Drexel University's Thomas R. Kline School of Law and Rowan University.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Cybersecurity, Small Business, Privacy, Security, IT, Insurance, Legal, Hacking, Ransomware, Malware, Data, Technology, Data Breaches, Encryption   To learn more, follow Schellie and Rebecca at: Website:          https://www.contangoit.com                         https://xpanlawpartners.com Twitter:            @XPANLawPartners                         @RRakoskiesq Instagram:       @schellie00 LinkedIn:         Schellie Percudani                         Rebecca Rakoski, Esq.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:02 Hello, Rebecca and Shelly, welcome to the podcast. I'm very excited to have you on to talk all about cybersecurity. So welcome, welcome.   00:13 Thank you for having us.   00:14 Yes, thank you. And   00:16 so this cybersecurity this for me as a small business owner, is brand new to me. Although it probably shouldn't be, but it is, but that's why we're talking about it today. But before we get into it, can you guys give a little bit more detail about yourself and what you do so if the listeners understand why I'm talking to you guys today?   00:41 So I, Rebecca McCroskey, I'm a co founder and managing partner of x Pam law partners, we're a boutique cybersecurity and domestic and international data privacy law firm, which is a really fancy way of saying we help organizations with their cybersecurity, and data privacy needs, right? I have been a practicing attorney for almost four years. I hate to admit that sometimes I'm like, I'm dating myself. But what's great is we really help businesses, small startups, all the way that big multinational corporations because right now businesses are it's, it's really a brave new world that we're facing today. And businesses are getting attacked literally from all different sides. And so we started x pant to really help businesses understand what their legal obligations are, and what their legal liabilities are. And I tell my clients, my job is to avoid those problems for you, or do my best or put you in the best position to address them if and when it becomes an issue. So that's   01:48 what I do in a nutshell. Great, thanks, Shelly. How about you?   01:53 Yes, my name is Shelly perky. Donnie, I am an account manager with contango it and we help businesses and our end organizations if I could speak, we help them manage their day to day it to help build a strong security posture. We also help them with cybersecurity, we have 45 people strictly in cybersecurity, we have 25 penetration testers, eight ethical hackers. So we have a strong, you know, posture to help businesses build a posture so that they at the end, I wouldn't say that they're not going to be attacked, but they are prepared for anything that could happen. And so we help them with that. Got it.   02:43 Well, thank you both for being here to talk about this, because we are seeing more and more things in the news lately about ransomware and cyber attacks. And so oftentimes, we think of that as only happening to the big businesses, right? So why should small businesses, which a lot of listeners that listen to this podcast, are entrepreneurs or small business owners? Why should we have to worry about this?   03:10 So, you know, from a legal perspective, obviously, anybody who's ever come into contact with the legal system knows, it's not just for large businesses. So from a legal perspective, you're going to be subjected to liability from your people who whose information you're collecting, call them data subjects, you can, you're going to have contractual obligations with your vendors and third parties that you use and share data with. So put that and then just put that aside for a moment, then you also have small businesses have a reputation. And in the small business community, I am myself a small business, I'm a small law firm, Chief law firm. And you know, your reputation is everything. And so part of your reputation nowadays is how you're handling security and privacy. What are you doing the data. And so it's really important for small businesses to realize it's not just the big guys, we hear about them in the news, the colonial pipelines and the JPS foods and the Equifax is of the world. What you don't know is that every single day law firms like mine are getting a call from small businesses going help. We just clicked on a bad link, we just got ransomware, what do we do? And that happens all the time. It really you hear about the big guys, but it's the little guys that are really, you know, bearing the brunt of it, I think.   04:32 Now, I would agree. And what we all have in common between the small businesses and the large businesses is we're all human. And like Rebecca said, it's human error. Somebody clicked on an email, and they didn't know you know, they weren't trained. Hey, this is a spoofing and phishing email. This is what they look like, this is what you need to look for. And so that's where we come in, and it's we're all human and we all make mistakes. It's just no Like, you know, you this is what to look out for.   05:04 Got it. And so what are some of the issues facing businesses today, when it comes to cybersecurity?   05:12 What ransomware is obviously one of the biggest issues, right. And for your listeners who don't know what ransomware is, it is, what happens is somebody clicks on a bad link, download the bad, you know, attachment to a file, and the ransomware is downloaded to the system. Depending on how sophisticated the hackers are, they can either deploy it immediately, which means your system starts to, they start to encrypt your files, or it can be that they sit in there and wait for Oh, I don't know, the most inopportune moment that your business has. And then they deploy the ransomware. I've had clients where they deploy ransomware, or they first delete backups before they deploy the ransomware to really add insult to injury there. So but so that's one of the big things and then the your entire system gets encrypted and you can't unencrypted it without the encryption key which you then have to pay for the ransom part of it. And, you know, we hear about the big ransoms, again, the 4.4 million from colonial the 11 million from JBS. But you know, I was speaking with a colleague the other day, and a law firm got ransomware for $50,000. Now, that's a lot to a small business, it's a lot to any business, but they try to make it it's almost like it's commercials with what they think that they can afford and pay and so that they'll pay because they want you to pay the ransom. So that's I think, I think that's probably the   06:35 number one I would say so too. And then you now you're on their list, because you've paid your   06:41 SIR now. Wow, they paid   06:44 from now you're on a list of this hacker of like, Well, you know, was easy to get in before. Yeah. So let's see how we can get in again.   06:55 Right? Oh, my goodness. Hang in and you know Rebecca's right.   06:59 And that's where you know, also patching and monitoring your systems having a good strong it. posture is important. Because they see that stuff, they see little inklings of, Oh, well, something's going on here. somebody's trying to get in, you know, so they can see that. And you know, you're only as good as your last backup, and where is your backup being stored? And you know, is that in a secure location? Because if not, guess what? It doesn't matter. Because your information is gone.   07:33 Oh, my gosh, yeah, that makes so much more sense. Now, even just explaining what ransomware is. I didn't realize so they hold the encryption key ransom. And that's what you're paying for.   07:46 Correct you in order to get your data back, you have to pay to get the encryption key. And people think Well, okay, so I'll pay the ransom. And I'll get the encryption. I'll get the encryption key. And it's like, like magic? Yeah. You do, to some extent, although there used to be honor amongst thieves. It's not always the case anymore. No. But the other thing is to keep in mind encryption is not perfect. So you're not going to get it back exactly the way it was before. And a lot of laws have been changed now. So the fact that you were ransomware, it is in and of itself, a reportable event for a data breach. So that's another aspect to it. I mean, we're talking more about the technical aspects with the ransomware. But this is the other part where you know, I always say like, ransomware is like three explosions. The first one, oh, my God, my computer has exploded, but yeah, my computer's, what do I do? And then the second one, which is how are we going to, you know, get back up and running. And then the third is really the legal liability that flows from it and holding it together.   08:55 Also to I mean, Rebecca, are you finding that now, too, they're not only holding it, they're selling the data? Yeah. So they're still older data copied it, they're giving you back access to it, but now they're gonna sell it?   09:12 Yes. So what it comes down to is yes,   09:15 there's a lot to do. At that point to now you've got to tell your clients, hey, I've been   09:23 hacked. And that's where that whole reputation part comes in, you know, where you're, you know, these are people who are interesting information to you data. You know, I mean, as a law firm, we obviously hold our clients data. But you know, if you're a business, you could be holding personal information of your clients and business partners. You could be holding sensitive data on your employees or social security, financial information, information about their beneficiaries, which could be kids and things like that. So it really is a problem that just expands exponentially. It's a rabbit Well, I guess you're falling down that rabbit hole for a while.   10:04 You're like Alice in Wonderland.   10:07 Right? Oh, my gosh. Well, now you mentioned Rebecca about laws? And does that? Could you talk a little bit more about like certain data privacy laws and how that works? And if you're a small business, what does that mean?   10:24 Sure, so different. So there are two sets of laws that you need to really be businesses need to be concerned about, right. So one of them are your your data breach notification laws, which won't really be triggered unless and until there is a data breach, there are 50 states, there are 50 different laws, it's super fun for businesses who have to deal with us, then you have data privacy laws, and because nobody can seem to get their act together to come up with a federal law, we are stuck with, again, a patchwork of laws. So different states have passed different laws. And that is in and around a data subjects rights, about the data that's being collected about from them. So for example, California has a law, Virginia passed the law, Colorado passed a law recently, I know there's a proposed one in New Jersey in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas. So you name the state, and it's probably considering Washington State has tried to have made several passes into data privacy law. And what's interesting about this privacy laws is it they're usually, there's usually a threshold, sometimes small businesses will meet that threshold, but you need to understand that and it's all about the data that you're collecting. So the data you're collecting is going to trigger or not trigger requirements under some of these laws. That same data is the attractive nuisance, if you will, to the hacker they want to, they want to so you know, I always say you can't have privacy without security. So they really do go hand in glove.   12:00 What would be like an app if you know this at the top of your head, but an example of data privacy law from one of those states that has them on the books like what would be an example.   12:13 So California has the California consumer Privacy Act, the ccpa, which was amended in November, when the good citizens of California had a ballot initiative to pass the California Privacy Rights Act or the cpra. And those types of so in and around that you have different rights, the right to deletion, the right to correction, or right to a ratio of three, you know, the right to be forgotten is what's commonly known as, or just some of the rights that you're entitled to. And so businesses that fall under the within the purview of the ccpa, which is in effect right now, the cpra, which will go into effect in 2023. And so if you are a data subject, and the business is is under those laws, you can, you know, say to the pay, I want to know what you're doing with my data, hey, I need you to correct or delete my data. And the business has a set statutory period of time to respond to that data subject Access Request. It's about transparency. So anybody who saw all those updated privacy policies online, that's all driven by privacy laws, there's one in Europe called the GDPR, the general data protection regulation. And it really is in and around transparency, and data collection, storage and sharing practices. So that's, I could go much deeper, but I don't want to put anyone to sleep as I talk about loss.   13:42 I think I think that's really helpful just so that people get an idea of like, well, I don't even know what that is, you know, and if you're a small business owner, you've got a million other things on your plate, because you probably don't have a dedicated IT department, you don't have a dedicated cybersecurity department, oftentimes, you're a solopreneur. Or maybe you have less than 10 employees, you know, so all of a sudden, all of this stuff has to come on to somebody. So I think just getting an awareness out there that it exists, is really important so that you can maybe look it up in your own individual state.   14:20 Yeah, and one thing I would say and I know that this is a problem amongst entrepreneurs and startup is within the startup community is that they think well, we can do this ourselves. We can like cut and paste the privacy policy online and somebody Shelley's laughing at me over here. But you know, the purpose of these laws is to provide information about what that business is doing with data. So if you're borrowing it from somebody else, you could be in trouble twice because you're now you're not accurately reflecting what your laws are, what you're doing with the data. And you've basically taken this information and maybe obligating yourself under other laws of regular So for people who are listening, I know nobody likes talking to lawyers. I swear we're not that bad. But hiring a dedicated privacy or security attorney who understands this is really important because you told what to, you know, have an Ono moment on top of it. Oh, no moment when you're you know,   15:19 exactly. You definitely were Rebecca Sade is absolutely correct. There are people that do that they try to manipulate it and do it themselves. What they don't realize is once you're hacked, it's not just, Oh, no, they've got my information. Now I have to pay this ransomware. But guess what, oh, if you weren't following those privacy acts, you're also gonna get fined on that data, too. So you definitely don't want to be fudging any kind of information. You definitely want transparency.   15:47 Yeah. So hire lawyer. I'm a big fan of lawyers. I hire lawyers for for everything, because I don't I'm not a lawyer. I don't know how to do any of it. And I want to make sure that I am protected. So I 100% get it. Now, what? So we're talking about the pitfalls of what could happen if you have a breach, or issues facing businesses. So what can businesses do to help with cyber security? What are some things we can have in place to give us some protection and peace of mind?   16:20 Well, I would like to answer that this is Shelley, I'm someone who's there for simple and very effective basics that you could do as a business owner. And they're very cost effective. In fact, you know, you already have some of them in hand, as far as like Microsoft Office 365, all you have to do is enable your multiple factor authentication, that's a huge one, it's like leaving your light on in your house, if you're going out to dinner, they're gonna move on to the next house, because you have that layer of protection. And then, you know, security awareness training, educating your employees, educating yourself a lot of spoofing and phishing email looks like, that's huge that you know, it, it makes them aware. And that also, you know, it shows your employees that you're protecting them, you're protecting your clients, you know, it shows stability. And then also, you know, monitoring and patching your systems, you know, making sure that someone has an eye on what's going on. I'm looking for those little ticks that someone may be trying to get into your system, because a lot of people that you can have websites, you can tell by is your website going slower, that's usually a sign that someone might be trying to hack into your system. You know, so it's little things like that. And then also, you know, software and hardware encryption, that's a huge one. A lot of people, I know we have all our devices, it's our fingerprint or face that opens it. But if your hardware is not encrypted, they could just steal your laptop, pull out the hard drive, plug it in somewhere else, and guess what the data is theirs. And it's just the simple things that can help a business.   18:10 Yeah, so So to recap, the multiple factor identification that I get, and I do security awareness training, what what are these emails look like? What not to click on? monitoring and patching systems? So when you say patching systems, what exactly does that mean?   18:27 Well, that's where someone is patching in and they're, you know, they're making sure that your system is secure. And it's going somewhere in that secure like firewall, everything like that. So that is exactly   18:39 the basic there. There are systems like so for example, the Equifax data breach was a vulnerability in an Apache struts operating system. And when they found this vulnerability, it was it was a problem. People write code, people make mistakes, you need to fix it. Once they discovered the problem. They went, they were like, Oh, you need to apply this patch. It basically fixes the code. Well, if you don't apply the patch, if you don't have somebody who can help you do that you're not you're leaving your back door   19:11 open or even Yeah, or even like software, like it needs to be updated. So they're patching and updating, they're constantly monitoring, updating any software so like have you ever had where your phone doesn't work and because you haven't upgraded your system? Well that's kind of like it is for monitoring and patching. They make sure that everything is up to date everything is to code   19:34 right because if you're not patching and updating like Shelly said, you can actually leave a hole Yeah, and you're not the it's a lot easier for them to get in because you would not that system isn't being supported anymore by the Microsoft's or the Googles because they've moved on. You got to move on with them. Otherwise, you're you're gonna have a problem.   19:52 Got it. Got it. Okay, that makes a lot more sense.   19:55 They could do that themselves. Like oh, I can do this. I can do this. But as they're growing Their business, they don't have time to focus on that. And that's how little cracks happen.   20:04 Got it? Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And number four was making sure that your software and your hardware was encrypted. Right? And does that. I mean, this might be a stupid question. But does it come that way?   20:19 No, that's not a stupid question. I mean, a lot of us think that because, you know, I mean, we're on a computer right now that if I shut it and locked it, I opened it again, I could put my finger on it, it would open it, I wouldn't have to type my password in. But if my hard drive wasn't encrypted, didn't have that same protection on it, where someone could steal it, and then just pull out the hard drive, because these people are very talented, plug in the hard drive. So you need to make sure that your hard drive has that same protection with your fingerprint of code that, you know that if they would have to, they wouldn't plug it in somewhere else, they're gonna have to know that code, because it's not going to work.   21:06 Keep in mind, too, that encryption, like we're always talking about is, in most jurisdictions, if you have an encrypted hard drive, if even if they get it, they can't access it. It's not a data breach. So I like to say encryption is your get out of jail free card in most jurisdictions, okay. There are 50 of them. There's a lot, but in most of them, that's your get out of jail free card. So it's one of the biggest, that multifactor I guess, are probably two of the biggest bang for your buck. There they are. And how do you   21:37 know if your software and hardware is in is encrypted? Again, perhaps another silly question, but I just don't know.   21:43 So first of all, I don't encrypt my own hard drive. I know a lot about technology. But I, you know, I don't go to my dentist for brain surgery. professionals, who are IT professionals, like Shelley's company, and I say, here, encrypt my hard drive, and they take care of it for you. So having it's really important   22:06 night. Yeah, I can. And does that literally mean you hand your computer over to someone and say, encrypt my hard drive? Not necessarily No, no, okay.   22:16 No, no, no, a lot of times what you know, like our text can do, they can come in, they can work in remotely in and you know, just like when they have when we monitor and patch, they do it remotely. You know, if you don't even know what's going on. It's just and it shouldn't, it shouldn't interrupt your day, it should then to wreck your workflow. It should be seamless. And usually, you know, it's something that, you know, our techs are very, you know, highly educated, I love text, I always think, Oh, my gosh, what they do is so cool, because they can just, they can fix everything, and they just go in and they're they're magicians.   22:56 Got it? Got it. Okay, how it should be you.   22:59 I mean, a lot of times, and this is true, too. I think Rebecca, a lot of rules now are making sure that you actually have a credible IT team. Because if you don't, you can now get fined. Or   23:14 Yeah, there are different laws where you can if you're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing, if you're not monitoring if you don't have your asset, you know, management, those kinds of things. I mean, one of the classic examples of that is is HIPAA. Now they don't say you have to have it on teaching but they do say you have to encrypt your heart you know, encryption, or they say you show it or they say you have to monitor monitor your devices and let's face facts, do you want to be I don't want to be monitoring my devices, I want my IT guys or gals to be monitoring my devices, I want to be practicing law. So that's the beauty of it is that it's it's Charlie says it's running seamlessly in the background, and you're doing what you should be doing much with running   23:55 your business. Got it? All right. Now let's move on to so let's say you have all of this in place. You've done your basics for cybersecurity. Do you have to have cyber security insurance? Or can you just say, Well, I did all this. So what do I need the insurance for? No,   24:15 that's like driving around without your seatbelt on. Like, you know, I, I frequently wanted to ram the car in front of me, but I don't I don't do that. So cyber insurance. When I will tell you this as when I started my own law firm. The first thing I bought was malpractice insurance. The second thing I bought was cyber liability, a separate standalone cyber liability policy. They are getting more expensive, but for a small business depending on the data you're collecting, they can be very reasonable. But I sleep at night because I know that if something goes horribly wrong, it's there. All of the things you're doing. me that all The good cyber practices that Shelly and I have been talking about that just means they're going to cover you when the when the stuff hits the fan. Because if you're not doing all of that, you've probably told they've sent you a questionnaire with your cyber liability policy and you filled it out and you're like, Oh, do I have multi factor authentication? Oh sure. I encrypt my hard drive. If you lie to them, they don't cover you. But if you're doing all these good cyber practices, and you have insurance, it's you know that every single one of my clients first thing I ask, Where is your data? What is it doing? Where is your cyber liability policy? Those are the   25:35 those are the big three Yeah. Okay. To help you too, because how are you going to get that money out? Right, how do you get that money back? How do you recoup your business? I mean $50,000 is a lot Oh yeah. And you know, you're a small business and yeah, you you could take a hit you can take a loan but wouldn't it be better if somebody covered it for you it's kind of like you You get a car accident you know, it was like that rental car where your car is getting fixed. You would like to get a new car that new car smell   26:11 Yeah, cyber liability insurance is absolutely critical for small business every this statistic might be a little bit old, but I will pull it out anyway for just as an example 60% of small businesses will go out of business within six months of a data breach without live liability insurance. So that's an I know that statistic has gone up it's a it's a little stale, but I think that's about a year old and every year they put out new stats I just haven't brushed up on my statistics today. But   26:41 well that is true because as many business owners as I talked to in everything, you would not believe how many of them I've had friends that had successful businesses and everything was going great. They got hacked, and they just couldn't recoup the money that they need it breaks my heart because they never thought it would happen to them because they weren't trading money they weren't doing anything like that. It was just common goods like e commerce that they were just like, yeah, and then something happened.   27:09 I mean, I get a call at least once a week from a crime business person literally tears I don't know what am I going to do? I have a little bit of a policy or something. It's like a rider on my my general liability policy, but now it's going out because it runs out like that and so quick, and they're like now what do I do? I don't I don't have an answer for them. They're gonna have to you know, they have to pay for it out of pocket. A lot of them can't It is really heartbreaking.   27:37 Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, so you know, we talked about some issues facing businesses today. basics for cybersecurity, the need for cybersecurity liability, which I am in the process of getting after speaking with Celli a couple of weeks ago, so I'm there I'm doing it I'm in. You don't have to I You don't have to tell me twice when it comes to important insurances, I will get it. So is there anything else that you guys wanted to let the listeners know when it comes to cybersecurity for their businesses?   28:14 Um, I think the first thing that businesses need to do is take a proactive posture. So doing the technical things that Shelley's talking about, shoring up some of their legal obligations, like I'm talking about with, you know, appropriate privacy policies, contract language and things like that. The other thing is, they have to also be aware of their vendors, which I think is another big issue facing organizations if you look at data breaches, it's not caused by an employee in the company it's caused by an employee at one of their vendors. And so you know, it's a big issue and so I would say that for all small businesses, all of the technical aspects and then make sure your your legal, you put yourself in a legally defensible position because unfortunately, these things are going to happen. And you want to make sure that you not just survive but thrive after after an event like this.   29:09 Yeah, and I agree with Rebecca, those are the key things that you need to do as a business owner, but it's also helping yourself to educate been growing your business and I know at times it can be scary because like, Oh my goodness, I got to talk to a lawyer. That's more money. Oh, I gotta have someone you know, outsource it person. When I've had my cousin, he knows computers, he knows everything. You know, everything's going but if you're looking to move your business to that next level, and you're looking to flourish, you really just like anything else, you need to make sure you understand and you are doing what is required of you to do to help your business flourish.   29:53 Got it. Well, this was great. I mean, hopefully people listening to this, it will set a match under them. To get them to really take a look at this in their business because like you said when you're a small business owner you've got a million things going on. But this is super important and I think something that people really need to focus on so I thank you for bringing this topic to me Shelly and for bringing Rebecca on because I think this is really great and I do hope that all the listeners out there will now start to take a better look at their businesses and are they protected Do they have the right things in place so thank you thank you now where can people find you? if they have questions? If God forbid they have a breach and they need a lawyer or they need someone to help do an IT assessment of their business so where can people find you? So   30:47 I obviously have a website expand law partners com Also you can follow us on Twitter and on LinkedIn please connect you can connect connect with me personally and my business we put out for small businesses out there who have a lot of questions we are constantly pushing out different topics raising issues bringing attention to different ones so please act x Pam law partners connect with us and hopefully will will provide you with some of that information that Shelley was talking about   31:23 excellent Shelly Go ahead.   31:24 You can reach me at contango it calm is our website I can also link in with me you know I love to meet new people and I always like to offer any kind of advice or second opinions I can help with if I if there's anyone I can point you into the direction to you know help your business I would love to do that.   31:46 Excellent. Shelley is a great super connector for sure. So definitely reach out to them now ladies one last question and I asked everyone this is knowing where you are now in your life in your career. What advice would you give to your younger self?   32:01 see somebody asked me this I'm gonna have to steal from my prior answer was start my law firm earlier. I wish I had done it earlier. I cherish the time I spent at a large law firm but I love what I do now. I love helping businesses so this I would do it earlier. So amazing. I would become an ethical hacker. Love that. I want to change my answer. That's a great answer. I love it.   32:35 I love it. Well, ladies, thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing all this vitally important information. I do appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. Pleasure and everyone. Thank you for listening. Reach out to these ladies if you are a small business because you may need some cyber help. Thank you for listening, have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

