[00:03:11] James Nelson: I thought initially maybe I’d move out to the West coast and maybe work on movies or something like that until I found out that they didn’t really supply a salary and I didn’t have any money saved up to just go and do it on a. I went up to the career service center late in spring and found an application for a job, which was an associate position at masking Acle Realty Services, which was co-founded by another Colgate alum.

[00:03:36] James Nelson: That was the reason why they had offered the position there, and this was again, to be a sales associate at a real estate brokerage firm. I went in and met with them. They flew me into New York, so again, out upstate New York came in their office. It was a small office, but it was on Park Avenue. Very impressive.

[00:03:52] James Nelson: And even though I really knew nothing about the business, what I can tell you is I had a very good gut feeling about the place and about the founders. And that’s certainly one of the lessons in my book is it’s really about the people and who you deal. But we do laugh about it years later because I found out this is probably years afterwards, that there was only two people who applied for the job as sales associate, and I was their second choice.

[00:04:17] James Nelson: But I also, I guess, had the last laugh because the, their first choice, he flamed out after six months or a year. And I went on to spend, you know, pretty much the first 17 years of my career with them, they were kind enough to make me a partner and. Along with them. We sold our company to Cushman and Wakefield about eight years ago.

[00:04:36] James Nelson: And what was really, I impressive at the time was by the time we sold the Cushman, we were selling three to four times the amount of properties as the next brokerage firm in New York City. And you can imagine in a competitive market like New York, how difficult that would be. And a lot of credit to the founders of Massey Nale.

[00:04:54] James Nelson: Paul Massey in that they had an incredible business plan, which was they divided up the city into territories and they said, [00:05:00] look, we’re going to go represent owners in the sale of their properties. And they really focused on this kind of small to mid-size buildings because the big globally traded firms, they were out selling the skyscrapers, but they found that the majority of these transactions, which were kind of in the $10 million in under space, It’s really no one had a dominant market share, and that’s where the majority of transactions were occurring.

[00:05:24] James Nelson: We had a great business focusing, again, by territory, representing owners in the sale of their properties. And we had a great run. I had three great years at Cushman and then got this great opportunity for Avison Young about five years ago to build out their investment sale platform. And here we are five years later, I’ve got a team of close to three dozen people.

[00:05:45] James Nelson: Last year we closed over 50 transactions and then along with our capital markets group that does that in equity, we were involved in over 2 billion in transactions. So that’s kind of my brokerage history, but I love it. But what I’m also really passionate about is [00:06:00] investing so very early on in my career, and we can, I’m sure we’ll get into the details on this.

[00:06:05] James Nelson: Started investing as a limited partner. I went on to become a general partner in two real estate funds where we invested in over three dozen transactions with a total capitalization of about 350 million. And I remain an active investor today. And as you mentioned, part of that has been kind of sharing that knowledge through my podcast, The Insider’s Edge to Real Estate Investing, which is also the name of my upcoming.

[00:06:28] Patrick Donley: So I want to hear more about the book. My co-host, Robert Leonard, has recently published a book. It was a book on house hacking and just talking to him and hearing some stories, it sounded like a pretty grueling process, the writing process itself. What made you want to write the book and talk to us about that process?

[00:06:43] Patrick Donley: What it was like. 

[00:06:45] James Nelson: I will tell you, this all started the podcast too, right after Covid set on and you probably remember those dark days, kind of mid 2020 we’re all sitting at home. We didn’t know if we were going to be in this for weeks, months, years. And [00:07:00] needless to say, I had a lot of free time on my hands and I’m a big fan of coaching.

[00:07:04] James Nelson: And I remember my coach at the time, Blaine Strickland, who wrote two great books thrive and Adapt. He said, James, you want to look back on this time and just say, Hey, you were able to kind of keep up on your emails and stay in touch, or do you really want to move the needle and do something? He said, when else are you ever going to have the opportunity to do something?

[00:07:23] James Nelson: And from there, The podcast was born. And out of that and the lessons learned, the idea was to do a book. And I also give big credit to Ryan Sehan who’d written a real estate book. He’s the top residential broker in the city, if not the world. And so he talked to me and helped introduce me to an agent who introduced me to McGraw Hill.

[00:07:45] James Nelson: But what I will also say is that I had a lot of. A big part of my personal success has been building a great team, whether that’s in brokerage, but also with this book process. And so it would be generous to say that I wrote this whole book myself. [00:08:00] What the agent quickly did was introduce me to a writing partner.

[00:08:03] James Nelson: So I had a writing partner, Rachel Hartman, who writes for us News and World Report and. We collaborate on this book for months to get it ready. But you can actually go to my podcast and listen to the episodes where she interviewed me for 12 consecutive segments if it doesn’t bore you too much. But that’s where all the information was.

[00:08:25] James Nelson: We do an hour long interview and then she’d write a chapter and then obviously I’d edit, add to it. But that was kind of how the book came to be. 

[00:08:32] Patrick Donley: Had you always had a dream of being an author or writing a book, or was it, as you said, it just kind of developed over Covid? 

[00:08:39] James Nelson: Again, I was an English major and one thing that I did enjoy was creative writing.

[00:08:43] James Nelson: I certainly was not good enough to make a career out of. But I do a lot of writing in my day-to-day business, and I’m, I am happy that I have that degree and I’m pretty quick to, whether it’s my monthly blog that I write up or just even composing a simple email, I think it’s an important skill to have.

[00:08:58] James Nelson: So I’m happy that I can kind of [00:09:00] bring that passion together on a subject that I’ve spent now close to 25 years along the way. And I think with the book, the reason why, ultimately why I wrote it was there are a lot of great books out there. You mentioned one of your friends who wrote the house hacking.

[00:09:15] James Nelson: There’s a lot of books that deal with kind of specific aspects of the business. Maybe it’s investing in multi-family, maybe it’s investing in triple net or whatever it is, but I wanted a book that was really universal. That really tells you everything that you need to know from start to finish. And one thing that amazes me, and I think you might have mentioned, I do a lot of guest lecturing.

[00:09:36] James Nelson: So I’ve guest lectured at Columbia Wharton, nyu, and whenever I speak to the professor, I say, well, what’s the book that you use? What do you assign to the students? And inevitably that there’s not a book. There might be a handout or maybe some excerpt, but I really hope that this book will become the book for primer to learn how to invest.

[00:09:59] James Nelson: And [00:10:00] so that’s the goal and I hope it helps a lot of people find the same success that and love that I have in real estate investing. 

[00:10:07] Patrick Donley: I wanted to talk more about the book. As you mentioned, you’ve taught at Fordham, you’ve taught at Columbia Wharton, and if you weren’t using your own book, are there any books that you would use to teach that class, books that you’ve loved that have made a big impact on you?

[00:10:22] James Nelson: Yeah, I mean, again, there are a lot of books that have been written on real estate and investing, and again, you need to kind of pull pieces from them or they might deal with certain aspects. Well, first of all, even though this is geared towards brokers, I think Rod Santomassimo, who is another great long-term coach of mine, he wrote a book called Knowing Isn’t Doing.

[00:10:44] James Nelson: It’s his latest book, which is fantastic. It’s written for brokers in mind, but you can actually apply it to anything including investing. Also my friend Bo Berry, who’s also a real estate broker, he wrote a book called Multifamily Investors Who [00:11:00] Dominate. There’s one other book I’m looking for, the title.

[00:11:02] James Nelson: It’s Building Legacy Wealth by Terry Moore, which I think is fantastic as well. What 

[00:11:07] Patrick Donley: was that called? Building Legacy Wealth. 

[00:11:09] James Nelson: Yes, from Terry Moore. Now he writes specifically through the lens of investing in San Diego. I mean, again, you’re going to apply it elsewhere, but my book I think is a little bit more of a macro approach as opposed to he’s really diving in and getting specific, which is super helpful too. 

[00:11:26] Patrick Donley: I love the book you mentioned knowing Isn’t Doing, that’s a great title. 

[00:11:29] James Nelson: Absolutely. Well, that’s the thing. I mean, and there’s a lot of people who are listening or watching this right now, and that’s great, but my hope is that you’ll take, you know, maybe three or five actionable things, specific things that you can say, look, if I apply this to my business in the new year, I’m going to make an improvement and hopefully a big one.

[00:11:50] James Nelson: I know I’ve been 

[00:11:50] Patrick Donley: guilty to that. Just acquiring knowledge, just trying to get as much knowledge as possible. And at a certain point, you just have to jump in and do, you know, so it’s a great 

[00:11:58] James Nelson: title. I’m [00:12:00] also certainly a James Clear fan in Atomic Habits. So I think once you’ve kind of figured out what are the specific things you’re going to do, then it’s how do you make it a habit and do it on a consistent basis.

[00:12:12] James Nelson: Yeah, I just 

[00:12:13] Patrick Donley: interviewed a guy last week. He does a YouTube channel, but in the back of his office it says, get 1% better every day, which is a James Clear practice. Just incremental changes each day. Incremental improvements make a huge difference as you compound them. I wanted to talk about your early days when you started off in commercial sales, right outta college from Colgate.

[00:12:32] Patrick Donley: It’s been my experience that a lot of realtors and brokers don’t get started in real estate investing for one reason or another, and that’s kind of always been a head scratcher to me. They see a lot of deals, they see what’s happening, but yet fail to invest or just don’t get started. Why do you think that is?

[00:12:47] Patrick Donley: And for you particularly, when did you first make that first jump into investing? 

[00:12:51] James Nelson: I think you have to be careful about the conflict. There is an inherent conflict about being a broker and also being an investor. [00:13:00] Okay. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it if you do it in the right way, but I think when you’re starting off in your career, if you are starting as a broker, it takes years to figure out the business.

[00:13:09] James Nelson: And I would say, look, don’t start investing right off the. Because it’s important, you’ll do a disservice to your brokerage business. You’ll do a disservice to your investing. I think brokerage, you really need to spend at least three to six months just to figure out how it all works, and then start building up your book, bringing on listings, working on sales, waiting for them to close.

[00:13:29] James Nelson: But I think once you have enough brokerage experience under your belt, I think it is appropriate to start looking at investing. But you need to be very careful. One of the rules that I’ve always lived by is that I do not invest in deals that I broker. And I should also say, whenever someone calls me and says, James, I want to sell my property, my brokerage hat is on.

[00:13:50] James Nelson: First and foremost, if I was sitting here cherry picking which deals I wanted to broker and which deals I wanted to buy, I wouldn’t get very far. And I [00:14:00] would also have a horrible reputation because what is that saying? And then once I bring out listenings, investors would say, well, hey James, if it’s such a great deal, why didn’t you?

[00:14:09] James Nelson: Or if I’m a seller, I might say, well, hey, did I get a real fair valuation from James? Is he just trying to low ball me so I he can turn around and buy it later? It’s just, there’s so many risks there that are, they’re inherent with that conflict. So the cleanest thing to do as an investor, if you’re a broker, if you want to buy deals direct, buy them from other broker.

[00:14:31] James Nelson: Okay. That way that seller’s represented by another broker, they have their own representation. Clearly you’re not working on the listing. That’s definitely the easiest way. The other thing, and what I did with the two funds, which was River Oak NYC one and two. Is we didn’t actually buy properties at the asset level.

[00:14:50] James Nelson: We put out JV equity for value add deals if I’m coming in as equity as opposed to buying at the asset level. That’s also [00:15:00] one step further removed from the process. And even then, we would not invest in deals that we brokered. If a sponsor came to me and said, Hey James, I’ve got this great opportunity. I bought it off market.

[00:15:12] James Nelson: I bought it through another broker. Great, let’s talk about how we can team up, provide equity for you to do this. And that way it’s really mine, the best way to go about it. That makes 

[00:15:23] Patrick Donley: sense. It keeps it clean. Talk to us though about the early days of your portfolio, what you initially were doing, what you were buying, what interested you the most, what strategy you.

[00:15:33] James Nelson: I think for a lot of us, it starts with the place that you live. So whether it was buying my first apartment in the city, buying the apartment next door, combining them, I don’t even know if I wrote about that in the book, but that worked out pretty well. Of course, in that case, I bought it because that’s, that was our place to live.