Joseph Biasi spends his Days Analysing Economic Trends and their Relationship with Commercial Real Estate for CoStar – the Leading Real Estate Data Analytics and Aggregator in the US.  In this episode we talked about: Joseph's Bio & Activity Commercial Real Estate Market Outlook Retail Property Analysis Industrial Real Estate Overview Interest Rates Government Policy Single Family VS Multifamily Real Estate The Effect of Inflation on Real Estate Investors Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: https://www.costar.com Transcriptions: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to working capital the real estate podcast. My special guest today is Joseph Biassi. Joseph spends his days analyzing economic trends and the relationship with the commercial real estate sector. And he works for CoStar advisory services. For those of you that don't know what CoStar is, they're the leading real estate data analytics and aggregator in the us. And I'm not sure if Canada as well, but I wouldn't be surprised we use them pretty much every day. They're our go-to for analytics, for properties, for research and a part of our underwriting process. Joseph, how's it going? Great. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Do I have that right, Joseph, in terms of CoStar where they're at today, maybe you could, you could let the audience know a little bit about your position there and CoStar in general and what you guys do. Sure. Yeah. Joseph(1m 10s): CoStar is a data analytics platform and a data vendor. We, we track pretty much every commercial building that we can at least get research on across the United States. We are moving into Canada as well, more and more. We're getting better coverage in Canada and as well as Europe, my job in particular is I sit on top of that data as a consultant. I'm a senior consultant with advisory services. And my job in particular is to advise client both developers as well as investors on macro economic and commercial real estate trends Jesse (1m 45s): Right on. Yeah. What I've noticed is we have, I think 84, 85 offices now, and we've, we've pretty much switched over completely to CoStar and that goes for Canadian and, and us markets, but it's definitely come a long way in terms of the coverage that we have at least, you know, in our major markets, you pretty much, you've got everything covered there. Speaker 1 (2m 7s): Yeah. I mean, we've been really pushing research recently. Speaker 0 (2m 11s): So this was, this was something we were at, we were at this panel and in new Orleans this past, I guess two weekends ago now, and we were talking about, you know, where, where people can find information, those people looking for deals in the market and a lot of, a lot of what we do on the investing side and not just in brokerage, but we'll, you know, when we tried to track down owners, a lot of times we're looking at properties on CoStar trying to find the beneficial, the true owners and reach out to them directly for off market deals. Speaker 1 (2m 38s): Yeah. So I, I, before actually, before I worked at CoStar, worked in brokerage. And so I was, I I've been a user, it's a fantastic site for anybody who wants to do any kind of real estate deals, right. On a little biased, but Speaker 0 (2m 52s): Yeah, a little biased. So in terms of the, the actual market, I thought what would be, will be just that would be useful and educational for our listeners is talking a little bit about what's been going on in the market over the last year or two and the outlook for the next, let's call it a mid to mid to longterm. And by longterm for me, I think five years, I don't think longer than that, but yeah. You know, let's talk a little bit about the commercial real estate market in general, over the last two years, how have things changed in terms of the data that you're seeing in terms of the way you approach the market and, and your analysis? Speaker 1 (3m 31s): Great question. Yeah. So, you know, when the pandemic hit, I think there was a lot of fear going around and that translated into a lot less commercial real estate deals, particularly in the office sector. Everybody began to work from home. We knew, we noticed a pretty steep drop off in transaction activity, which has since returned. And that's, that's pretty much been the story is we had this initial 20, 20 decline, a couple of, a couple of quarters of, you know, pretty severe transaction volume decline. And it's all become back effectively, but it's come back in a very different way. And that's the actual story behind what's happening in the commercial real estate market is if you look at the macro macro numbers, you know, total amount of transaction, the total transaction volume is back. But if you look at where that's happening, it's very different. For example, the Dallas Fort worth had more transaction activity in 2020, the first half of 2021 than New York. That's not normal. We're seeing, we're seeing those rooms moved down to, if you're talking about retailer, multi-family, we're seeing them move down to the south, the study United States, as opposed to, you know, the new York's and the San Francisco's of the world. Phoenix is another market we've seen, which is, I suppose, as a Western market, those, those Sunbelt markets are where we're seeing the most demographic growth. We're seeing the most transaction activity. And we're seeing the biggest pricing gains across all four, four major property types Speaker 0 (4m 55s): In terms of the, to go from geographic to the property types, if, you know, starting with retail, I guess. Cause that's, that's the one where when the pandemic first started, there was the big question of retail, which I think for, for the most part has been overbuilt. I don't think it's a surprise in the U S Canada. Canada's pretty. Yeah. I mean, we are as well, but I think we're somewhere in between the U S and in most European countries on a per square foot basis. But talk about retail, you know, how has that analysis been over the last, you know, call it a year to two years? Speaker 1 (5m 29s): I think retail, it, at least in my opinion is one of the most fascinating property types. Like, yeah, you're absolutely right. There needs to be some level of rationalization. If the landscape has changed, it is no longer the place where people go deep. The only place people go shopping to buy goods, that doesn't mean it's going away and there's still, I would argue opportunities. And I think that's the way we've been trying to, to talk about retail, which is look, you know, you're not, if you're looking at a class B or class seem, all those are going to struggle, but if you're looking at, you know, there's still good opportunities and you just, there's a lot more nuance and a lot more detail that you need to look into for a retail building the tenants matter so much in a retail building, even more than an office or an industrial building, because if you have a good grocery anchor, a neighborhood center in a well-populated area, that's still a good asset. And that, that I think has kind of been, under-reported just due to the fear around retail during the pandemic and the fear around retail because of e-commerce. Speaker 0 (6m 36s): Yeah. It's a, it's one of those things that we've always talked about that, you know, good grocery store, anchored retail. I can't imagine in a lot of these markets, if anything, they were a bit, some of those properties were buoyed by the fact that the only places that were open were the Walmarts or, you know, these grocery stores that were anchored. Speaker 1 (6m 54s): Exactly. And we're, you know, we are seeing, you know, returns to normal leasing patterns in the Southern states where, you know, where retail really does follow rooftops. And in those Southern states, we've seen pretty much a full recovery, and we've seen a pretty much a full recovery in terms of pricing as well. Whereas if you talk about, you know, these, these tertiary markets in the Midwest, or some of these coastal gateway markets that have really struggled during the pandemic, there's still, there's still losing people. They're still struggling to kind of recover. Speaker 0 (7m 25s): So have you seen, I know you, you track a lease terms and different differently structures. Have you seen a difference in the way that retailers are approaching their leases? You know, where you could have some retailers in the past doing 5, 10, 15, 20 year leases, has that, has that shifted or is it, is it too early to tell Speaker 1 (7m 43s): It's a, it's a little early to tell, just because we're, we're finally kind of getting back at least down south, but the, the tenants that they're looking for at certainly become far more focused on either, you know, necessity based retail, certain tenants like dollar stores. So these, these discount stores are doing really well. And then experience-based tenants have done are something that landlords are really looking into as a long-term longer-term play. At some point, this pandemic will become less and less, have less and less of an effect on the economy. And a lot of landlords believe that the future of real estate of retail is experiential. That you're drawing people there for something more than just a shopping experience. Speaker 0 (8m 28s): Does CoStar track the rezoning or reclassification of buildings in terms of, for example, one of the, one of the, the guesses that, you know, that we have is that retail and, and certain types of office buildings may be converted, maybe switch the use might be switched even in hospitality, potentially hospitality going to multi-family. But if do you track that type of thing? Speaker 1 (8m 54s): Yeah. It hasn't occurred as much as you would think, given the amount of airtime, not an ink that's been spilled on it. It really hasn't happened. It does happen, you know, so I went to college in Worcester and the Greendale mall in Worcester got turned into an Amazon distribution center, but that isn't really the rural quite yet. They're still working on that because, you know, it's, a lot of people think that a mall is going to turn into an industrial center, like a distribution center, and it's more likely to be knocked down and turned into multi-family center because it's still the highest and best use is, is multifamily for a dense urban area. We're, we're, we're starting to see some of these malls really struggle. Speaker 0 (9m 36s): Yeah. I think you're absolutely right with the amount of ink that's been spelled as a that's been spilled on it because it is one of those things, I guess, more of an academic thing. It's logical to think that okay. But I think the reality is you get in transaction costs the actual time it takes to convert these things. There's a little bit more that goes on with it. If you, if you kind of slide from retail, move into the, the office space. So my partner and I on the brokerage on predominantly work in office investment sales, as well as leasing, they, I don't, you know, despite some of, you know, what, what has been said last year, that markets haven't been affected. I just think a lot of people were saying certain things were, what we saw was a large, large drop-off in office. And not surprisingly, I'm assuming that's, that's what you S what you've seen. And if not, maybe you could provide some insight there. Speaker 1 (10m 26s): All right. No, absolutely. I, I, if you look at where most of the transaction activity has fallen off, it's been an office and it really has a lot to do with uncertainty. Right. It's, you know, what will work from home look like in five years from now, because if you, and you know, this probably better than I do, if you're buying an office for your leasing office, it's, it's a five to 10 year lease or three to 10 years typically. So you're, you're really guessing what's going to happen down the road. So when you're buying office, it's, it's a little scary right now. And I, I understand that the shop view for CoStar advisory services, and I do not speak for all of CoStar district health, say for CoStar advisory services, is that, you know, the office, there will be less demand for office because I work from home, but we don't believe this is the death of office everybody's going to be working remotely. And we also don't believe that. And I personally don't believe that, you know, these downtown offices are going to, you know, go away anytime soon. I I've in that downtown, these downtown clusters are going to severely struggle. I think the actual concern for office, if we want to think about where, where we might see struggle is those class B offices in urban areas that have less, that don't have as good a commutability score that aren't dark, aren't able to draw. Don't have the same amount of amenities. Those, I think are the ones that well, we think are going to struggle a little bit more. Yeah. It's funny. You Speaker 0 (11m 53s): Mentioned that I was having a conversation with a, with a colleague of mine. And I was, we were talking about that specific thing where a lot of suburban markets actually, haven't been doing particularly poorly with office and then these downtown connected, but there's, these Midtown markets are like these markets that are tertiary markets, that if, unless they have good connectivity, it's a really, you know, there's a question mark about how they'll do well, we've also seen though, is that the, the office side, like you were saying before, the underwriting has changed to the extent that, you know, we, they want to see is what type of tenant, what, you know, where are they in the lease? What are their rights? And, and it's funny too, that you mentioned five-year and then kind of went back to three-year because what we've seen is that, you know, when I started in brokerage, really, it was rare to find even three-year head leases. It was typically a five-year minimum. Where now, if one thing has happened from COVID, we've seen all kinds of different lease lease terms. Speaker 1 (12m 47s): Yeah. I mean, if you, if you think about going to selling a building, occupancy matters more than anything else, even, you know, that's the, that's the first and only thing I, if you have to take some rent losses, you'd rather take some rent losses and lose occupancy. So peop landlords are for office buildings are, you know, it is definitely a tenants market right now, but we, in terms of the, the urban areas, I think the reason they lose out is because the downtown offices have that commutability and then the suburban offices have that advantage of being able to drive to them. If I'm in, I'm in Boston, which is a famously difficult Metro to drive in. And there's no way I'm going to go drive to, let's say Brighton, which is just outside the main city to go to an office there, but I'd be willing to go to suburban office and I'd be willing to take the T down to than the downtown crossing, for example. Speaker 0 (13m 37s): Yeah, for sure. And you, you know, one thing too, is like we've had, what we've seen is that the CFO or COO, depending on, or the real estate, you know, facilities manager, whoever's dealing with the company's real estate. It has been a lot of like kicking the can down the road, because like you said, it's, it's, you're making a decision. That's going to impact five, 10 years. Whereas if you're buying an investment, one thing you can say is that interest rates are where they're at right now. You can, you can, you know, logically pursue maybe a little bit more risky investment, but for the people that work at a company, they're like, I'm not going to make a decision where in a year from now I could look like this was the terrible, the worst thing I did for the company. Speaker 1 (14m 12s): Right. Right. Exactly. Speaker 0 (14m 14s): So if we, okay, so that's retail office. If we switch now to, to industrial, because one thing that was really a cool stat that I saw when, when COVID just happened was the fact that retail sales did not decrease. It's just where the sales happen changed. Right. There was a pivot to online sales, total sales didn't D decrease, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, the data that I was looking at. So I'm curious, I mean, I think it's no surprise industrial's doing pretty well today. Speaker 1 (14m 48s): Yeah, no, it's not. It's no surprise. And it continued to do well. The pandemic, you are somehow seeing cap rate declines, which I think if you said two years ago, most people would be like, there's no way, but I just given how quickly we begun to really shift into e-commerce and the, you know, the room to run in terms of e-commerce. If you look at Europe, Europe uses e-commerce far more than the United States does still, but kind of going back to your point about retail sales it's, I've been tracking it very closely for that specific reason. If you look at retail sales, and this is because, you know, the government stepped in and enacted a lot of stimulus by, by June of 2020 retail sales had more sales than you would expect, given what you would expect pre pandemic. So if you forecast it out pre pandemic, but retail sales should be, and it's a fairly linear trend, you would expect them to have, you know, X amount of retail sales. And we're, we've seen exceed that basically since June of 2020, and about 35% of that is e-commerce, which is impressive when only 16% of retail sales is e-commerce right now. So e-commerce is pushing along, is pushing along retail sales. And realistically there's only, only it can only go up in terms of e-commerce. I want to be careful in saying that, because I know that's gotten people in trouble before. It can only go up in terms of e-commerce industrial is starting to become, starting to see a lot of construction. If you want to talk about the property type in particular, we're starting to see more speculative construction, but on the, at the, at the, at the other end of it, you can make the argument that it's pretty easy to turn off the industrial tap. If you it's just, you're building a big slab of concrete and yeah, exactly. It's a slab of concrete. Got you build a box and you're good to go. And there's a lot of reasons to believe that structural shifts from retail, from onsite retail to e-commerce means strong sales, and that's not even getting into three PLS and manufacturing tenants that we do also expect to do quite well. Amazon alone accounts was one, a hundred million square feet of absorption in 2020. And I, I don't know if they're going to do that again, but they are already, they're already in the, you know, they continue to be the player in the market and continue to push industrial. So do you think, Speaker 0 (17m 20s): Look at the, on the topic, the three PL or third, third party logistics and last mile delivery, like, do you, do you, do, do you break down industrial into these sub categories for your analysis? Speaker 1 (17m 31s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you almost have to, right, because that's how, that's how tenants think about it. You have these big distribution centers and then you have these last miles and, you know, these last miles tend to be these, these crappy frankly buildings that are in well better located areas. And the great thing, if you're looking from an standpoint about these last miles, they're not usually the highest and best use. So there isn't a ton of new construction in the last mile, despite the huge amount of demand for the last mile, at least according to what we're seeing. Speaker 0 (18m 5s): So in terms of the, the actual investment sales side of the industrial coin, when, you know, we see in our market, which I think pre pandemic, we were at 2%, I know Toronto is, I know LA and Toronto you'd know better than I would, but I know that we were at the top and north America with the, in terms of how lower vacancy rates were and continue to be on the industrial side. And what we've seen on the investment sales side is there's only so much product that, you know, you've seen, oh my God, that thing's traded again, that's traded three times in the last year. Are you seeing that same stuff in these really hot markets where properties have, basically, I'm assuming it's a constraint on the, on supply right now. Speaker 1 (18m 45s): Yeah. I mean, I, you know, everybody is out for industrial and they're continuing to increase their allocation. It's it's, you know, when we talk to clients, it's the first thing they always say is don't worry, we're going to increase our allocation to industrial really? Usually at the cost of office and retail. Well, not usually, always at the cost. No. Yeah. It, it, you know, that's, that's the other side of the coin, right? Is we saw 6% rent growth so far in 2021, we can be concerned about construction and market specific. If you look at like, you know, inland empire, for example. Yeah. There's a lot of construction or, you know, Las Vegas, for example, there's a decent amount of construction, but at the same time, the amount of demand that we're seeing come in and given it's a structural shifts, it means that you could, you should expect continued demand. That being said, we're getting to a point where cap rates are going to struggle. Maybe a little bit to continue to decline. Speaker 0 (19m 45s): I was going to say, it's for reminds me like economics 1 0 1. We're like, no, that the shift it's the whole demand curve moving, not just going up along, right? Like there's a, there's an innovation here. There's, there's a structural shift to less retail and more, more industrial distribution. Speaker 1 (20m 0s): I was actually trying to the other day to think of a, a good comparison. And I think we landed on radio for retail retail's radio where it it's still gonna have a use, but it's not the same use that it used to have an industrials TV now, the television. Cool. That's the entertainment. Yeah. Speaker 0 (20m 22s): So where does, where does vaulty Rez line up with that? If we, if we go to multi Rez, which you have to think that, you know, prior to the pandemic, we were like, can cap rates keep going down? And then they kept going down. And even right now, buoyed by I'm sure interest rates are multi-res team. I think, did their, did their had a banner year for 2020, like a record year for them? Speaker 1 (20m 46s): Yeah, we we've hearing that a lot is that, you know, 20, 20 and now 2021 in particular, it's been a great year. 2021 saw the largest increase in rent we've ever seen quarters for Q3. So we just finished up two, three, we're still finalizing the results, but shaping up that Q2 Q3 and Q1 of 2021 are the top three years in terms of demand for multi-family. And it, you know, that's across the board. However, if you start breaking it down by markets, the south in particular is really, really very strong. I mean, I'm going to keep harping on myself just because it is as strong as it is, but you know, multi-family is price per unit has gone up by 30% compared to pre-recession averages in Sunbelt markets rents in, like, for example, Austin increased by 15%, six months, you get, you kind of become to begin to become worried more about affordability than anything else, which is at some point, this becomes a economic macro economic problem, which of course then comes back to haunt investors. You know, a lot of that gain has already happened and really have seen a deceleration, which you would expect given seasonal trends in multi-family. And, you know, in some of these markets, you really are beginning to hit the, the affordability limit. And that's where you can start making a great argument for like, for manufactured homes or for mobile home parks. For example, particularly in the south, the Southern states, they don't work as well in the Northern states. I would argue at least mobile home parks. Speaker 0 (22m 27s): Yeah. Neither up here. Speaker 1 (22m 30s): It gets a little chilly. I know, but it's, multi-family has done, has probably been the outperformer, which, you know, given all the news around how well single-family pricing has done is isn't that surprising. And if you, if you look at single family, a single family price growth compared to multi-family rent growth, single family price growth in almost every single market has grown faster. So it's not like your, your other options is getting any easier to, to afford. Speaker 0 (23m 8s): Yeah. And in terms of like your outlook on this, in terms of the actual properties themselves, like, are we finding that in these markets that there are underperforming assets that are now being utilized to their, to their, you know, market rents, you know, value, add deals. Do you think that is what's happening in a lot of these markets? Or do you think that the pressure of lower interest rates is, is what's fueling most of, most of the acquisition in, in multifamily being an asset class that's pretty much being subsidized or was subsidized for the last year, year and a half by the government in most in countries. Speaker 1 (23m 46s): Yeah. I mean, that's a huge part of it. And then on top of that, I think lower interest rates is extremely helpful for multi-family acquisitions. You know, part of it is it, some of it has to be just the inflation hedge that you'd get for multi-family. If, if you were to all concerned about inflation and you want to look in real estate multi-family is probably your best bet just given. And we can talk about this at some point, just given the short lease term is, but the, the eviction moratorium also, at least in our opinion, has had a pretty big effect on multifamily demand because on one end, you're, you know, you are seeing a huge spike in terms of demand, but then we kind of scratch our heads at it for a while. But then if you think about it, we weren't evicting anybody. There's 800,000 evictions in the U S per year. I don't know what it is for Canada. That's 800,000 units that aren't going, that aren't in negative demand. We aren't, we aren't building, you know, these, these class C units were, if we're building anything, it's, it's a class, a, a, that's the only thing you can really afford to build right now that will, that will pencil. So, you know, people are, people are basically sitting in their home, sitting on their apartments, they're unwilling to move. So we aren't seeing that, that negative demand. And on the other, the other side, we're seeing a huge uptick in people separating how tools, if you're, let's say you're a 22 year old kid and you you're living with four roommates, we're seeing people decouple those households and begin to move out into their own places. All of that kind of leads to these, this huge spike in, in multi-family. Speaker 0 (25m 36s): Yeah, I guess the real question, like you said before, it's, it's the affordability aspect you have, like you said, 30% increase, I think in evaluation, but 15% increase in rental rates. And there is, there is a certain level where, you know, you, you just hit a, you hit a wall in terms of affordability from the, from the consumer point of view. Speaker 1 (25m 56s): Yeah. I think it's, it's going to have, it was a concern even before the pandemic was, you know, a home affordability shelter affordability, and it certainly did not get better. Speaker 0 (26m 8s): And on the construction end, you, you, you mentioned class a, are you seen quite a bit of construction on the multi-family side? Generally, Speaker 1 (26m 14s): It's pretty, it's pretty much in line with the last couple of years, to be honest with you, which was pretty significant. But on the other end, we saw a huge amounts of construction delays even before the pandemic. And it, it kind of acted as this filter for, for supply being added, frankly, especially, especially down south where there's huge amounts of demand, there's huge amounts of supply waiting to be added. But at th at the same time, they just can't get it out. Whether it be supply costs, labor is certainly a problem. Anybody and anybody who's trying to build multi-family right now has told me that labor is almost impossible to find at this point. Yeah. Speaker 0 (26m 51s): I mean, just even on the small scale or we're doing projects in our area, it's, it is extremely slow. And, you know, you talk to anybody in the construction industry. They'll, they'll tell you the same thing right now. Not just supplies, but labor as well. If we shift over to, to that piece on inflation, it's been a hot topic in terms of ink spilled. I'm sure it was one of those things that, yeah, the over the last little while there's been enough fuss bulled over on, on the inflation side, what's your view from the data that you guys are seeing? Speaker 1 (27m 25s): Yeah. I, I take the view that I am in agreement with the bond market and the fed that it is transitory. I think the definition of transitory has been changing pretty significantly because at first I think it was six months and now it's probably going to be a little bit longer than that. Kind of where I begin to split a little bit from the fed at least, is that it's inflation is likely to be higher for longer. I don't think it's going to be quite as high as it has been. A lot of that. A lot of the reasons it's been high currently, it has a lot more to do with the pandemic and kind of short-term factors. You know, you can think about shortages and chips. You can think about shortages and car parts, for example, or appliances, as well as transportation demand, which should burn itself off and on top of the stimulus. But the fed changed how it does it targets inflation. And I think it really went under reported. I think a lot, it, it didn't really make as much noise as it should have because what they're essentially doing now is they're saying, okay, we need to make up for really chronically low inflation in the, the last cycle. So we're going to allow inflation to run hot, to get the labor market gains that we saw at the end of the last cycle. Because if you look at between 2018 and 2020, the federal site statistics around minority wage gains, for example, it didn't really begin to appear until the economy was basically at full employment. What that three, 3.5, 3.4% unemployment rate. They want to see that again, that's Jerome Powell has basically explicitly stated that that's what they're looking for. That being said, the fed has begun to sound a little bit more hawkish. Cause I think they, I know they were taken by surprise by the how high inflation got, and they're, they're likely going to raise rates by the end of next year. All of that said, I, I still believe the fed is willing to let inflation run above that 2% mark for the next couple of years. Speaker 0 (29m 30s): So for those that don't know what you're referring to in terms of the under-reporting is the fact that they've, they've broken off of the, the, what they used to be the 2% target, is that right? Speaker 1 (29m 40s): Yeah, I, yeah. I mean, I was in colleges, every continent was, you know, they target 2%, they adjust rates based off of that. That's obviously a little more complicated than that, but now they're targeting a longer term inflation average of 2%. And because inflation from 2010 to 2019 ran between, you know, according to their measure of inflation PC around between 1.5 and 1.8% for most of that, they view allowing it to run from two to 3% as making up for some of that loss, those loss pricing increases over the last cycle. Speaker 0 (30m 15s): So in terms of, from the investor perspective, if your outlook as to how that informs your decisions from a real estate point of view, you know, what does, what does that leave us with in terms of the discussion that we've had even today in terms of the different asset classes and how you view economic decisions and investment decisions? Speaker 1 (30m 35s): Yeah, I mean, look, inflation is here to stay at, which is actually fair, especially since it's not, you know, hyperinflation I, where the fed is going to be forced to raise rates quickly. Hopefully, you know, it's actually good news for real estate. Real estate is a real asset, you know, I'm sure, you know, everybody, every economist has said this at some point, you know, real estate is a real asset. It, it benefits from a real value gains and holding real value, which means that in an inflationary environment, commercial real estate itself is a good play within those property types. There are some that are better than others, especially if you're unsure of how stable and the inflation rate is going to be the shorter, the lease term, especially in a higher demand property types that, you know, you can think about industrial or especially multi-family, it means you can adjust your, your rent increases to match inflation. If you look at, and we've seen this actually in the market, if you look at NOI gains real NOI gains from Nate grieve since 1990, there was only two real periods of actual real NOI gains from the nineties to the, from early nineties to the late nineties and from 2010 to 2015. Other than that, if you deflate real and alive for multi-family, it's basically flat, which, which essentially means that NOI is just, is, is working as an inflation hedge. You get the same real return year after year. That that makes multi-family really attractive. Industrial actually has not done that well, based on that same measure up until very recently. Speaker 0 (32m 12s): Yeah. I liked the idea. I was always told by a mentor of mine there where, you know, real estate is one of those few industries investment that you can download inflation to your, to your customer, you know, pretty much one for one. Speaker 1 (32m 27s): Yeah, you can, it, it is extremely easy to just pass on that inflation to the investor, unlike pretty much any other asset class. I mean, if you think about bonds, for example, you can't do that for the most part. You just, you know, if you invest in a bond, you you're losing real value every, every coupon payment. Speaker 0 (32m 44s): Yeah. And I th and I think to your point earlier where you have those shorter terms with multifamily, it's obviously easier to do, but I was just reading a lease yesterday that was kind of the old school lease where the, it was over 10 years, but the, the bump ups, the step-ups and rent were basically the CP attached to a CPI inflator. So we haven't seen those as much, usually landlords, if anything, at least prior to the pandemic, they would just say, okay, it's, you know, 10 bucks a square foot now 12 bucks 14. And usually that would be more than inflation, but they have some mechanism in there. Speaker 1 (33m 17s): Yeah. Well, I was going to say, the other thing landlords might want to start thinking about is, is indexing it to inflation and that's, that's actually the great part. I mean, that's why we target a specific inflation rate is because then you can make these easy decisions. I know inflation is going to be 2%, it's a very stiff assumption. So, you know, we can, we can just assume a 2% going forward. Now you have to start thinking about, okay, is it, you know, is it going to go, you're making a bet. Is inflation going to be long-term? Is this higher inflation could be long-term or is it going to come back down? How much is it going to come back down? It's really difficult. And while it does sound really nice to indexed, to inflation, if you're an office, a landlord right now, I think you struggle a little bit because you don't have the negotiating power necessarily that you did two years ago. Speaker 0 (34m 5s): Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of, so in terms of that, how that view informs the interest rate discussion, the way that, you know, the fed will respond, if, you know, if employment is higher than, or full employment, or if changes in inflation that, that they're measuring, how, how do you see that impacting the interest rate decisions? Speaker 1 (34m 27s): Yeah, so I, I I'm, I think I'm in the minority here, at least in terms of the broader economics where I really don't see interest rates increasing significantly. And I know that's a really economist answer to touching it a little bit, but I don't see interest rates hedging or increasing significantly because one of what the feds, the fed said about how they're going to react to inflation, they said, they're willing to let inflation run hot. They care more about the labor market gains right now on that needs us more liquidity in the system for longer, which, you know, can go only a few places. It can, it can drive. And we have seen equity increase by multiples. And then the only other place we can go really is bonds for, you know, those multi-trillion dollar that multi-trillion dollar liquidity pool we have right now. I mean, it's at the point where the banks just basically don't know where to put the money. All of that, to me suggests a, you know, short, you know, lower interest rates on top of that. If you think about the demographic factors that are affecting the United States, you know, slower demographic growth going forward, that's not going to change. That's baked in effectively. Unless people begin to move here in a mass on top of technological change, you know, you would expect to see more automation going forward. I think it's coming faster than a lot of people like to acknowledge that pushes down prices, which then pushes down interest rates. And I know globalization is no longer it, maybe isn't moving forward as quickly or as moving forward at all. But globalization still means a lower interest rate environment. You know, the fed in 2018, tried to push interest rates to 2.5% and ran into huge liquidity problems in the market. There isn't there, they don't and they view, and this is their view. They don't view the neutral interest rate as much higher than rate where they're no longer stimulating nor creating drag on the economy is much higher than two or two and a half percent. So all of that, to me suggests maybe slightly higher interest rates from what was the tenure at. At one point I, you know, 50, 50 basis points, but maybe not, it's probably gonna be lower than it was before, before the pandemic. Speaker 0 (36m 45s): Would there be something that would change that view for you or, or a few factors that would change that view for you in terms of where interest rates could go? Cause, I mean, that's usually the big thing where a lot of people say, oh, if inflation is going in this direction, interest rates have to, you know, come up to that, you know, come up as a result of that. But yeah, what are, what are, what are some factors that may, may kind of give you pause to, to think it might go the other way or at least increase over what you're, what you're talking about? Speaker 1 (37m 13s): That's a great question. And, you know, as inflation has continued to stay high, it's been something I've been thinking more and more about, but the, you know, inflation first and foremost above all else, if inflation gets out of hand, it, it becomes a inflation spiral. That's when I think, you know, you'll begin to see interest rates really start to hike. The other, the other concern would be the fed. It depends on who Biden dominates next year for the fed. If we get someone who's hawkish, if we see you're going to see some more hawkish fed governors, I think that in a more hawkish fed chairman that could change my view on interest rates. And finally, we begin, we begin to S you know, removing chewy really begins to drain liquidity faster than I thought it would. No we're right now, we are still buying billions of dollars of bonds every month. I don't expect removing QV would do that, but that could drive interest rates higher if the, if the market begins to react to, or begins to become concerned about liquidity in the us, into global bond markets. Right. I, I sh I should mention real quick that also there are wars and pandemics that I can't predict. I learned that last year. Speaker 0 (38m 40s): Yeah. That was a, it was, I remember two, two or three years ago. And I won't say who the company was, but, you know, I remember it was couched almost as a joke, you know, barring any geopolitical disputes or a global pandemic. And I was like, oh my God. But yeah, those are always the things you're like, you know, there's these extra exogenous factors that you're not going to be able to, to forecast these black swans. So I guess the, you know, from the real estate perspective, that's a good overview of where we're at today in terms of the different asset classes. And we're, you know, the view of the economy is just want to be mindful of your time. Joseph, we have four questions. We ask everybody before we, we end the episode. So if you're okay with that, we'll kick it off. Speaker 1 (39m 25s): Absolutely. Speaker 0 (39m 26s): What's something, you know, now in your career, you wish you knew when you started. Speaker 1 (39m 32s): That's a great question that it's okay to be wrong and it's okay to make a mistake. I think I was, at least at the beginning of my career was a little more concerned about mistakes and being wrong. If you're, if you're an economist, if you work in economics, you know, if you work in real estate and you're trying to forecast trends, you're, you're going to be wrong and that's okay. It's just, just, don't be wrong. You just learn from the mistake. Don't make the same mistake twice, twice, I think is what I needed to learn as opposed to you have to be right the first time. Speaker 0 (40m 1s): Yeah. It's all always lies. I camera it was like Truman or something that said, ah, give me a one-handed economist. Everyone says on the, on one hand, on the other hand, but yeah. I Speaker 1 (40m 11s): Mean, I'm certainly, I'm certainly guilty of that Speaker 0 (40m 15s): While you want to be precise with your answers in terms of mentorship, what would you tell younger people coming into the industry or your views of mentorship in general? Speaker 1 (40m 25s): Oh, I would not be where I am without mentors. I think it's so important to talk to people who that are in a place that you want to be, or are doing things that you want to do. I've had some fantastic mentors for both in real estate and in, in economics before, before I worked in commercial real estate, I was working in banking regulation. I was thinking regulation research, I suppose I worked with some fantastic economists that taught me everything I knew, including, you know, my, my advisor in college. I, I, you know, like find someone that you think is worthwhile to talk to and then just bug them. I think I was my first job. I was in the chief economist office, every opportunity I could just asking questions, being curious, trying to learn as much as I could cause that, and it's, it's paid dividends for me. Speaker 0 (41m 25s): Awesome. Are there any recommendations you could give a book recommendations, podcasts, I guess, with the spirit of this conversation, maybe in real estate or economics? Yeah. Speaker 1 (41m 34s): There's, that's not a good question. There's two, there's two, there's two that I, one that I love just for all time, which is thinking fast and slow by data economy, which, you know, I, I like to think that I don't necessarily subscribe to the, the basic, the, what a lot of mainstream economists think about in terms of models. I think there's more to it than that. And David Kahneman does a really good job of breaking down how people think and how that relates to economics. Fantastic book. It's a really interesting read, even if you're not an economist and the other one is the rise and fall of economic of us economic growth. I believe it's, I'm reading it right now. So I should know the name. Speaker 0 (42m 17s): Yeah. We'll put a link. I think I know the one, the one you're talking about, Speaker 1 (42m 23s): I, you know, the first economist I worked under was an economic historian. So he instilled that interest in me. And it basically shows that, you know, the century from 1870 to 1970 was a period of unbelievable technological change and economic growth. And I it's really fascinating and it informs a lot of what I think will happen going forward in terms of slower, you know, slower but steady economic growth. We're not going to see those four to 5% GDP gains without, you know, huge amounts of stimulus anymore. And it was good. Speaker 0 (42m 54s): Yeah. I have a, if it's Robert Gordon, is that a that's right? Yep. Okay. We'll put it. Speaker 1 (43m 0s): I think it's a fantastic book. I really like it. If you liked economics, I would suggest that it's. Speaker 0 (43m 6s): Yeah, no, it's, it's one of those things where I w was interested in reading, but unless you get like a recommendation, sometimes you go down a rabbit hole, but the Conaman that's I think, correct me if I'm wrong. I think Conaman was the first non economist to win the Nobel prize in economics. Speaker 1 (43m 23s): Yeah. He was a psychologist and I it's, it's a lot about how the brain thinks and makes decisions and you know, it really attacks that idea of rationality and really looks at why people actually make decisions. It's, it's a great book. It really changed how I thought about, you know, economic modeling and where I work, how we, how markets work. Speaker 0 (43m 45s): Very cool. We'll put a link to both last question. First car, make and model. Speaker 1 (43m 51s): Oh, I had a 2004, a Honda accord, which is it. And it was, it had a bigger engine than it was supposed to have, which was great because if you've ever driven in Massachusetts, all of the on-ramps are about five feet long, so you have to really gun it. And so that was a fantastic car. I missed that car still. I would rather drive that than when I'm driving now. Speaker 0 (44m 20s): Right on. I feel like a lot of engines were stuffed into those older Accords and civics, Joseph, for people to connect with you or a, you know, anything related to the information or data you do with CoStar work and they reach out, Speaker 1 (44m 34s): Yeah, we have a website, I'll send it to you for blankets, CoStar advisory. You know, you can always find me. I write a lot of articles for the website, so you'll see me on CoStar, if you have it, which I would suggest otherwise, you know, just I'm on LinkedIn. Speaker 0 (44m 54s): My guest today has been Joseph Biassi Joseph. Thanks for being part of working capital. Speaker 1 (44m 59s): Thank you for having me. Speaker 0 (45m 10s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse, for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five-star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.

Partner with Level Craft Construction, Virginia Van Lear joins the Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio podcast to discuss operating a female-run business, the pandemic's effects on the construction industry and building inside the perimeter. Van Lear joins hosts Carol Morgan and Todd Schnick for the All About Real Estate segment. Level Craft Construction is a premier custom home builder headed by Van Lear and her business partner, Debbie Hollonbeck, with over 20 years of experience building, designing and renovating homes and commercial spaces inside the perimeter area (ITP). The company works primarily in Brookhaven, Buckhead, Decatur, Midtown, Virginia Highland, Morningside, Kirkwood and Scottdale. “You can come to us with your project, and we will help you every step of the way,” said Van Lear. Level Craft partners with homeowners from building, planning, lot selection and funding while remaining close at hand through every step of the process. As well as residential work, the company works with investors to develop residential properties, expanding and improving the real estate industry in the metro area. When the pandemic began, Van Lear and her team expected all operations to come to a halt, but this has not been the case. Many people working from home have assessed their spaces and found them lacking. Whether there is a lack of beautification, a needed update or the desire for more capacity, many clients feel cramped in homes that were at one time adequate. Level Craft Construction has seen a dramatic increase in additions and outdoor living spaces in the past year and a half. Specializing in large-scale construction projects over $250,000, popular additions like screened-in porches tend to be a part of sizable projects that also includes a master suite and additional rooms. Some homeowners even go as far as starting from scratch. In Atlanta, a current issue is obtaining a building permit earlier than six months before starting a project, which presents problems for homeowners and the Level Craft team, because a lot can happen with pricing during that timeframe. Another issue is the interruption in the flow of products from sources outside of the United States. For example, if roof trusses are needed for a build, there is difficulty obtaining the necessary metal brackets. For HVAC systems, the motherboards to operate the machinery are sourced from China, causing sizable delays. Van Lear said, “What took us five or six months to build now takes us eight or nine months because we're just waiting for product.” It's common to see houses start construction and come to an abrupt halt because of disruptions to the supply chain. Level Craft Construction has been keeping communication open and regularly updating clients to ensure the interruptions don't prevent the homeowner's dream from becoming a reality. Since all of Level Craft's projects are larger-scale, 99% of renovations incorporate a kitchen upgrade for a larger and more functional space. Based in the South, it is common for Level Craft Construction clients to also desire screened-in back porches with room for a wet bar and a Big Green Egg. It is also common for homeowners to request a martini pool or larger family pools. Van Lear shared that the current main pillars of renovations are larger kitchens, outdoor living spaces and additional rooms to provide office space for working from home. Just some of the most common home styles that clients ask for include the commonplace southern farmhouse style, Craftsman bungalows, two-story bungalows and recently, modern prairie styles, a personal favorite of Van Lear. She also shared that the company enjoys the challenge of experimenting with different exteriors, such as stacked stone versus stone veneer. “It's fun for Level Craft to build outside of the box,” shared Van Lear. “It keeps our wheels turning a little bit and keeps us sharp. We always want to learn new things.”