[00:15:51] James Nelson: So it wasn’t really with an investor hat on. Say 

[00:15:54] Patrick Donley: more about that. So you bought one apartment. Were you living in 

[00:15:57] James Nelson: it as. Yes. And [00:16:00] then we had a one bedroom, and when my wife was pregnant with our first child we needed more space. So we knocked on, literally knocked on the door next door to our apartment and ended up buying that apartment and combining them.

[00:16:10] James Nelson: So learned a little bit about construction and wrote the market on the way up. But I would say the first more investment that we did was then we decided we wanted a weekend. And I work here in New York City. We were living there at the time and we really liked this town, cold Spring. That was up on the Hudson River, right across the river from West Point.

[00:16:29] James Nelson: And we bought a three family, and I found very early on, you know, we could live in one unit. We were only going there on the weekends and the rent from the other two apartments covered the rent. And I think we bought that for $315,000. We probably spent $50,000 renovating it. And when we were done with it, we sold it for 550,000.

[00:16:49] James Nelson: Not only do we have a place to live for free for a couple years, we ended up profiting from the sales. That was kind of maybe my first real experience investing on my own. [00:17:00] But once I really started participating in larger investments than New York, which is really the area of my expertise, is kind of where I think my investing took off.

[00:17:10] James Nelson: And the first investment I ever made with a client was, and I had met him through M Y U. Young developer at the time by the name of Matt Blasso from B Blasco Development, and I met him, he knew I was a broker. He called me up and he said, James, I’ve got this great property in contract down in Greenwich Village.

[00:17:29] James Nelson: I think I got a great deal for it. You think you can flip the contract for me? Meaning as the broker, I was going to go find another buyer who’s going to snap into his shoes, close the deal and pay him for the contract. So he was in contract for about 1,000,008 million nine. And I had offers within a couple weeks for two and a half, 2.6 million.

[00:17:50] James Nelson: So there was no question that he got a great deal on this and he said it. His kind of time came for him to step up and execute on this. He said, you know, James, I [00:18:00] really appreciate all your effort, but I’m really excited about this opportunity. It’s too good to let go. I’ve got a business plan for. I’m not going to flip.

[00:18:09] James Nelson: It’s disappointed as I was as a broker, because obviously as a broker you only get paid on a sale. I asked him, I said, well, hey Matt, are you taking any investors for this? And he said, well, as it turns out, I am. I’m raising money and I’m going to go out. And I think of the time he was raising like $600,000 and I signed on as this first investor and it turned out, it’s still to this day, my best investment ever.

[00:18:34] James Nelson: I mean, this was probably 20 years ago now. He ends up conduiting the building, selling the units upstairs for over 5 million. And obviously there was conversion costs associated with that, but I got all my money back, like times two or three and we were into the retail for free. So at this point I have all my money back, infinite returns.

[00:18:54] James Nelson: And fast forward five, 10 years later, we put a restaurant, really trendy restaurant, in that ground [00:19:00] floor space. We end up selling just the ground floor for over $4 million. So we sell the ground floor for more than double what we paid for the whole building. And again, we have no money into the deal. We take that money, 10 31, exchange it into a multi-family deal in Brooklyn, and maybe we just got lucky.

[00:19:19] James Nelson: But turns out that the building is right next to a development site. We sell the air rights off of that, I think for another million dollars. We still have the building in Brooklyn that’s cash flowing. So it’s just like the gift that keeps. What about 

[00:19:31] Patrick Donley: that, the first investment where you and your wife were living?

[00:19:34] Patrick Donley: Do you 

[00:19:34] James Nelson: still own. We sold that after we moved out of the city. We didn’t need a weekend place anymore. But again I figured I was into that for probably about three 50 and we sold it for somewhere in the mid five hundreds. So, no, I’m at the apartment 

[00:19:46] Patrick Donley: when the apartment 

[00:19:46] James Nelson: was, oh, no. Yeah, the apartment we sold too.

[00:19:48] James Nelson: That worked out too. I think that was another one where we doubled the money. Although you could look back and say, that apartment’s probably worth double that then, but you can’t look back. We used the money to buy a place up in Connecticut. It worked. [00:20:00] I 

[00:20:00] Patrick Donley: wanted to do a deeper dive into your book. I wanted to get into that further here.

[00:20:04] Patrick Donley: What does the book focus on, and what are you hoping like the top two or three takeaways are that you’d want your readers to walk away with? 

[00:20:12] James Nelson: The whole point of the book is I want this to be able to tell you everything you need to know to get into real estate investing. So my goal, Patrick, is if you knew nothing about real estate investing, maybe we just sold your tech company, you’re sitting on tens of millions of dollars.

[00:20:27] James Nelson: You want some diversification. How do you do it? So not knowing anything about real estate, where do you start? Right? And I really do believe this book, step by Step is going to tell you what you need to know. It starts by talking about the different types of real estate, whether it’s multi-family, whether it’s retail, office development, which I tell new investors steer clear of.

[00:20:47] James Nelson: But it talks about, first of all, you need to be honest with yourself. To really evaluate how much time do you have to devote to this and what’s your risk tolerance. So if you’re someone who’s working 50, 60 [00:21:00] hours a week at another job, being a general partner, going in and repositioning an apartment building and managing 10, 20, a hundred units is probably not what you should be doing.

[00:21:10] James Nelson: You know, if you’re just looking for something passive, maybe triple net is a good option for you. Or maybe you want to be a limited partner. There’s nothing wrong with that where, I mean, I just got through telling you one of my first. Which happened to be the best. I was a limited partner. I wasn’t even a general partner.

[00:21:26] James Nelson: So it does talk about what to look for. You asked about what are some of the most important lessons in the book. Very early on I talk about this is a people business. It’s very important to have success, to make sure you have the right team in place. A team of specialists who have experience. If I talk about in the book, like, if you are working with an attorney, make sure that’s an attorney who is a transactional real estate attorney who has worked on helping their clients acquire that type of multi-family.

[00:21:55] James Nelson: Don’t go to your, you know, trust and estate attorney, right. What’s interesting is [00:22:00] the first podcast that I ever did, the first interview I ever did with Bruce Rattner, prolific developer, he’s built over 50 ground up projects in New York City, the latest one being the Barclays Arena. He is a part owner in The Nets and I asked him, I said, you know, Bruce, what was the secret to your success?