A Midtown apartment complex is fighting the landlord due to planned renovations. Plus, the cause of death for Gabby Petito has been released by authorities & a trend of big business continues. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well hello there, babes. Welcome back to Your Place or Mine, hosted by Bae Savage. This episode is part of a spin-off series called Your Place or WINE, where Bae gets lit with a friend and shares some fun. In this episode, we're joined again by the gorgeous babe, Cashmere Glow. In this spur-of-the-moment episode, we talk about our experiences at our local Midtown watering hole. From the bartenders we wanted to the bartender one of us acquired, many memories have been made at this wonderful establishment. Hear about Bae teaching Cashmere pickup skills and how it ended up us taking home a couple of regulars. Want more? Head to https://www.baesavage.com/ and be sure to follow: https://www.instagram.com/baesavagexo/

Achievement Unlocked....Let's start this weeks sesh!

DJ Bad is back with some more relaxed vibes from Times Square at STK Midtown. Follow him on social media @badisgood if you dig the mix!#BadIsGoodSupport the show (http://www.badisgood.com)

Greetings trashlings Sara Armour and Casey Bunker are back to bring you their most biting commentary and astrological analysis to recap  the three hour trashelor bachelor in paradise finale.00:00 Sorry for being a day late, but Casey was seeing real housewife Sonja Morgan live at the helium comedy club in Philadelphia. Indeed, Sara is triggered by Sonja's big weekend at a favorite club of hers (In fact the only club she's performed at during the plague…) but based on the review from Casey, they realize Sonja is in fact Sara's ideal client. A pitch is made. Does anyone know Sonia? Send her a link to the ep. Many thanks.3:50 Becca and Thomas and Noah and Abagail. Break up to make up! 10:00 Soeaking if Abagail … they try not to but cannot help but dive right into the deep waters of the Pisces soup -– or should we say tea — that is Claire-Dale-Abigate. We discussed Claire‘s devastating interview on red table talk before the big break up was revealed and give you all the dirt astrologically, psychically, and everything the Internet has drugged up. (NOTE: Immediately after recording breaking news came out with more details about the alleged affair — In May Dale and Abigail were spotted at a bar in Midtown which, and there are no coincidences, happens to be a bar where Sarah hosts/hosted a comedy show…What is synchronicity. Signs.) What's funnier — tag-a-gail or abadail? Let us know in the comments or in a review!35:00 a run down of the list of obvious engagements that happened on island, and the couples who broke-up in front of the cameras only to get back together after wrap. Noah and Abigail as predicted are post-show drunk and in love, Becca and Thomas are dating and have consummated their relationship (they speculate that Becca's big break up moment was actually just avoiding the boom boom room …..). As for on camera fantasy suites / engagements : Mari eats a taco off of Kenny's peen. Kendall intercepts right before Grocery Store Joe is about to get down on one knee, and fear that Riley and the producers hurt what should have been at least the romantic proposal of the bunch by making the same bad jokes three times leaving Maurissa excessively drenched in sweat on the altar. SMH.Truly shocking how many couples came out of this season and hot take —  this could be the most efficient form of online dating in the end, begging the questions:Should Sarah turn her lonely life in Florida into a singles retreat? Should we do Moonual matchmaking? Let us know.43:43 The only couple that came as a surprise — bromance breakout couple of the show— Aaron and James! Friendship. It's a beautiful thing. Love is love. Bros before Hoes.50:00 Mulshine sisters in the spotlight and in review. High praise.53:54 And finally In a satisfying conclusion Brendan and piper have broken the fuck up and Natasha one Instagram.Karmas a bitch (beach?), looking forward to Michele's season on the bachelorette starting October 19 and otherwise catch you tomorrow for a brand new episode of space trash podcast: lifestyles of the rich and Uranus.

There's nothing gross about the merch, it's very fashionable I promise!

Our next stop is Midtown Manhattan, home to iconic New York landmarks like Times Square and Broadway. Although billboards and marquees were dim in 2020, 2021 proved to be optimistic as shows began to return to the stage and the stage lights flickered back on. We take a look at upcoming broadway revivals the the accompanying tribulations related to the #MeToo movement, inclusion and diversity, and more... and how this might start to break some of the deep rooted traditions and rituals related to performance.   

Know the value of your VO worth! Anne welcomes voice talent and rate negotiation expert, Maria Pendolino. They cover red flags in contracts, rate setting in an evolving industry, and how to educate clients on what you really provide as a talent and as a #VOBOSS. In this episode, Maria shares her thoughts on negotiation within the AI landscape, contract red flags, and more… Get more at https://voboss.com/voice-and-ai-negotiation-strategies-for-digital-voice-maria-pendolino/ Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast, the AI and Voice series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm thrilled to have award-winning voice actor and negotiation educator Maria Pendolino with me today. Maria frequently presents at conferences and in the community about rates, negotiation, and quoting your worth. And she's absolutely amazing and phenomenal. She's also the founder of millennialvoiceover.com, where she helps companies speak millennial as well as bluewavevoiceover.com, which is a hub for progressive and Democratic voiceover services. And she lives in Buffalo, New York, which is literally 40 minutes away from where I grew up, with her husband and three HDTV famous studio cats, Nelly, Mozzi, and Two Scoops. I love those names, Maria. Thanks so much for joining me today. Welcome. Maria: Thank you for having me. They're the real stars. Really. I work for them. Anne: I hear that with my three, but I love the names Mazel and Two Scoops. I'm wondering where the Two Scoops name came from. Maria: Yeah, so we have his, hers, and ours cats. So Two Scoops is my husband's cat that he adopted before we were dating. And he said, when he picked her up as a kitten, she fit in his hands, like two scoops of ice cream. Anne: Oh, that's so cute. Maria: That's what she looked like, like head and butt. And then Nelly is my cat that I adopted, and then Mozzi is short for mozzarella cheese. So she's the one that we adopted together. So her full name, her, her regal given name is Mozzarella Cheese Pendolino Brownton, so Mozzi, Mozzi for short, when she's just palling around with the girls. Anne: I love Mozzi. That's fantastic. [laughs] Oh, that's amazing. Well, we love our studio animals don't we? Maria: We sure do. Anne: That is for sure. So tell the BOSSes -- if they don't know you by now, they really should. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how it is that you became a master negotiator. Maria: Sure, absolutely. I have been acting since I was like 11 years old. I was one of the most annoying musical theater children who was begging their parents to drive them to open calls for the community theater production of Sound of Music. Like that is who I grew up to be. I went to college for theater, and I moved to New York City right after I graduated from college. And I actually had a full-time job in banking at the time. I took the job as a way to get to the city. And my plan was, I'm going to work for a year, pay off some of my student loans, maybe learn how to dance a little bit better, and then I'm going to be on Broadway. Turns out that didn't happen. [laughs] So I actually ended up working for the bank for almost 10 years, and I was good at it. I was a people person. I was a hard worker, and I moved up, and I was getting promoted, and I was making a lot of money and it was great. Then I was doing acting on the side. So I was auditioning for the off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off Broadway. Uh, I was doing cabarets and things that, you know, were rehearsing at night or weekends. And then, you know, if something big came up, I would like take a day off of work or tell people I had like a dentist appointment. I know one time I got an audition for the Hairspray movie that John Travolta was in. And I literally like took a half day at work and was like, I have a doctor's appointment. And I'm like running to Midtown to audition for a movie, you know, keeping -- stuffing my banking clothes, like, in my tote bag. So I did that. And then the recession hit in, you know, around 2008, 2010. And I found myself sitting in a cubicle graveyard at a bank, and I was like, God, this is not really what I wanted to do with my life. And I think I need to make a change. So, uh, I quit my job, and I kind of pushed myself into acting full-time. Um, I was doing mostly theater, TV, and film in New York. And I looked at voiceover and commercials in general as just like a sidecar opportunity. Like, oh, maybe you can squeeze one of these in between a booking or, you know, they happen occasionally. And then I started to realize how much I really loved voiceover. Like, you get to come into the booth, you do your work, you leave. You don't get picked up by hair and makeup at 3:00 in the morning. Anne: Yeah, right? Maria: You're not on set for 18 hours. And I was like, what am I doing with my life? At the same time, I was kind of having this realization and some of my voiceover work was taking off, I was also experiencing some difficulties. I have psoriatic arthritis and, um, I was having trouble with my knees and my joints, and New York being the pedestrian wonderland that it is -- Anne: Yes. Maria: -- it's just harder and harder to get around. And I was like, you know what? If I made this pivot, if I invested into my voiceover career and everything that that could be, I could have a full life as a working actor and not have to worry about, you know, this health and physical challenge that sometimes rears its ugly head. You know, you can walk into a studio and just say like, hey, can I have a stool? Nobody bats an eye. Anne: Right, right. Maria: You know, so yeah, around 2014, that's when I kind of made the, the sharp right turn, left turn, whichever way you want to go, uh, into voiceover to have that be my primary acting pursuit. And I've been a full-time voice actor ever since I've been doing voiceover now for about 11 years total, but as a full-time voice actor for about seven years. Anne: And you are a dynamo for sure. I look up to you [laughs] especially for those negotiation skills, which I think have come in super handy with the events of the day. Not even the events of the day today, but literally always in our businesses, we need to be good negotiators in order to be successful. Maria: Absolutely. Anne: Yeah. I mean, as you know, there's been all sorts of discussions recently about new technologies on the horizon and jobs with, you know, for TTS, for synthesized voices, AI voices, that's all the buzz. And, uh, I'd like to get your opinion. What are your thoughts on these new technologies? Are they going to be taking our jobs away? Maria: I think they're all very interesting. I think, I think some will take jobs away, but that's also how, you know, the evolution of industry works, you know? Anne: Yeah. Maria: Uh, cars took away the jobs of the horses and the carts and all of that. Anne: Yeah. Maria: Like there's a thousand things that you can point to that, you know, the new, the new item kind of superseded what we had always done. Anne: Right, right. Maria: I think the, the things that will be the first kind of stuff to go as the AI and synthesized voices get better and better and more fine-tuned and really have, you know, a natural voice engine as opposed to something more robotic, is just going to be some of the low hanging fruit. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, if somebody, you know, would normally hire an actor to do a scratch session, they're going to use an AI voice to do the scratch session, and then hire an actor to do the real thing. Companies that have historically low-balled actors saying, oh, we pay $.03 a word and $.05 a word -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- instead of a more industry standard, you know, $.30 or $.40 a word, those companies are going to turn to using AI voices when they're good enough to meet their client's expectations, because they clearly weren't putting a huge value on the talent in the first place. Quality of the voice was never the most important thing that they were searching for. They were searching for the best price and then assuming that everything else would just be good enough. So I think those types of things will absolutely be affected as the AI voice engines get better and better. But I think things that require an actor, like truly require an actor -- so you have genres like animation and video games, commercials -- I just can't see an advertising agency that is, you know, working on a multi-million dollar brand campaign that includes on-camera actors, uh, media buys of multimillion dollars saying, you know what, we're not going to pay the voiceover actor, their session fee and their usage. And instead, we're going to go to a synthetic voice and trust this multimillion dollar production -- Anne: Sure. Maria: -- and this multi-billion dollar media buy to that. So, you know, I think there are some genres that maybe have a little bit more protection, but where acting hasn't been the primary concern, and perhaps it's been more about just, you know, a get it done mentality, or where voiceover has been, you know, for accessibility compliance only, as opposed to something that they truly invest in -- I'm thinking of things like audio description -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- or audio narration just for perhaps a visually impaired community -- I think it's possible that those types of things would be replaced by a high quality AI engine. But the flip side of that is they currently use voices to make AI engines. So the question is -- Anne: Exactly. Maria: -- do you, as a voice actor, want to be a part of that new side of the business, the same way that, you know, did you want to be a voice that is going to be on the internet before the internet was coming around? Anne: Yeah, right. Maria: As these new technologies like emerge, do you want to be a part of that? And the question is, does it affect your business in a positive or negative way to do that? Anne: Sure. Maria: And that's what we're seeing, you know, with the story that came out with Bev Standing and TikTok. You know, can it, can it have a positive effect on your business? Can it have a negative effect on your business? And also are you in the driver's seat? Is -- Anne: Oh, absolutely. Maria: -- are you choosing -- Anne: Absolutely. Maria: -- to make the engine and be a part of that, or is someone making that choice for you? Which that puts the voice actor kind of in that negative position, that feeling like you're being taken advantage of. Anne: Sure. Maria: But I think those are two very different things, choosing to do it, being compensated fairly, agreeing to do the work, versus having your intellectual property stolen. Anne: Yeah. I mean, excellent, excellent point. So I think it's so very important now more than ever with what you just said for us as talent to know our worth. And so whether we choose to go digitally or, you know, we want to be in that, in that arena, I think we need to be compensated fairly, and we need to know that yes, our voices are worth something, and we need to, I think that stems from knowing your worth. What can you speak to about that sentiment and how it can affect us moving forward in the industry? Maria: Yeah. Knowing, knowing your worth and what your work is worth is kind of like one of the top five things that you need to do as a business owner. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, you can't just open a restaurant, and put the menus on the table, and just say like, I'm not sure what you should pay for that salad. Do you know what you should pay for that salad? That's not how a business operates. So I think it behooves everyone to do their own research and figure out what's right for them and their business and their investment of time and their workflow and everything. There's not one universal, you know, price or policy that you can say like, this is the way it has to be, but there are, you know, we have industry standard guides, and we have, you know, industry experts that you can, you can draw upon. But doing that research and actually coming up with an answer for yourself is a really critical thing. You know, you can make your own internal rate card or rate document for, you know, your most popular categories or your most popular hits, if you will. So that, you know, when you get an email from a client, and they ask you for a quote, or they ask for more information, you don't have to go back to square one every time. Anne: Right, right. Maria: And you don't have to publish that document. You don't have to put it on your website. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: That can just be your internal cheat sheet, but keeping in mind the, you know, the value of the different things. So, you know, being compensated for a session fee, being compensated for usage and understanding the difference -- Anne: Right, right. Maria: -- between being paid to actually do the work, the time you spent doing the work, versus being paid for your voice being licensed for a period of time, for a specific purpose. I think a lot of people come into the marketplace as a freelancer, whether that's voiceover or otherwise. And if you have come from like a traditional 9-to-5, or you came from, you know, an hourly wage job, and somebody tells you, I need you to do a voiceover for a 30-second piece, and we're going to pay you $350 -- if you're accustomed to making $13.75 an hour -- Anne: Yeah, that sounds great. Maria: -- doing something for 30 seconds for $300 sounds amazing. And a lot of times I think, you know, people, people get very angry and defensive about kind of the commoditization of voiceover and how on online casting sites, or sites like Upwork or Fiverr, or, you know, the voiceover specific sites, you know, that everything is down to this like bottom line price. A lot of times, I don't even think it comes from client malfeasance. I think it comes from they just don't know. They're like, well, a 30-second voiceover will probably take them 15 minutes to record. Anne: Exactly. Maria: Probably you need to pay them for an hour. And it's just, I think the way that you can best empower yourself as a talent and as a small business owner, who's running a voiceover business, is to take the time to truly understand the different services you provide, what the, you know, industry standard ranges are for those services, whether you're -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- working with union scale or whether you're using non-union rate guides to approximate your ranges, and then find yourself some language, some go-to statements that you can be equipped with. Anne: Right, right. Maria: So when a client says to you $1,500 for a 30-second spot? That's insane. Anne: Right. Maria: And you can say, well, you're not paying me for 30 seconds. Anne: Right. Maria: You're paying me because you'd like to use it for a year and a half or whatever it is. Anne: You know, and you mentioned something earlier about, you don't always have to go back to square one, but if we are actually on the forefront of, let's say, developing a rate guide for TTS or synthesized AI voices, I think it's kind of cool to be on the ground floor of that so that, you know, a lot of times, as a, as an entrepreneur and a business owner, sometimes there is no category. Sometimes there is no established rate for it. And I think there's a lot to be said for an entrepreneur or, you know, a successful business person that really, sometimes you just have to make a rate. [laughs] Maria: Yeah. Anne: There's nothing necessarily to base it on. And I just want those BOSSes out there to know that sometimes there is nothing to base it on. I mean, there's things that are relevant in the rate guides, and -- but sometimes you have to come up with that number yourself. And that takes a lot of courage actually. And people don't necessarily realize that. And that's why I'm sure, Maria, that you have gotten frantic texts or emails from people saying, oh my gosh, it's my first job. I have no idea what to charge. Can you help? Maria: Absolutely. Anne: That just happens all the time. And I just want to say that if we are on the, if we were on the brink of a new like category or a new type of voiceover, don't be afraid to go out there and make a, a price for yourself. But again, as, as you were saying, we have to know our worth, and we can at least have baselines from other genres that we can at least establish. And we can also, you know, start a community too, that we can say, what do you think? Is this? And then we can kind of establish a baseline for that. Maria: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it's important for people to understand that you are an individual business, and ultimately in the, in the free market, in the spirit of competition, you have the ability to set your price at whatever you want. Anne: Right. Maria: And I think you can use the tools that are available to you. You can do a lot of research. You can check in with peers, ask for a gut check, whatever. But at the end of the day, the paycheck is going to hit your checking account. Anne: Right. Maria: Not anyone else's. You don't owe an explanation to the entire community that you work with based on whatever you chose. At the end of the day, you get to decide how much you pick up the mic for, and your price is different than my price, is different than the next person's price. Anne: Right. Maria: And it should be, it should be. It should be your individual calculation of what you want. But I agree with you, you know, there, there are things that are emerging every year. There's a different type or way for voiceover to be used, whether that is, you know, new and exciting, uh, avenues for advertising. You know, we've seen things go from broadcast TV, to streaming TV, to dynamic audio insertions. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, you're listening to online radio, and it knows that -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- you live in this area, and you're getting the lunchtime message. And it's all calibrated in these different ways. There will continue to be innovations. So we, as an industry that is adjacent to these other industries, we also have to innovate. And if you want to take advantage of these new and burgeoning opportunities, you have to be kind of Intrepid and put yourself out there, and then -- Anne: Absolutely. Maria: -- rely on professionals and peers, whether that is an accountant, or a lawyer, or an agent, or a manager, rely on the people that you have in your circle, in your team to gut check you, to review things. Pay a lawyer to review a contract and make sure that you are not giving away or signing away or missing something. Anne: Right. There's a lot of legalese. There's a lot of new terms. And if you don't understand something, ask. Don't just assume that it's all going to be okay, because that's not the case. That's not the world we live in. And I do think that actors in particular, and I think this probably applies to a lot of artists -- you know, we have a scarcity mentality sometimes. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: You are trained as an actor to believe that each job leads to the next job. Oh, the director is really gonna like you, they'll hire you for the next job. Anne: Right. Maria: You got to do a good job. You gotta be a team player. So we have this mentality of like, we have to say yes to anything, 'cause it could lead to the next thing. Oh, if you do this ad, even though they're using, you know, a low budget, whatever, you know, they'll keep you in mind when they do the next, you know, big one or whatever. And it's like, well, okay, you know, that sounds like a good opportunity. And you have to evaluate those as they come along. But it doesn't mean that you have to be in the backseat for your career. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: It doesn't mean that you have to take a backseat and just accept what's being given to you. You can still be very active. You can negotiate. You can tell them that you don't agree with terms, you know, if they're written out on a contract or a scope of work. You have to be an active participant in that. Anne: Absolutely. And I think that's super important. So I would say, tip number one, at least in a lot of cases where people have asked me, I always say, don't be afraid to negotiate and mark up a contract. I mean, you absolutely have that right. What would you say, what would be your best tips in terms of when you're negotiating with clients on pricing for any jobs? Maria: Sure. Anne: But I'm thinking specifically for these new ones that might be coming up because there's a lot of ways that our voices can be used, and as we've seen with, with the TikTok case and Bev, we just didn't intend. And so what would you, what sort of red flags would you look out for, and what tips could you give us when negotiating with clients on those types of jobs? Maria: Absolutely. So some of the red flags that you want to look out for are the phrasing, you know, usage in all media. And that could be followed by "currently in existence or to be invented." So it's like, you know, we want to be able to use the voiceover that you're providing on literally anything that exists now and anything that gets invented. So that is typically a red flag indicating that, especially if you do commercial work, that that could, you know, create conflicts in your business. Because they're saying that even though you're agreeing to do this project for this specific purpose, let's say they wanted you for an explainer video or something, you're actually giving them the right to use that explainer video in an all media kind of release. They could use it on television, they could use it on phone systems. They could use it in a TTS engine. They could use it on the moon. That's the kind of -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- rights and usage that you're giving away. Another phrase that you want to look out for is transformative rights or, uh, rights to create derivative content. And those are the phrases that specifically come into play when it comes to things like TTS and synthesized voices. So by giving them the right to transform your voice files, that's how they can be transformed into a voice engine like a TTS. Anne: Absolutely. Maria: Or the derivative rights, meaning "we hired you to do a voice for a telephone system. And because you did such a multitudinous amount of recordings, we can actually create other derivative recordings from the work that you did. We can slice and dice or whatever and create new recordings. And then we don't have to pay you for them." Anne: Right. Maria: So you want to look out for releases that include transformative rights or the right to create derivative content. The other thing you can look out for is the kind of standard work product and copyright language. Most of the time, you know, clients will tell you that when you are being hired, the voiceover that you're providing is work for hire, work product for hire. And therefore they are going to have the right to copyright that material. If you're doing a very, very large project, or if you are involved in the creative aspect of it and are not just, you know, voice talent reading script for hire, you may want to try and negotiate out that so that you can retain the copyright -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- to your voice files. Anne: Good stuff, good stuff. Now, in regards to, if you don't sign a contract, when I spoke to Rob, Bev's lawyer, he was stating that because there was no contract, if it was recorded in her studio, they belong -- the copyrights belong to her. Maria: That's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't do a contract for every job. Anne: Right, right. Maria: You know, if, if a client sends me a contract, I read it and you know, my best practice is to come back to the client, if I want to make changes. And I say, hey, I'd like to make some adjustments to the contract. Am I okay to -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- you know, strike and initial? Anne: Exactly. Maria: Or would you like me to, you know, state my comments so that you can edit the document? And then it goes from there. But, you know, I make sure that in the email, I'm always kind of stating or restating like what we've agreed. Anne: Exactly. Maria: So if I audition for a project on an online casting site, and perhaps, you know, the usage, isn't 100% clear, when they come back to me and say like, hey, we got your audition. We'd love to work with you. My reply will always be, great. I'd like to confirm the usage for the piece. Anne: Yes. Maria: This is my understanding. Is that correct? And I make sure that I get some kind of affirmative reply from them. Anne: Excellent. Maria: I feel like, you know, that kind of protects me in that way. Anne: No, absolutely. That's a, that's a great tip. Maria: Yeah. But I, there are definitely jobs that I've walked away from. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, I walked away from, you know, what would have been a, a multi-level project job because they had a kind of all-inclusive boiler plate release that was written by a general counsel who may or may not still work at the company. And I explained to them very plainly, like why I had a problem with it. And I was like, you are asking for everything and the kitchen sink, but you are absolutely not going to use it for everything and the kitchen sink based on the scope of the project. And also you are not paying for everything and the kitchen sink. I am happy to give you the exact usage that this project requires. Anne: Exactly. Maria: And if you need it for something else later, I'd be happy to negotiate with you. Anne: Yes. Maria: But I'm not going to give you broadcast television rights, for press one, press two phone prompts. That's just not going to happen. Um, and they were like, we're sorry, we can't make any changes to that release. You know, we'll consider, we'll consider this canceled. And it's like, bon voyage, sorry. Anne: So I love that you just gave that scenario because that really is a wonderful tip in terms of when you are communicating with a client in clarifying usage of what things you need to look out for and what things that you can specify. You know, I've gotten to the point where my terms, you know, for the licensing of anything non-broadcast is, you know, is a particular length of time. And I specify that in my email. And so when there's the back and forth, and there's the agreement, it then becomes my quote, unquote contract, so to speak. And also, I know other people who do it on the invoice, but I don't think that's the right timing. What are your thoughts about that? Maria: Yeah. I know some people have like their terms on the invoice and basically the paying of the invoice signifies that, you know, they accept the terms, and I think that's fine. The problem is that, what happens if you've done the job, and you've had, you know, casual back and forth on email, but didn't go -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- into like deep, deep, nitty-gritty, and they get your invoice, they see your terms in the like, hey, you know, I've just had a training with our legal department -- Anne: Right, yeah. Maria: and I'm not allowed to sign this. I'm not allowed to pay this based on what you've said. Can we deal with it? And it's like, well, what happens? My invoices typically I send maybe like three or four days after a session in my personal workflow. What if I've already delivered them the audio? It could already be on television -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- by the time that they get the invoice and are not agreeing with it. Anne: Right. Maria: So I think if you want to use that as a, like a backup or like a final, like, thing that's on a piece of paper outside of email, that's fine. But I don't think that anything on your invoice should come as a surprise to your client after you've already done the session, conducted the work or anything like that. That feels a little bit like a bait and switch -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- if you didn't have the conversation about what's in those terms ahead of time. Anne: Good advice. Now, I'm going to assume that if you have an agent that might be negotiating on your behalf, or you're, maybe you're a member of the union, there are, there are other resources for you, legal resources or resources that can help you with negotiation. Any tips on that particular topic, on agents, the union, or just going at your own? Maria: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, you know, just, just like anything else, some people are comfortable with it and some people aren't. Anne: Yeah. Maria: You know, I, I had the benefit of working in business for several years and kind of got comfortable with corporate legalese and, you know, dealing with larger companies and entities. So I'm personally comfortable negotiating for myself. I work with a lawyer if I have a contract that I feel is particularly laborious that I would like some help reading, or maybe I just -- Anne: Agreed. Maria: -- like to delegate with confidence. I would rather pay you $250 to read -- Anne: Yup. Maria: -- versus me sitting with these 30 pages and a glass of pinot. Anne: Yeah. I completely agree with you. I am right there with you. Maria: Yeah. And I have, I have a fantastic management team. I'm represented by some really great agents in different cities. And, you know, if I felt that it was in their area of expertise, or it related to a similar project that we had done, I would absolutely not have a problem to call them in and help me out with that. Anne: Great. Maria: But the majority of things that I'm negotiating on my own fall into the industrial and non-broadcast categories. Anne: Mm-hmm, absolutely. Maria: These are the medical narration, corporate narration, e-learning. And not that my agents and managers aren't capable of handling that, but actually I don't want them spending their time on that. I want them spending their time finding the next fantastic ad agency to work with, finding fantastic auditions for me. And I want them to focus on that. I actually don't want them to focus on spending, you know, two hours hammering it out, a $.30 per word -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- narration contract. Anne: e-Learning narration, right. Maria: It's just, it's not what they do best, and it's not the focus of their business. So, you know, I'm not going to delegate it that way. If you are the type of talent that 85, 90% of what you do comes from your agent and you get a job out of the blue occasionally here and there, and you're just not comfortable with that, then absolutely, use them and allow them to take the commission of it. For a talent like that, it would absolutely be worth it. For someone like me, who's built up a huge industrial business -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- that I've sourced through my own marketing and my own auditioning, my agents and managers aren't involved in that kind of industrial side of my business. I'm not really sure if the union has resources with regards to negotiation. Obviously just by virtue of having, you know, fantastic contracts that are very -- Anne: Right. Maria: -- you know, talent protected. You're -- automatically, you get some, some base productions there. So if you're working on a union contract, and they're using the standard SAG-AFTRA -- Anne: Well, I would say they're using lawyers. Yeah. Maria: Yeah. Using the standard SAG-AFTRA paperwork, then you have your actor protections built in right there, but I've always found, you know, the membership and the voiceover help team there to be very helpful. So if you were working on a union project and you had questions about the contract or questions about, you know, the particular usages of the project that you're working on, I'm sure that, you know, they'd be, they'd be able to help. Anne: Wow. Fantastic advice, Maria. I really appreciate you spending time with us today. Where can BOSSes get in touch with you? I also hear you've got a course on negotiation coming out. So that is a very cool thing that I would recommend. Or how can they get in touch and consult with you? Maria: Yeah, absolutely. I'm putting the finishing touches on my online course about negotiation. It's a self-paced course that you can kind of come back to again and again, and it goes over some of my favorite phrases to keep conversations going when you're -- Anne: Fantastic. Maria: -- negotiating with clients, some suggestions for, you know, how to ask clients for their budget and how to negotiate from there. Hopefully it'll be coming out in about a month or two. If you would like a notification when the course is live and you can purchase it, also be giving out some discount codes. You can send me an email at hello@voicebymaria.com. And I'll add you to the list for notification. I have been kind of full up on my coaching and consulting calendar for both business coaching and negotiation coaching, but I will be opening up my calendar again after the VOcation Conference. So if you would like similarly a notification when there are slots available on the calendar to book either a negotiation coaching or a business coaching, again, just send me an email, hello@voicebymaria.com. And I will add you to the blast list to know when there are slots to gobble up. Anne: Awesome. Maria, thank you so very much for your time again, I'm going to give a great, big shout-out to our sponsor ipDTL. You too can connect and negotiate like BOSSes using ipDTL technology. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Maria: Bye! >> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to Coast connectivity via ipDTL.