[00:22:16] James Nelson: And he could just kept saying, it’s about the people. I went back and I counted the number of times that he’s said people in a one hour interview, people are teams over 50 times. He used people a team almost once a minute, which is hard to imagine, but that’s what it’s about. Because you know Patrick, I’m sure when you’re doing your investing, you know if you’re one person, you’re not going to get very far.

[00:22:38] James Nelson: But it’s really those professionals, whether it’s cultivating a great relationship with your sales broker, who’s going to find you that opportunity. Or maybe it’s your mortgage broker who’s going to get you that debt. Maybe it’s the contractor who’s going to help you reposition the asset. Maybe it’s your third party manager.

[00:22:55] James Nelson: It’s really about the people and the team. So I think that is essential. But I think [00:23:00] also what I talk about early in the book, which is beyond just the making sure you pick the asset class and risk profile that’s right for you is to become a specialist. Right? And just like I talked about when I started off as a broker, You know, my territory was the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, which was about 50, 60 broker.

[00:23:19] James Nelson: 50, 60 blocks. And I spent three months just getting to know every single thing about that neighborhood. Every single sale where rents were rezones, new developments. Right? And what I found was, even though I was incredibly green, brand new to the business by studying that neighborhood for three, I knew more than the generalist brokers who have been at this for decades.

[00:23:44] James Nelson: You know, there’s that old saying, Jack of all trades, master of none. Right? And I think that applies. So I think for your listeners, figure out what your thesis is, what is your business plan, and then study it and become the expert. I think that’s [00:24:00] some great. 

[00:24:01] Patrick Donley: I just did an interview last week. This guy that had the 1% get 1% better every day.

[00:24:06] Patrick Donley: His whole theory was just to focus strictly on one zip code, and that’s all he did. Every morning, he’d study Zillow, knew all the listings, just as you said, knew where rents were. He knew what things were selling at. And he knew like something was mispriced, he’d jump on it pretty quickly. That’s really great advice to focus and with the whatever, whatever timeframe you can become really knowledgeable compared to 90% of other people that are just kind of all over the board.

[00:24:30] Patrick Donley: I wanted to go a little further into, you had mentioned the fund, you did River Oak. Talk to us more about what that is and the value add deal that you’ve done. Two value add deals. I believe, 

[00:24:41] James Nelson: well, there were two. As a broker, this is now 10 years into the business and I’m seeing all my clients make tremendous amounts of money, and even though, like I said, I wasn’t going to be buying 10, 20 million properties, what I noticed was the toughest thing for our clients was not necessarily finding the [00:25:00] opportunity or executing.

[00:25:01] James Nelson: The number one thing they struggled with was raising equity because in a strange way, it’s actually easier to get a 20 million equity check than a 2 million equity check because what you have is all these institutional investors that for them it’s not a good use of their time to focus on the smaller stuff, so they’re writing larger.

[00:25:23] James Nelson: And yet it’s a mismatch. Cause you have all this institutional capital focused at the large transactions. And what we found in New York City was 95% of the transactions were actually under 50 million. And yet it seemed like 95% of the equity was focused on 50 million plus. Do you have this complete mismatch?

[00:25:42] James Nelson: So we said, how do we raise capital and provide institutional equity? For emerging sponsors where we can go out and put together a portfolio. And so, you know, and again, we knew how to find clients and that fund, it was more about finding [00:26:00] sponsors who had great opportunities than the deal itself. Cause again, we weren’t buying the property.

[00:26:04] James Nelson: The sponsor was bringing us the opportunity with the business plan saying, Hey, I need two, three, 5 million of equity for. We raised 26 million for our first fund. We did this with from high net worth individuals. They were investing anywhere from $250,000 up. And then for the second fund, we raised another almost equal amount to 24 million.

[00:26:28] James Nelson: We had 50 million of equity that they redeployed in about three dozen transactions for a total capitalization, about 350 million. I really, I’ve enjoyed it because it’s a way to participate as an investor, but not having to be on the front line, being a general partner, having to do that day to day. What are your 

[00:26:50] Patrick Donley: coming goals for the year, you know, this year and the years ahead?

[00:26:53] Patrick Donley: I know you work with a coach you mentioned. Do you set New Year’s resolutions and plans for your investment goals? [00:27:00] And I’m curious if you can share with us what those are. 

[00:27:03] James Nelson: I’m smiling because I’m still refining them and here we are January 9th. I better get on the ball, but no, I, from the brokerage standpoint, we are meticulous.

[00:27:12] James Nelson: We track everything. We know what everybody had for breakfast that morning. We’re very focused on pipeline, how many presentations, how many listings, how many sales, how many revenue? What are the conversion rates? So we are very focused on that. Last year was a big year for me as far as with the exposure piece to it to help the business, help my investing.

[00:27:33] James Nelson: Obviously the podcast, a lot of focus on the book. I’m still with the book coming out shortly, spending a lot of time getting the word out on that. So that is definitely going to be an important piece to. But I think for this year, what I’m thinking about, and this might actually seem like kind of going in the opposite direction, but I spent so much time focusing on the digital presence, the social media and that’s, that’s a machine.

[00:27:58] James Nelson: Now I’ve got a great team to help [00:28:00] with that, but I want to get back to spending more time with people one-on-one. You can have a great reach. And formats like this are awesome. We can hopefully help out a lot of people, but for whatever the expression is, a mile wide, an inch deep, as opposed to really cultivating those relationships because whether it’s brokering or whether it’s investing, I look and I see that it’s probably a hundred, 125 people.

[00:28:24] James Nelson: In fact, Blaine Strickland talks about that and his booked thrive about the top 1 25. I mean, you really can’t get to know more than 125 people that well, at least for business. Let’s really, you know, spend more meaningful time. So I don’t know if that works for you as a resolution, but that’s definitely a habit that I need to get back into doing.

[00:28:45] James Nelson: It’s a good one. 

[00:28:46] James Nelson: I 

[00:28:46] Patrick Donley: As you mentioned, it’s a people business relationships are critical, so it sounds like that’s a pretty important goal to focus on, the one-on-one relationships. I want to hear more about your podcast. It’s the same as your book, right? It’s the Saturn’s Edge to real Estate. You mentioned Bruce [00:29:00] Rat.

[00:29:00] Patrick Donley: What are the one or two guests that have made the biggest impact on you that you’ve had on the show? Who are they and what were the biggest lessons that 

[00:29:07] James Nelson: you’ve learned from. Wow. Maybe not to ruin the surprise, or maybe I’m breaking it here on your podcast first, but I am planning on having a second book that will be coming out next, which is Real Estate Investing, the Keys to Success, where I do just that.

[00:29:21] James Nelson: I take my favorite 15, 20 interviews and then really look at. What was that one skill? What was that one trait? What was it that separated them and gave them that, that advantage? So I don’t know if those 1520 per se were, I love them all in their own way. I guess it’s like picking a favorite child.

[00:29:41] James Nelson: But I think what those interviews have in common is, I interviewed legends in the business who’ve been doing this for decades. So obviously Bruce Ratner has been doing this a long time, but I also, you know, I found it very fascinating speaking to Rick Clark. I mean, he was the c e O of Brookfield Properties, the largest owner in the [00:30:00] world.

[00:30:00] James Nelson: And same thing I kept asking, you know, Rick, how did you expand when you came to Brookfield? You know, this kind of Canadian company, you opened up their New York office, you know, fast forward, now they’re in every major country. How’d you do it? You just said, Hey, it’s all about the people getting the right boots on the ground, getting the right partners.

[00:30:17] James Nelson: So I like that a. But I also like what Don Peebles had to say and he’s written two books, which are great too. And I know we’re going to talk a little bit later about why to invest in this market. There’s a lot of uncertainty rates are going up. He said, my best investments of all time I made when the market was down, when a lot of buyers were on the sidelines.

[00:30:37] James Nelson: So I like what he had to say about. I love Maryanne Gilmar, the interview with her and what it took to just get these deals done. When you’re focused and if you’re the kind of person where you get discouraged by an obstacle, this is probably not the right business for you. I mean, there’s going to be things that come up.

[00:30:56] James Nelson: These deals go left, right, sideways, every which way you gotta. [00:31:00] Stick with it. And she talks about getting this deal done, this major development in Brooklyn with a bond offering that had to get done December 31st, and they had to open up the post office at two, three in the morning to get a signature to get the lender to funds.

[00:31:12] James Nelson: They’re all great and I think for, you know, some of the young guns out there as I called them, the one with David sch. He gives an interview. I mean, he, this guy is a canvasser is unbelievable. I went to his office once and he had like 20 people in his office. They’re all sitting there writing handwritten letters.

[00:31:30] James Nelson: I’m like, David, what are these people doing? He’s like, they’re canvassing. We’re sending out letters to owners that say, sell your property, save a brokerage fee. And he wrapped up like a hundred properties in Brooklyn, buying ’em that way. And he sold them as a portfolio to related one of the biggest companies out.

[00:31:47] James Nelson: I also like what Stephen Casian from Closed is doing, closed with the K, really creating a brand. I think Peak Capital is the same way. I interviewed Alex cast on that and again, they’ve really been able to [00:32:00] create a company with a brand that not only helps brokers to think of them when they have an opportunity, but also investors.

[00:32:08] James Nelson: So I mentioned 

[00:32:09] Patrick Donley: you’re my seventh or eighth interview, so I’m relatively new to the podcast game. What’s been your favorite part of the podcast and your least favorite part of doing 

[00:32:16] James Nelson: it? Well, the favorite part is just meeting new people. Initially, when I started the podcast, I had probably a hundred people I wanted to interview, which really helps because I know those people.

[00:32:28] James Nelson: So I don’t have to do as much prep cause I already know their story and I can speak with them from personal experience. So that’s been great. But now two years running over 150 episodes are coming up on that shortly. And you get to meet a lot of interesting people. And I would say I’m still learning every time I do one of these interviews.

[00:32:46] James Nelson: Sure. I hope I’m helping, you know, the people who are downloading it, but every time I’m picking up stuff and I’m taking notes, We’re all learning. That’s what I love about this business as well. I mean, as far as, you know, challenges and everything, [00:33:00] I think it’s just can be tough sometimes to find the time.

[00:33:03] James Nelson: Again. It was one thing when I started this up during Covid and I had a lot of free time. Now, you know, it’s all hands on deck with this market trying to get things done and sometimes just prioritize and making sure that I get a new episode out every week, it’s. I wanted to talk 

[00:33:19] Patrick Donley: about what have you done, whether it’s your education at Colgate, getting your real estate broker, you know, the broker’s license, reading a certain book, attending a conference, maybe mentorship, coaching that you’ve done, whatever it is.

[00:33:31] Patrick Donley: What’s the one thing that you’ve done that’s had the biggest impact on your success in real estate? 

[00:33:37] James Nelson: Well, I think this is definitely a business that you learn by doing and also having great mentors. So I was just so lucky and it was luck that I started off working with Bob and Paul and just sitting with them on an open floor plan.

[00:33:51] James Nelson: I mean, we were out in cubes and I just listened and absorbed. And so I think for those of you looking to get into this, find a great mentor and spend [00:34:00] time with them. Volunteer your time. Say, Hey, look, I want to just come in shadow. I actually have someone in my office today who just said, Hey, I want to learn more about your business and what you’re doing.

[00:34:08] James Nelson: I said, Hey, come hang out and spend time with me. And I think just exposing yourself to mentors out there. And I think also making it a two-way street. I get asked to be a mentor a lot, but oftentimes it’s just, you know, that person asking me, Hey James, how can I get my next job? What advice do you have for me?

[00:34:27] James Nelson: And I find that the really good mentees, they realize it’s a two-way. And I had someone who I’m mentoring now who is at Brew College, and as soon as we sat down our initial meeting, he’s been sending me information. He set me up with the Brew College Real Estate Club and just trying to be helpful.

[00:34:48] Patrick Donley: That’s good advice. It can often go just one way and it’s gotta be a two-way street. Did you have a training program that you were involved in 

[00:34:55] James Nelson: Initial. Well, for brokerage for sure. Yeah. When we, Massey Nale, one [00:35:00] thing that made it very successful is they had a very regimented system. In fact, the fact that I studied that territory had to learn everything about it.