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In this weeks episode Sam re-designs the American flag, for which they are no doubt very gracious, the topic of pogs arises, and the discussion of "Your Love" by The Outfield, leads to a head-to-head battle between bands Midtown and I See Stars.

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Chris and Drew welcome good friend, owner of Fluid Concepts and founder of Modified Syrups Co., Chad Brown onto The Good Bottle Podcast to discuss the labor strike at Heaven Hill Distilling and the etiquette for dining out. Also Chad pulls a Drew and has a hard time pronouncing some words. Stories: @foodandwine - New Rules for Dining Out https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2021/09/heaven-hill-workers-take-strike-action/ P.S. F### Yelp! Dope Follows: Instagram: @alkol.iq @thetequilacollective @Norlanglass Tiktok: streetartbydavidzinn --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/goodbottlepodcast/support

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Sometimes bad news turns into good news and we are here. for. that! Tune into this episode to hear about an exciting Midtown re-opening and a show we absolutely binged last week! Plus we've got a new hire at TEAMride. Press play!

Today in the hot seat we have Dana White. Dana White is the owner of Paralee Boyd. The salon, named after her Grandmother Paralee Boyd, opened in 2012 in Metro Detroit. The second location opened in 2017 in Midtown, Detroit. She started her business to solve a problem that women with thick and curly hair were facing everywhere. Dana wanted to create a space that provided quality hair care, that's timely and committed to customer service. Like several of us, she had grown tired of spending her entire Saturdays in hair salons. She had grown tired of navigating an appointment with her schedule and paying a premium for the reputation of the stylist and not the quality of my hair care. Dana is the first African-American woman to franchise a salon business. Starting in fall 2021, anyone can become an owner of the salon that offers a revolutionary approach for women with thick, curly hair to get their hair done quickly, with healthy treatments. The Paralee Boyd is projected to have 20 locations within two years and 100 locations within five years. “Support this podcast with small monthly donations to help keep this podcast going.” --> https://anchor.fm/bbnp/support Support the podcast with your T-Shirt purchase. --> https://beautybusinessnetwork.com/ Connect with Brandi: https://www.instagram.com/iambranditaylor https://www.facebook.com/IamBrandiTaylor Email: info@businessbeautynetwork.com Website: businessbeautynetwork.com Book a free Beauty Pro Discovery Call: https://beautybusinessnetworkpodcast.as.me/dc https://businessbeautynetwork.vipmembervault.com/ Get Your Free Ebook- Affirmations For Beauty Pros: https://mailchi.mp/xquisitelooks/affirmation-e-book-freebie Quote: “To be successful, you must be willing to do the things today others won't do in order to have the things tomorrow others won't have.” — Les Brown Connect with Paralee Boyd: @ParaleeBoyd - Intagram @iamdanawhite - Instagram https://www.paraleeboyd.com/ Sponsored By Coleman Tax: https://www.colemantaxllc.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bbnp/support

A Marietta Attorney Lost Her Barn To A Fire Friday Night; The Cobb Government is Under Fire After Advertising an Escape Room Based Off Prison; And the Kennesaw State Owls Head to Midtown for a Date with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. #KennesawState #GeorgiaTech  #CobbCounty #Georgia #LocalNews      -            -            -            -            -            The Marietta Daily Journal Podcast is local news for Marietta, Kennesaw, Smyrna, and all of Cobb County.              Subscribe today, so you don't miss an episode! MDJOnline             Register Here for your essential digital news.             Find additional episodes of the MDJ Podcast here.              This Podcast was produced and published for the Marietta Daily Journal and MDJ Online by BG Ad Group on 9-8-2021.           For advertising inquiries, please email j.southerland@bgadgroup.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonny Perdue does Brian Kemp a solid at GOP rally; Man shot by officer after wielding metal pipe in Midtown; National Guard to help Cobb County hospital at center of COVID storm; Tax break could bring 3,000 new jobs to Cobb's Lockheed plant

If you are in Nashville you know the buzz this week's guest, After Midtown, have right now. After playing a few rounds of COD with country music royalty, the guys like to lock themselves in an apartment and write rock infused country anthems. The duo come from different, but all too similar, small towns and […]

Jay Jr. regals us with a tale of he and Jack Nicklaus at Normandie. Jay details some of the proposed changes and it's impact on the community. This is an awesome development for the golfing community. Stories about Jack. Topgolf possibly coming to Midtown. Which golfers won 3 majors in the '80's? Iggy's Drops of the Week.