[00:35:09] James Nelson: At the end of three months, there was actually a review board and they came in and they grilled me on how much I actually knew about the area. I mean, which was, I really had to step it up and show my. I mean, today with our brokerage team and I run a smaller team. We’ve got three dozen people here, so we don’t have a formal training program, but most people on my team, they have at least five years experience in the business.

[00:35:31] James Nelson: So they don’t start from scratch. They at least have an understanding of the business and they, again, they learn by listening in. We have a team meeting every single morning where we go over pipeline and what we’re working. I wanted 

[00:35:43] Patrick Donley: to talk more about the importance of building a team. When I first got involved in real estate, I don’t think I realized how important building a strong team is.

[00:35:50] Patrick Donley: I’ve always been involved in like playing individual sports, whether tennis or golf, just a solo endeavor. But real estate is not that way. I think a lot of new [00:36:00] investors kind of are in a similar boat where they don’t realize the importance of building out a. What have you found to be the most important aspects of how to build a strong team?

[00:36:09] Patrick Donley: How would you go about doing that? If you’re a new guy, maybe you don’t have a lot of resources, how can you go about building a team that you need to succeed in this? 

[00:36:18] James Nelson: Again, even starting off, whether it’s offering internships, there’s so many college students out there that are super talented. They’re looking for experience and even if you pay a minimum wage or you know, in some cases these schools actually give stipends for them to come in and study like that should not be a barrier.

[00:36:37] James Nelson: Also, if it’s getting an As assistant, there’s that old expression. If you’re, if you don’t have an assistant, you are the assistant. I mean, you now have virtual assistants that you can get for our very reasonable rates. I mean, I think it comes back to, and this is what Rod Stant Mamo talked about, like calculate what your time is worth, you know?

[00:36:56] James Nelson: So for brokerage, that’s a little easier. I can figure out what I made the last year divided [00:37:00] by how many hours I worked. And then the question is, if you’re doing something, is that worth the time that you’re spending? And so it’s like, well, sure I can book my tickets if I’m taking a family vacation or better yet, a work conference, but isn’t it more valuable if I can get someone to help me with that, who’s frankly a lot better at it than I am, and then I can spend my time maybe cultivating relationships or doing something like this.

[00:37:23] Patrick Donley: I recently interviewed, I mentioned the guy that focused just on one zip code, and I wanted to talk a little further about the role of specialization within real estate. You focused just on one area in new. Would you, is that the way you would go about it? I know you’ve got three sons maybe. I think that’s correct, right?

[00:37:41] Patrick Donley: Yes. Three verse, correct? Yes. Would you recommend they’ve just focus on one, one aspect of real estate study one niche, or would you say get a broad view of the whole option, the different options that are available in real estate? Figure out, try different things and figure out what you’re good at. It’s tough to know for a guy just getting started where he should [00:38:00] specialize.

[00:38:00] James Nelson: Do you know what I. It’s a great question and the answer is, Because on one hand you have to have an overall knowledge of the whole process. Okay? So not to keep trying to sell my book, but that’s part of it. To say, okay, this is pretty much very high level what you need to do know and start to finish these, the different players on the team.

[00:38:21] James Nelson: And I do hope to collaborate on a third book eventually that really dives into the specifics of each of those roles. But you do need to have an understanding. But once you’ve landed on what you want to do, whether it’s a broker, whether it’s an investor, then yeah, you gotta specialize. And that doesn’t have to be on geography.

[00:38:39] James Nelson: It could be an asset class, it could be a business plan, could be within triple net. I’m going to just get to know fast food, I mean what, whatever it is, but get specific and become the expert on that space. And it’s. Be nicheing up that you can actually cover it and get to know everything. Whereas if you just said, Hey, I want to do industrial, then I want to do it, you know, [00:39:00] up and down the East coast.

[00:39:01] James Nelson: That’s like way too broad to figure out. Are any of your sons interested in real estate? My oldest is graduating high school and he’s already asking me for a job. And if he’s listening I would tell him that, although I, I would love to have him on. I think it’s important that, first of all, he goes into college with an open mind.

[00:39:19] James Nelson: Like I said, I didn’t even know real estate was a thing until my senior year. And there’s a lot of exciting things out there, but you gotta do what you’re passionate about, right? I mean, he sees what I do, you know, he’s come in to visit the office and he seems to love it, but you gotta just make sure, and it’s not uncommon for someone right outta college starting out to try a bunch of different jobs.

[00:39:40] James Nelson: And I think that’s also why internships are a great opportunity. Try things that you don’t like. I mean, I spent one summer working for, it was corporate America, one of the big car manufacturers out. And this was a super plus job. I mean, we were out playing golf at least once a week and it was great.

[00:39:57] James Nelson: But there was kind of that ceiling where [00:40:00] it’s like, okay, well you’re going to sign on and you’re going to be working nine to five for the rest of your life, and you can kind of rise within the ranks of middle management. And there’s nothing wrong. Like some people just say like, I like the security, I like the lifestyle.

[00:40:12] James Nelson: It’s great. But I knew I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. My grandfather, who I talk about at the beginning of my book, he started off as a used car sales man and ended up owning his own dealerships. He sat on the board of gm, you know, but again, that’s what he was passionate. He loves sales.

[00:40:30] James Nelson: He loved getting to know people. What is sales? It’s really kind of understanding, you know, you’re helping them. You’re putting yourself in your shoes, whether you’re selling cars or you’re selling 10 million building. 

[00:40:42] Patrick Donley: Did you have any other family members that were involved in real estate investing or were, are you kind of first generation real estate guy?

[00:40:49] James Nelson: My uncle was, he might as well have been mayor of Minneapolis and he started his own boutique shop advisory shop. He did leasing, but he also worked on some of the biggest deals, though I’m not [00:41:00] mistaken, he helped the Vikings secure the land for their stadium. And even though he was very focused on Minneapolis, he had great relationships.

[00:41:09] James Nelson: And when I made one phone call due diligence on this firm I was going to start for, and Russ made some calls. He said, Hey, these guys are top shelf and you’re in good hands 

[00:41:19] Patrick Donley: at the Investor’s podcast. We were talking a little bit earlier before the, we started recording. We are founded on Warren Buffett, value-based investing, Princip.

[00:41:28] Patrick Donley: Why do you think investors can gain a greater edge? Your book’s called The Insider’s Edge. Why do you think they can gain a greater edge in real estate than they can in traditional 

[00:41:36] James Nelson: stock investing? It’s also something that I talk about very early on in the book, and look, there’s been a lot of advances made with real estate data.

[00:41:46] James Nelson: There’s a lot of information that’s out there that’s accessible, but at the end of the day, it’s still a very inefficient market. If we want to go buy a stock right now, you can find at any minute what a stock is trading for. And we all have the same [00:42:00] information. In fact, I’m assuming I have the worst information, right?

[00:42:03] James Nelson: Because I’m just a retail consumer. Whereas real estate, there’s no rule that an owner has to sell their property for the highest price. You can have two buildings sell on the same block and they might look the same, and one might go for two to three times the other property. And that might be because the tenancy, the Condit.

[00:42:20] James Nelson: But it also might be because how the property was marketed, maybe the property that sold for a higher price used the professional brokerage firm to maximize exposure and maximize the price, whereas that owner down the street thought that they were saving themselves a brokerage fee and they knew what they were doing.

[00:42:36] James Nelson: You know, just like that building that my first partner Matt Lasso bought, you know, I’m sure when he bought that at 1,000,008, 1,000,009, I’m sure that owner said, Hey, I got this guy to pay me a big price, and clearly he left in that case, five, $600,000 on the table. I just think what’s really interesting is there are a lot of inefficiencies that you can capitalize on, and it’s probably a 

[00:42:58] Patrick Donley: blessing that there isn’t an hourly quote for [00:43:00] real estate.

[00:43:01] James Nelson: I mean, there are companies that are trying to solve for that. I think it’s certainly interesting tokenizing real estate, trying to make it more liquid, because that is one of the drawbacks is we are not in a, it’s not a liquid investment, but there’s certainly platforms that are trying to solve for that, which I think is interest.

[00:43:19] Patrick Donley: I’ve interviewed a couple guys recently that, that are involved in democratizing real estate and tokenizing it. It’s an interesting concept for sure. I wanted to talk about today’s market. There’s a lot of buyers that are just sitting on the sidelines, maybe waiting out this period of uncertainty.

[00:43:34] Patrick Donley: Interest rates are up, inflation’s obviously up. Do you have any good advice on how to deal with periods of uncertainty that we’re in when there’s like a, just a growing sense of unease in the. 

[00:43:45] James Nelson: I love that your podcast embraces the teachings of Buffet, and I’ve certainly referenced him several times in this market, and I’ll probably get the quote wrong, but being fearful when those are greedy and being greedy when those are fearful.

[00:43:57] James Nelson: I mean, I think that applies right now. I mean, [00:44:00] we’ve seen rates go up at an unprecedented, if not, you know, the last 20 years. And as a result, a lot of buyers are on the side. Buyers are assuming, Hey, if I wait six months, nine months, pricing’s going to move my favor. Well, that might be correct, but don’t forget, we’re else.

[00:44:15] James Nelson: We’re dealing with supply and demand, and if all the buyers pile back into the market, you’re going to have a lot more competition. One thing that I also talk a lot about my book, and so try to remember, you know what are the three things that you want to take away from this? We talked about the people, the teams, we talked about the special specialization, but here’s a really specific one.

[00:44:33] James Nelson: When you’re thinking about buying, Seller’s motivation. Why is someone selling? Okay, we were just talking about in our sales meeting this morning that we got hired by an estate and they’re donating all the proceeds to charity. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to do it the best job we can to get the highest price, but we’re selling no matter what.

[00:44:52] James Nelson: When you’re buying, ask the broker, why is the seller selling? And if they say, well, hey, we thought it’d be a good time, or maybe we could still [00:45:00] get a decent price for. That’s really a discretionary seller. That’s someone who does not have to sell where in a estate partnership dispute distress. Those are opportunities where someone really has to transact and there’s less competition out there today.

[00:45:15] James Nelson: That’s where the opportunities are going to lie. I like to talk 

[00:45:19] Patrick Donley: to, I don’t want to insult you, but older guys, you and I, both older guys that have lived through 2008, I like to hear about people’s experience of 2000 and. What was that like for you? How did you handle it, and then how would you compare it?

[00:45:31] Patrick Donley: Today’s market to 2008, do you see any similarities at all? 

[00:45:35] James Nelson: There are similarities in that you have buyers on the sidelines, certainly for different reasons, and then also we were hit with a lot of distress. And where there are challenges, there are opportunities, but I I would say that going from 2007 to 2009, there has been, I mean, you look back then here in New York, sales volume dropped 90%.

[00:45:57] James Nelson: Whereas you look at what’s happened [00:46:00] here in New York City, and we haven’t released these figures yet, but it’s somewhere in the ballpark of a 49% decline in dollar volume year over year. So that starts to tell you something. I mean, it’s not 90%, but sales volume looks like it’s going to be cut in half this year.

[00:46:17] James Nelson: I think the important thing is to just keep showing. I think what I was doing in 2009 as a broker, and we didn’t know where the market was headed or when it was going to come back, but I just kept showing up and I kept studying what was going on. And at the time, I had never even sold a loan before, but we ended up doing a tremendous amount of work for the banks selling bad loans, and 2010 turned out to be one of our best years ever.

[00:46:40] James Nelson: I don’t know if we’re going to see something as drastic where’re as drastic of a decline and then all of a sudden, you know, tons of distress that gets flushed out. Meaning lots of business. But there, there’s certainly going to be similarities with, again, challenging times, opportunities. And I think a lesson is just keep showing up and you never know when things are going to turn 

[00:46:59] Patrick Donley: [00:47:00] with rates up.

[00:47:00] Patrick Donley: Do you recommend just sitting on the sideline and maybe hoarding cash or gathering cash to jump in later on down the road? Or where do you see 

[00:47:07] James Nelson: opportunities? I don’t think you can pick and choose, jump in of the market or not. If you stop studying the market, you’re going to miss opportunities. Going back to seller’s motivation, I mean, we sold a building in the village and this was right before covid.