In this episode, Corbin Marcotte from The Investor's Broker, tells us what we should know about investing in the Tulsa OK market. Learn about the particularities of the market, a real estate agent and seasoned investor. We cover return metrics, the different areas and asset classes, who you are competing with, and what makes Tulsa an investor's market. --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The remote real estate investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co host, Mark Woodling. And we have a very special guest with us today. Corbin Marcotte with the investors broker is going to be talking to us today about all of the things we as investors should be aware of in the Tulsa Oklahoma market. He is one of our Roofstock certified agent partners out in the Tulsa market. And I am very excited to hear what he's going to share with us about the market as a whole and what investors should be keeping their eyes peeled for as we go into a deep dive in the market. So let's get into it.   Hey, Corbin, thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with market I today. Really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. So you're out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Right.   Corbin: Correct.   Michael: And we You and I were chatting a little bit before we started recording here about your background. But for those that weren't able to be part of that conversation, would love to get a little bit about your background, what you do in real estate and kind of what your personal the personal side of real estate for you looks like.   Corbin: Right? Absolutely. So I kind of have a interesting story. I started out actually bought my first house when I was 16 years old, and started buying stocks when I was 15 bought my first house when I was 16. And started kind of way you did a me and my brother, we did a flip and turned it into a rental. And then we did another flip and turned it into a rental in this in a town outside of Tulsa claremore which is a really great market. It's a little university town. And we went from there, we kind of split up me and him decided we didn't want to do that anymore. So at that point, I got licensed.   So I was 20 years old when I got licensed and started selling real estate at that point went from Coldwell Banker to Keller Williams. And, you know, I built the sales team through the sales side, all the while I was doing some investing, not super aggressively, but I built the new construction, I did an owner finance deal, a couple things here and there, learned a little bit about wholesaling and things like that. And then I just really focused on the brokerage the sales side, and I grew this team, and I just realized I wasn't having the best time, you know, I was doing traditional sales. It was okay, but I just wasn't in it. And the things I got the most excited about, we're always the investment transactions. I liked analyzing the numbers, I liked seeing value add opportunity, I felt like there was more of a value creation in that area.   And so, at that point, I decided, you know, I'm gonna open my own brokerage, I'm going to name it the investors broker, and I'm going to full niche down working with investors here in the Tulsa area and probably expand out over time, you know, we actually have an office in OKC, as well, but primarily here in Tulsa, just selling investment properties. You know, we've sold them all from large to small, you know, little $25,000 houses up to I did a 46 unit apartment complex not long ago.   So handle them all. But I'm an investor myself, you know, I'm actually in the office of my nine unit apartment right now. And so I have some small apartment complexes by downtown. I've done the single family and I've just kind of transitioned myself up. But, you know, single family is such a great, reliable space here in Tulsa. That, uh, it's hard to beat I think.   Michael: Oh, that's awesome. I just got to know something before we move on. How does this 16 year old buy a house? I mean, now you're making me feel bad. You know, what was I was playing with, you know, Legos and stuff when I was 16 goofy friends.   Corbin: You know, it was kind of an interesting thing. My parents were regular parents. My dad was a fireman here in Tulsa. My mom managed like some retail stores, things like that. So they were really into the financial area. And when I was young, I just decided that I was kind of rebellious as a kid. I like to skateboard and things like that. And so I always thought about things differently. And I knew that I didn't want to work for other people my whole life. You know, I knew I wanted to kind of do my own thing.   So I was referred some books on business when I was 15 by my brother's friend, and started reading these business books, and they opened my eyes to the world of, you know, you can start your own business, you can be your own boss, and I loved that idea of that freedom that it provided. And so, I started buying stocks, I mowed lawns, I worked for a farmer from the time I was 12. I, my dad was a really hard worker. So I learned from him, you know, working hard as valuable. So I worked for this farmer, I saved up some money, then my dad start a lawn mowing business, I saved up some money doing that. And me and my brothers went in halves, and bought a house there in Claremore for $8,000. and fixed it up ourselves over the course of basically a year. And yeah, that's how it all went down.   Michael: That's awesome. That's so cool.   Mark: That's one of the best stories Corbin because it, you got to move out of your parent, you could have moved out of your parents house. So I almost see it as you planning for that right age 18. Right.   Corbin: So years later, I'd rented that house out for four years or something. Yeah, about four years. And I sold a house and I actually moved into that house and I house hacked it I rented one of the rooms to one of my friends that was going to college there in Claremore. And so he paid my mortgage on it and I lived there for free.   Michael: Okay, there's so I have so many questions that I want to ask you. But we I know we're here to talk about Tulsa. But the one other follow up question I want to ask you, so you bought it with your brother for eight grand? How much did you put into it? And materials? I know you did all the labor. But then what did it rent for?   Corbin: Yeah, we did a we did a lot of work on it. I mean, it was extensive. I mean, from the floor to the ceiling, we read it at all. And I actually I worked for a contractor, I got a job off Craigslist working for a contractor. And I learned how to do construction. So I took that knowledge and went and fixed up the house. And he was a good enough guy that he actually helped me on some of the stuff you know, and and let some of his time. Honestly, one of the better contractors I've ever met really good guy helped me with that.   And we put about, I think we were all in about 55,000. And we rented it for $950. I think the first two years and then I think we bumped it up to like 1050 or so in 1050 bucks for the next couple years before we sold it when we sold it for 100,000. So we made about 45 off of it.   Michael: I love that. All right so we we could do a whole episode just about kind of your personal background. But let's let's dive into Tulsa here. Someone never that's never been to Oklahoma. I would love for you to kind of treat me like a total newbie, because I am. Talk to me a little bit about Tulsa as a whole give us a 10,000 foot level of what's going on in that market. Who are some of the big employers Why are people moving to the market are moving away? What do you what are you seeing in the market?   Corbin: Right, right, Tulsa? You know, I feel like I was born in the right place at the right time living in Tulsa and being a real estate investor and having The Investors Broker. I mean, it's just an amazing real estate market right now. I've loved it. Because, you know, Tulsa, kind of if you look back 510 years ago, really downtown Tulsa was nothing. Nobody wanted to come to Tulsa. It was just a dead zone.   And they kind of initiated this vision 2020 for Tulsa. Right. And they started in 2008-09 roughly. And what they started doing was revitalizing downtown Tulsa. You know, there's like, over in South Tulsa, there's a mall, and it's Woodland Hills Mall, that kind of used to be the hot area over there. Well, you know, these are 80s 90s 2000s built homes. There's not a lot of opportunity in those. I mean, for turnkey, they can be great. And don't get me wrong, you know, depending on the model, that area has some great property. But the downtown area started getting revitalized. And it took all of these areas that had been really C class property for a long time and started making it you know, B to A class so rapid appreciation.   And Tulsa with the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which if you've looked at Tulsa, it's one of the top things you'll hear about. He donated $256 million and built the gathering place which has been ranked the best us attraction for several years. And it's a free Park that's hundreds of acres. It's amazing. It's like a free amusement park. Almost kids love it. There's ponds. It's right on the river. And so they did this massive development over there. That's just this amazing spot that got us national attention.   And then downtown Tulsa His foundation as well obviously he's an oil guy. You know being from the old oil capital of the world is what Tulsa is known as. He has a foundation that funds for artists to move to Tulsa. And he also has Tulsa remote. So he's been paying people $10,000 to move to Tulsa. If they meet a criteria, most of those are their economic drivers. These are people that do real estate stuff. They're people that own their own businesses. They're driving the economy and the remote workers. And then he's been given him a $10,000 bonus to buy a house in Tulsa.   And so that's been amazing. They just brought in another 1000 people on that program. And that's been great. Tulsa's economy's just been doing wonderful. We just opened one of the it was the largest hiring of people in Tulsa was the Amazon center that just opened up, you know, we got national attention. Tesla was looking at building their cybertruck facility here. We came in second behind Austin. And you know, people are like, Oh, it's too bad. You didn't get it? Well, that got us national attention. So all of these big companies, when they see that Tesla's thinking about moving here, they're going, Okay, why are they thinking about it?   Well, because they realize the cost of land, the cost of the property, the tax rates, everything like that makes it a very attractive place to live, you know, they can find 1000 acres, that's within 25 minutes of downtown Tulsa, which is the cool spot to be, so they want their workers to have a place to go to, like downtown Tulsa, it's attracted a lot of stuff. Some of our largest industries are like aerospace, American Airlines just did a huge expansion out at the airport. And you know, it's like in Tulsa, everybody jokes, everybody knows somebody that works in American Airlines because it's such a large employer here. There's, you know, the energy sector, obviously, there's a lot of oil and gas.   And because we were the oil capital of the world, you know, in the early 1900s, people think that all that's in Tulsa, but really, that's not even the biggest sector and Tulsa aerospace is bigger than the energy sector in Tulsa, which they're also doing some really cool innovations with energy, I think there's going to be some changing from oil and gas to some of the newer technologies. A lot of that's being developed here. Then there's healthcare, there's technology, direct tv is a giant employer here in Tulsa, Bank of Oklahoma. And yeah, those are some of the the major employers here in Tulsa.   It's kind of a broad view. And, you know, we were just in Forbes for being the fourth fastest appreciating real estate market in the US. So another national attention, which is, I mean, prices, it's gone up, you know, 25% in the past year, roughly, and depending on the neighborhood, and everything, of course, but just rapid expansion and also, and rents, rents have gone up to you know, I owning my properties. You know, I've seen a three bed, one bath, you know, last year, in the areas I'm in, I would have thought was, you know, about $900 just rented a three bed, one bath for $1400. Holy smokes. So, getting some dramatic rent increases as well,   Mark: I was just on a website called Tulsa's future.com. And it's basically the economic development group that just compiles a bunch of data, it said that the cost of living is 12%, below the national average. So if you have rent increases, that are hanging in there, but it's still low cost of living, it's kind of a win win, right? You're bringing in people that you can still afford and not spending their whole paycheck on the rent, but the rent is going up, which is great for you. So compared to the price of housing, that's kind of the win win situation.   Corbin: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's just so affordable to live here. You know, and even, you know, our cost of transportation, everything around horses, it's just affordable, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. You know, I mean, you can get a house for people can buy a nice house for $150,000, you know, and then they can turn around and rent it out for $1500 bucks. So, you know, there's good rates of return steady appreciation. And, you know, one of my favorite books, the ABCs of Real Estate Investing in there, he talks about, you know, talk to the Chamber of Commerce, talk to the people in the city. And that's where you'll hear, should I invest in this market?   You talk to the people at the Chamber of Commerce, and they're stoked on what's happening in Tulsa. I mean, they're thrilled, and it's because of all these great things, all these great partnerships. And downtown's became, you know, I moved downtown because it's became an amazing entertainment area. every night of the week. There's things to do. There's wonderful restaurants, you know, and in 2020 We were set to open 25 restaurants, we're coming just to the downtown Tulsa area. So tons of new places opening up, of course, 2020 kind of threw a wrench in those plans, but many of them still opened.   And also, that's another, you know, economic factor is the way the government everything's handled the Coronavirus and Tulsa, you know, our eviction processes has stayed fairly easy. If you do have trouble. You know, I bought a complex that had existing problem tenants in it. And, you know, I was able to get those people out in 30 days. And, you know, it cost me about $200, to get them out. Whereas, you know, if you're looking at some of these coastal states, you're paying 1000s of dollars, that takes you a year to get somebody out of a property, you're losing all that rent, you know, here, it's like, you might miss out on a month worth of rent, if somebody starts, you know, not being a great tenant. And so the process for that's very easy, it's a landlord friendly state. And, you know, we didn't close down our restaurants, things like that didn't close down in Tulsa. And so our economy kept going.   Michael: So Corbin you kind of touched on it a little bit already, but curious to dig in a little bit deeper. So for investors that are looking for cash flowing properties, I mean, what did what are the different kind of neighborhoods or sub markets within Tulsa that people should be aware of? And then what is your average? I'm doing air quotes for anyone that watching this on YouTube. What's the average purchase price that someone could expect for called a three two? Because that's kind of our, you know,Colt 45? And then what would the rent look like in some of those different sub markets?   Corbin: Right, so there's a West Tulsa is a very Tulsa's grid is set up very efficiently. So when you go to learn Tulsa, it's a very easy city to learn. You know, we have downtown and then there's East Tulsa, West Tulsa, Midtown, South Tulsa.   Michael: Easy enough,   Corbin: That's pretty much the break up. Yep, very easy. And was Tulsa. There's a lot more manufacturing on the west side. So it's a lot more blue collar style. There's tons of manufacturing plants on the west side actually live just west of downtown. So I'm kind of over in that area. And, you know, you're going to look at, you know, purchase prices over there for three, two, or maybe around 120. It's maybe you know, the blue color style, that's going to be a little lower price point. And those are written for probably 1500 1400 1500 bucks a month on that side of town, that's West.   And then East Tulsa, there's east of Tulsa, there's a chunk of other kind of manufacturing stuff. There's a lot of construction workforce over there, things like that. And so that area, it's kind of similar, maybe a little higher price point, the houses tend to be a little bigger over there. So the houses in West also a lot of your average house, you know, is around 1000 to 1200 square foot for a three bed, two bath. On the east side. It's more like, you know, 1500 to 1800 square foot for their three bed, two bath, larger houses. And those, you know, they're selling for around 150 for three, two, and they're written out for 1500 1600  dollars a month.   Midtown is kind of a higher price point. Everybody, you know, we we make fun of the Midtown people because they're all fancy, you know. It's a it's a nice neighborhood. That's where you get close to that gathering place Park, I mentioned Brooksides over there. Really nice area, there's some really high end stuff in that area, they call the old money part of Tulsa. And there's some really big houses but you know, you can find houses, there's, you're getting like a three bed two bath, they're around 210 for a small three bed, two bath in that area. And their rents are going to be higher, they're going to be closer to 1800 a month or so. So you're not getting quite the return. But really great area, really great appreciation and you know, they just they never have any trouble selling or renting out. The high end. They're more A class, I would say the Midtown area is.   South Tulsa. That's new money. And so that's the you know, a lot of larger houses. That's like the Jinx area, the South tall so the Bigsby area. Lot. That's where a lot of new construction pushed out and the hierin in South Tulsa. So you know, it's hard to find a house for under 250 in that area. And they're bringing rents, you know, 2200 bucks a month, things like that. You know, Jinx is the best rated school district around that's in the south Hall. The area. So that area is just really nice and a lot of high end restaurants and nice things like that over in that area.   Michael: Right on.   Mark: So Michael, I want to ask a quick question to Corbin. So you know, so the listeners at home really understand who you are, you're a part of the certified agent network, you know, so you're basically one of our partners, but you're the one that identifies the properties that go on to roof stock, that are in the roof stock select program. So maybe, you know, if they go there today, they can see probably about 20 properties that are in the Tulsa market, but you're the one that handpicked them. So maybe give a little idea to the listeners of you know, what you are looking at when you were identifying some of those properties, because there's quite a bit of variety, you know, north, south, east and west that you picked out?   Corbin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we, you know, I like to appeal to everybody, and everybody has different choices and what they're looking at, you know, some people aren't very comfortable with an older house, some people are very comfortable with an older house. And, you know, and like, there's no old houses and South Tulsa. So just picking properties based on for the class of property, we got to meet a criteria of a return on investment, you know, and the nicer the property, obviously, we can accept a little lower return, because there's not as much cap ex, it's gonna be a nicer property, you know, you may be paying a little more in taxes on those properties, but trying to set it up so that, you know, there's a diverse group.   And if you're comfortable with a little B class, we don't really do like, you know, what I would call like, C, or lower the lower end, you know, we really try and stay, maybe the lowest we do is like C plus, low B, and then up from there. And, you know, give that spectrum from where you can get a higher return, but the property may be a little older, you know, it may need a water tank, there may be things like that down the road that are gonna happen sooner than buying these nicer, higher end homes, and trying to make sure we get that that right rate of return for the investors.   Michael: That's great.   Mark: Awesome.   Michael: And in that same vein, Corbin, what do property taxes look like in Tulsa, and maybe some of the if there's different counties that make up Tulsa. And then a second part of that is, what expenses might be unique to Tulsa, that investors should be aware of,   Corbin: You know, it's funny, I talk to people from out of state all the time, obviously, you know, and I even I think when I was first talking to mark, I was telling him about our taxes here. You know, our taxes are very affordable compared to most places. You know, when I talk to people from Dallas, or, you know, anywhere in that area, their taxes are almost double or triple what we're paying here, you know, for a 15 $150,000 house, I kind of look at like $1500, roughly, okay, for taxes. Yeah, right. in that range, I kind of base off like a 1% rule type thing. And it's kind of roughly what to expect. Michael: Okay, that makes the number that makes the math really easy. And then do you know, is there any kind of reassessment or change in the property taxes year over year?   Corbin: Yeah, I believe that in Tulsa, the most they can bump is 2% a year. Now, whenever a property transfers, ownership, obviously, they're going to reassess based on the value that was purchased. So you know, depending on the last time that property was sold, if it was sold 20 years ago, the taxes are probably gonna bump fairly, fairly well on that purchase. Now, you know, if it was sold two years ago, it's not going to be a very much difference  in the tax rate,   Michael: That's great to know. So for everybody listening, this is a super critical point, because I know a lot of investors and I talked to a lot of investors and they'll say, Well, I go on Zillow, and I look at the historic tax that's been paid over the last couple of years. And to your point, exactly, if that house was purchased 1520 years ago, the tax rates going to be based on that purchase price. So we need to bring that forward into today's dollars at today's purchase price to get an understanding of what your future taxes are going to be so great, great point. Thanks for clarifying.   Corbin: Right and there's just to hit on the county's most of Tulsa is Tulsa County. But if you happen to step to some of these other areas, you know, one of the I mean, we post in the suburbs of Tulsa too, because everywhere is the 25 minute drive in Tulsa, you know, we don't have any traffic. It's like, I can go to Claremore in 25 minutes, and that's a great rental market. You know, we just sold one on Roofstock in Sapulpa, which is just right outside Tulsa, great rental market, and good area, and she really got a stellar house actually I was like, Oh, this place is nice. It was freshly remodeled.   And but those counties is like a Rogers County, Wagner county Osage County, they're going to have cheaper taxes than Tulsa. And so your, your percentage wise is is quite a bit less my properties in Osage County. And, and they haven't realized how much work I've done to it. So I'm on the low end. But you know, I think they have me assessed at like, 100,000. And, you know, I think I paid like $600 a year in taxes. $550 a year in taxes is what I paid last year. So some of those, some of those outlying counties are very cheap in taxes.   Michael: Okay. Also good to know,   Mark: In addition to some of those taxes real quick, what are the common things that you see on the inspection report that come up that maybe is a little bit more customary for your local market? That shouldn't scare buyers? But you know, they're gonna see it in? It's gonna, it's gonna be something that's kind of par for the course.   Mark: Yeah, yeah. Termites is one. There's an Oklahoma we have very, and I'm not an exterminator. But just kind of paraphrasing. What I've been told by exterminators is in Oklahoma, we have very slow moving termites. And so but they're everywhere. There's no avoiding termites in Oklahoma, they're everywhere, they give a number on how many are per square how many colonies per square mile in Oklahoma. So it's not if it's, when are termites going to hit your property, but because they're so slow moving, as long as you're taking care of treatment on a regular basis, it's almost never going to affect you.   So as long as you get it treated, have a termite inspection, I definitely recommend a termite inspection and have it treated, you know, once a year, they'll come out, they'll do a spray, and that'll take care of that problem. And kind of protect you now, you know, I have seen properties where nobody did anything for 100 years, and they're eaten up, you know, but, I mean, this, this building, I'm in my nine unit, I had termite damage in here. And this building was built in 1920. So it's 100 years old.   And you know, we were able to rip out replace the wood rot, and it wasn't too extensive because, and it's never been treated, they just overtime, they just kind of move on to the next thing. So you know, that's definitely something to watch for.   Roofs, we get a lot of hail here in the Tulsa area. So you know, making sure that the roofs checked out checking for hail damage. Now, that's an opportunity where if there's hail damage, likely the seller only has to pay their deductible. So you might be able to negotiate for a new roof. If there's hail damage, or wind damage there is when, we're talking about the tornadoes beforehand. And you know, yeah, everybody from out of states like tornadoes, it's gonna be crazy, you know, the movie Twister. You know, it's really, it's really, I mean, so rare that a property gets damaged by a tornado. But we do get a chunk of wind damage, primarily that's on roofs. And so just making sure that the the shingles, you know, it's pretty apparent, often they'll curl, things like that, that's another Insurance Claim set up. So making sure that you have the proper insurance, when you buy the property, that's going to take care of that roof. With a fair deductible is going to be important.   You know, I would say everything else is pretty customary, you know, little leaky faucets and little things here and there that are wrong. On the one we just did. The front porch posts were old. One thing to think about too, in Oklahoma is almost nobody puts gutters on houses. And it, it's beyond me, it drives me crazy. Every time I buy a property, I immediately put gutters on the place. Because you know, that's going to be the number one cause the foundation issues is poor drainage. And so getting that water away from the house is very important. You know, a handful of them do, but I'm always watching out for gutters. And to make sure I'm getting that water away from the house.   Michael: Maybe Maybe it's the foundation contractors that are in cahoots with the Home Builders that say all right, well pay not to put gutters on it because we'll be in business later.   Corbin: Right? Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I just, I've and I've had so many people, you know, buy here and there like there's no gutters on anything, but they're very affordable. You know, I mean, I just did a house with a walkout basement. And it was about 1200 square foot upstairs and another chunk downstairs, and two storey on the backside and cost me $950 to put gutters on it. So that can be a good investment for sure.   Michael: That's awesome. That's awesome.   Mark: I was gonna ask a little bit about your competition because you know, we can get into the real estate deals all day. And you know, the properties that you see on roof stock or either exclusive listings, but the ones that you're identifying are the ones on MLS. So how competitive of a market? Is it? How much inventory is on the market? You know, and what's what's a realistic expectation for a buyer that wants to come in and make an offer and say, Hey, what's what's gonna be an offer that can compete? You know, so what do buyers need to know there?   Corbin: Yeah, yeah, you know, like most everywhere else, right now, it's challenging. And, you know, we submit a lot of offers, and don't get a ton accepted, you know, you got to submit several offers before you're going to get one accepted. Because people are just, there's a lot of migration happening to Tulsa. And so there's a lot of people that have sold homes and states with much higher real estate prices, and then they come here and buy houses in cash. And they can't believe how cheap it is for How nice of a house it is. And so they'll pay, you know, 20,000 over asking price.   So that can be challenging. And, you know, a lot of what I try and target, though, are not those properties, I'm trying to target properties that, you know, maybe are more attractive as rental properties than they are for, you know, a personal residence, like one of those opportunities can be in Oklahoma, everybody drives big trucks and stuff like that, you know, so garages are really important, we're like the Do It Yourself state, you know, everybody changes their own oil and build stuff and everything like that. So that's like, everybody wants a garage, you know, well, if you have a rental property, almost, I would say most of the rental properties don't have garages.   So, you know, a house without a garage, you're going to be more likely to get an offer accepted, because you're not competing against the people that are buying to live there, and they're willing to pay more, whereas we're looking at return on investment, you know, really, you're not going to get much more of a return for having a garage. So if anything in almost offsets, because you pay more, and you don't quite get that same bump.   So that's one of the opportunities is locating those properties that, you know, you're not as competitive against, but, you know, full price offers are to be expected, even on the properties that, you know, have those little nuances that maybe make them better rental properties. And, you know, whenever I get an offer, I'll look it over, I'll look at the property, I'll talk to the other agent, and then I'll reach out, I'll send an email to the buyer, I might give them a call, depending on how Hurry hurry it is. And I'll tell them, here's what I'm thinking, you know, I see you submitted this offer. But I talked to the agent. And he says there's five other offers coming in, you know, if you really want this house, if your numbers can make sense, I might suggest we you know, we make a higher offer. And of course, it's up to the client at that point what they want to do, but I want to empower them with that information. So they can realize, okay.   You know, and you never know, you never know, that's one of the challenges of the way the market is right now you you don't know somebody is going to offer 20,000 over, all you can do is run your numbers and make your best offer, you know, and then a train some of these properties I upload, maybe they've been on for 30 days or so, you know, we are I feel like one of the rare markets where some of the properties, maybe they were rented out and they just got a tenant out some different things like that, where some of these properties have set on the market for longer, or maybe they had it listed too high. And they finally started doing some price reduction. So it's been on the market for 30 days, 60 days, those properties, we can offer a little less than asking price a lot of the time and still win those deals. It's all about me filling out how many other people are looking at this right now, you know, what do we need to do to make sure we get the best deal possible?   Mark: So just setting a realistic expectation. And I know list prices are you know, sometimes they're high, sometimes they're low. But you know, when looking at a property, what's the average percentage of list price that offers are getting accepted? Add that? Yeah, just give a little context to the buyers   Corbin: About the average is about 105% in the current market 105% of list price to sales price.   Michael: Yeah. Great to know. Interesting.   Mark: Yeah, we hear that across a lot of the markets that we're in right now. So in my last question is do you have  ibuyers? Do you have institutional buyers in the area? Or are you really up against the the mom and pop investors and then owner occupants,   Corbin: You know, so we're, we're starting to be looked at and I've had some conversations, you know, obviously I'm one of the first people they talk to when they see the name of the brokerage and so I'm starting to talk to some of those larger institutions. But really, Tulsa hasn't met their metric yet. You know, and that's a million people basically their metric. And we haven't surpassed that. So a lot of those larger places are not looking at Tulsa. So a lot of it's competing against, you know, smaller time investors, people without that much leverage, but they're, they're starting to move in slowly, you know, and I think now is a good time for Tulsa. Because five years from now, it's going to be hit by all those people, you know, and that I've already seen it happen, you know, the out of state investors, because of the solid properties and good deals. They're moving in, they're moving money into Tulsa. And it's driving up prices, you know, and once it hits the level where the institutional investors can come in, they're gonna make another big push, you know, we're gonna hit a whole new level of, you know, the real estate market here. So I really think now's a good time, because it's going to be drove up once that does happen in full force. Mark: And that's one of the reasons why we called you to bring these properties on from the MLS. And knowing you know, your your brokerage is what caught my eye too. So I'll be the first to say I fell for it. So good job. But you're backing it up with with his expertise. But yeah, I was just studying again, that Tulsa's future website, they said that Tulsa MSA, comprises of seven counties, and it's an aggregate population of 995,000 people. So right, when it hits that million mark, or wherever the next census update is, get ready. It's gonna take off.   Michael: To the moon.   Corbin: Yeah, yeah, we're right below it. And so I think that's kind of got some of them starting to go away. They're close enough, you know, but a chunk of them, you know, they just have this system, and it doesn't meet that number. So they're not there yet. But it's, I mean, there's a lot happening   Mark: To me, if there's no i buyers, and there's less institutional capital, this is our chance to bring, you know, out of state buyers in without having that crazy amount of competition, like you would have in Dallas and Houston and Charlotte, and Atlanta, some of those bigger markets. So yeah, I think this is a sweet spot for sure.   Corbin: Yeah. And one more little more positive I see of Tulsa is, you know, historically, because we're a very steady location. You know, there's not we don't have these crazy fluctuations, you know, historically, I'm not saying that's not possible. But, you know, we have not had these crazy market fluctuations, you know, we're just kind of slow and steady, and just more people move in, more businesses open up. It's real. It's a real study market compared to a lot of places in the US.   Michael: And I'm curious Corbin, does The Investors Broker also have property management connections or property management arm of the business?   Corbin: Right? I have, I work with property managers, I did the property management, and I pulled back to just do it for myself. And so I leave that to the pros. You know, it's one of those businesses that what I found is you almost want somebody who has a large property management business, because they've earned the level of efficiency it takes and, and to run a large property management business, you have to be efficient, because their margins aren't huge. It's a it's a wild game to be in.   So, you know, Key Renters one of them. I work with Renters Place, you know, I think the most recent one was like Ascension. And so there's some really good property managers here in the Tulsa area, that I would definitely recommend people to. Michael: Fantastic, fantastic.   Corbin: You know, when if people need contacts for insurance agents, I mean, I even you know, I have a gutter guy, I got some contacts like that. So if somebody needs something, I'm more than willing to, you know, refer them and let them make their own decision.   Michael: Great. Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest hurdles that folks are trying to overcome being out of state or remote investors is, yeah, I love the Tulsa market. It sounds great, but I don't know anybody there. So reaching out to someone like yourself or utilizing some Roofstock's contacts, hopefully can overcome that pretty easily for folks.   Mark: What are the expectations that you have as an agent that you really need buyers to be prepared for, you know, what, what is it that's going to help them say I'm ready to invest in Tulsa or I'm ready to start purchasing, you know, any properties through you on roof stock.   Corbin: You know, I've had a really good experience and working with everyone from Roofstock because of your educational piece. I think people understand. urgency is going to be a big deal. You know, once you get that over, when I send the paperwork, we got to get it signed, we got to get it submitted because there's these offer deadlines or things like that. And so just being quick about handling everything, you know, earnest money It's going to be wire transferred from out of state buyers. So, you know, making sure that's done within the 48 hour deadline is really one of the the main things of ensuring happens. But other than that, you know, just just being quick on the draw.   And, you know, have the conversation, if you have questions, if you if you're wondering, you know, what, should I bump this offer up? Where am I at, please send an email. And I'll let you know, you know exactly what my thoughts are on it.   Michael: Awesome.   Mark: That's awesome. And you have a nother employee that's coming on board that's going to be working with you on the roof stock account named Garrett Ayres, is that correct?   Corbin: Right. Yeah, yeah, Garretr, it's been a longtime friend, me and him had a real estate team back in the day at Keller Williams, when we were there. He's a smart guy. He loves the investment space. And he's been doing some traditional sales, but he's to the point where he's ready to make the jump and go all on the investment side.    So he's actually in the moving over process right now. And he has, you know, much more availability of time and things like that, and is just very diligent, and very ethical solid guy that I could trust anything with. So I think he's gonna be a really, really great added benefit. He actually comes from the tech industry. So locating deals is almost a good niche for him, you know, he's able to find those nuances. And he's great on really digging in on the computer. So I think it's going to be really great to have him on.   Michael: Oh, that's good to hear. Very excited to see where are you going, Garretr? Go. And just the last thing for our listeners, Corbin if folks want to reach out to you have additional questions, what's the best way for them to get in contact with you?   Corbin: Yeah, probably my email address, which is corban Corbin@tib.com like the investors broker realty.com   Michael: Awesome. Corbin. Thank you again for taking the time to hang out with Mark and I and answer all of our questions. We're getting giddy over here. So I gotta let you go. But we look forward to stay in touch.   MarkL Awesome. Corbin. Hey, thanks for joining us.   Corbin: Cool. Thanks so much.   Michael: Awesome, everybody. That was our show. A big big, big thank you to Corbin. A lot of fun. I know that I learned a ton about the Tulsa market. We definitely doing some deeper dives into the market as a whole and having some follow up conversations with Corbin and his team. As always, if you liked the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you listen to the podcast. And if you're checking us out on YouTube, feel free to like and subscribe. Or leave us a comment on any kind of episode that you want to hear in the future. Happy investing

Derrick Kosinski & Scott Yager break down the DEBUT TRAILER for Spies, Lies and Allies.Derrick (@DerrickMTV) and Scott (@SHOTOFYAGER) unpack everything we see in this couple minutes of gold to preview Season 37 of The Challenge. They attempt to make predictions, assumptions and analyze the visuals and soundbites provided. They try to figure out who is getting hot and heavy and locking lips in the trailer! All this and more! This is one of our favorite things to do every season! YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS IT!Scott is throwing a FREE Premiere Party for Spies, Lies and Allies in NYC. The sound will be on for the episode and it will be at Carraghers at 228 W 39th St in Midtown. TO RSVP (Must do so to attend) email ChallengeManiaPodcast@gmail.com with Party Size.www.ChallengeMania.Live for LIVE SHOW TIX!www.ChallengeMania.Shop for SWAG!www.Patreon.com/ChallengeMania for Weekly Bonus Podcasts and SPY GUYS beginning August 11th!

Mikey Carbs: We have a very thoughtful gift from one Mikey Carbs, repping Jim and Them history!Billionaires In Space: Is space lame? Are dinosaurs lame? What about old episodes of the Challenge and Real World? Come on be my baby tonight.Chillin' With Mike and Jeff: Jim suffers some heartburn and needs to step away, Mike takes the helm and him and Jeff carry the torch!WE'RE DYING!, GIVE UP!, DOG DAY AFTERNOON!, FUCK EM!, REAL ONES!, LOCKDOWN!, COVID!, LIGMA!, LAMBDA!, DELTA!, PATREON!, MIKE'S DISNEYLAND ADVENTURE!, CRYING!, TIKI RUM MAI TAI!, CUTWATER!, KILLER KLOWNZ!, CREAMPIE HEAD!, SPEEDBALL!, AUSTRALIA!, JIZZ!, MIKEY CARBS!, GIFT OF THE MAGI!, PACKAGE!, COKE ZERO!, PEPSI!, SHNOOOOPE!, LETTER!, PISSBOI!, SIEGE!, TWFS!, OWEN!, FORREST!, RYANOS!, JORDAN!, SIGNED FOOTBALL!, LEON LETT!, BILLIONAIRES!, SPACE!, DINOSAURS!, FEATHERS!, BEAKS!, BIRDS!, REDONE!, NEW EFFECTS!, THE OZONE!, KILLER BEES!, ICE CAPS!, FLYING CARS!, JETPACKS!, EARTHQUAKES!, MIDTOWN!, CHRISTINA P!, CHALLENGE THEME!, COME ON BE MY BABY TONIGHT!, DAVID!, REAL WORLD!, PUCK!, THEO VON!, ANTI CAPITALIST!, AMAZON!, JEFF BEZOS!, SPICOLLI!, SURFER DUDE!, SILICON VALLEY!, HEARTBURN!, JIM STEPS AWAY!, MIKE AND THEM!, SOUNDBOARD!, WIND KNOCKED OUT OF THEM COMPILATION!, SEARCH STYLE!, REACTION VIDEOS!, JAMZ!, OBS!, GHETTO BABY!, ROLL IT BACK!, 8===D!, RALLY IN THE CHAT!, INDIAN TIKTOKS!, GROIN COMP!, FARTING ON ACCIDENT!, PERFECT STRANGERS THEME!, MIKE FUCKING UP BREAK!, CRINGE COMPS!, KARAOKE!, ASIAN TWISTED SISTER!, I WANNA LOCK!, THE BOY BLUE!, JUGGALO DRAMA ALERT!, PISS!, WOLF!, TIKTOKS!, NIGHTINGALE!, ANGEL!, JIM RETURNS!, SKIM AND THEM!, BK VICTIM!, STOMACH!, GINGER ALE!, TUMMY!, BURP!, ANXIETY!, HEART ATTACK!, CHIP DA RIPPER!, REFLUX!, TRAMPOLINE!, STREAMATHON CLIP!, DMX SEANCE!You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!