[00:47:20] James Nelson: We had it on the market. We had a contract out for $32 million. Covid hits. I mean, who knows? We thought it was the end of the world. And 60 days later, we end up contract closing on the property for $22 million. Granted, this is a very scary time. We had no idea, maybe 22 million was the right number at the time, but how many sellers would’ve dropped their pricing expectations by 10 million in 60 days if it wasn’t a motivated seller?

[00:47:48] James Nelson: So that, that’s the reason why you gotta keep looking. I’m curious what 

[00:47:52] Patrick Donley: New York office spaces like do you see any creative, adaptive reuse of office space? What’s happening in the office market? 

[00:47:59] James Nelson: We’re. [00:48:00] The challenge is that first of all, you’ve got zoning. So the building has to be located in an area that actually allows residential.

[00:48:07] James Nelson: But then the big question is, does the floor plate lend itself to that? A lot of these office buildings have big deep floor plates. Then you can’t even have the proper light in air unless if you cut off the back of the building or cord out, which might not make it worth it. And the last part is really the economics in New York, because the real estate taxes are so.

[00:48:27] James Nelson: To incentivize development. In the past, all the cities state has had to offer tax incentives. I think the same thing’s going to have to happen if they want to see more of these conversions happen. What’s the vacancy 

[00:48:38] Patrick Donley: rate right now in office space in New York? 

[00:48:40] James Nelson: It’s about 20%, which is about a hundred million square feet available, which is a pretty crazy amount to think about.

[00:48:47] James Nelson: You’ve been a broker 

[00:48:47] Patrick Donley: for a long time. What would you say sets apart the most successful ones that you’ve seen in the field from just kinda the average or mediocre people that you’ve. 

[00:48:56] James Nelson: I’m going to borrow this from Barbara Corcoran, because I heard her say this and I [00:49:00] think it’s a great, I agree with it, which is it’s how you handle failure, how you handle objections.

[00:49:07] James Nelson: This again, is a business where you’re going to have a lot of deals fall through, and if you’re investing, you’re going to have things that don’t go your way. You can’t just have one or two things in the pipeline and assume you’re going to be successful. This is a numbers game. You have to know that’s all part of the process.

[00:49:22] James Nelson: And then if a deal falls through or things don’t go your way, you’re just that much closer to the next one that will. You’ve 

[00:49:28] Patrick Donley: mentioned your use of a coach and I interviewed a gentleman last week who, who’s a real estate investor, but also does men’s financial coaching success coaching, and I’ve not used a coach before, but I’m very interested in and want to learn more about it.

[00:49:43] Patrick Donley: Talk to us further about your experience of using a coach, reaching your goals and keeping you accountable. 

[00:49:48] James Nelson: Well, I think it’s the same reason that I have a trainer when I go to the gym, can I go and do I know the exercises by now? If I’m going to show up and if I don’t have the accountability, probably not.

[00:49:58] James Nelson: So I think at the very [00:50:00] least, I think to check in with someone, I do it once a week, 30 minutes, just, Hey, how’s the pipeline? What’s going on? What do we need to think about? Have a sounding board. It’s what Rod Santo Mamo talks about working on your business as opposed to in your business. So if you’re not really taking a step back and looking at the big picture, you’re in the deal grind.

[00:50:19] James Nelson: You’re just one foot in front of the other, you might be missing the big picture out. 

[00:50:24] Patrick Donley: I know that you’re really into David Goggins. I think you were, you read his book what is It? Can’t Hurt Me Or Can’t Hurt Me. Yes. And I wanted to discuss further the importance of proper mindset. There’s a lot of common hurdles or what are some of the common hurdles or mental barriers that prevent a lot of new investors or even new brokers from getting started or succeeding in endeavors?

[00:50:44] James Nelson: I think the number one thing that holds investors back is, And so that might be warranted in the sense that maybe you haven’t done the proper research or you don’t have you’re not prepared. But that being said, you’re never going to be a hundred percent ready. [00:51:00] Another, you ask about favorite interviews.

[00:51:01] James Nelson: I interviewed Jordan Vogel and I kind of took the Nike slogan. Hopefully it’ll come after me for it. Just do it. But his whole point was A deal’s never going to be perfect. You’re going to do as much work as you. It as close as possible. But he said, every time I’ve closed on something, I feel like I overpaid the next day.

[00:51:17] James Nelson: So he, his point was just go do it. Right? And so I think the fear, whether it’s, you know, it’s gotta be perfect or whatever, holds a lot of people back. But I think also some of it is understandable. I mean, if you’re stepping up and it’s not in a contract and you don’t have a strong capital partner, you don’t have banking relationships, no, you shouldn’t.

[00:51:35] James Nelson: And so that’s why one of the most important members of the team that I talk about is having a great partner. And maybe for your first deal, it’s bringing the investment to an experienced developer operator where you can go in and say, look, I’m bringing this opportunity. Can you gimme sweat equity in the deal?

[00:51:53] James Nelson: I would just learn, I would like to kind of watch this from start to finish, and you’ve got this great investor based and lender relationships and team to execute on. Because I think without that, I think sometimes that fear can be warranted 

[00:52:07] Patrick Donley: for sure. So that’s, you’d recommend a younger person to try to partner up with somebody with financial resources or resources.

[00:52:13] Patrick Donley: And what’s one piece of advice that you hear the real estate gurus on online or Twitter, social media, that you hear often that you just don’t agree with? I 

[00:52:24] James Nelson: shouldn’t say I don’t agree with it, but I certainly don’t understand it, and I’m starting to do more on Twitter, I’m hearing about how all this money’s being raised on Twitter, and it gets into kind of risky territory when you’re making certain statements about what you can invest in, what the deal’s going to look like.

[00:52:42] James Nelson: On one hand when you do a traditional syndication private placement, you look at these books that the attorneys put out for accredited investors and you say, why is this really necessary? But there are a lot of inherent risks with this stuff. I think why a lot of these traditional channels, you know, that’s the way that a lot of the business is still getting done.

[00:52:59] James Nelson: But hey, if there’s other ways to raise capital by going out there through social media, I think it’s interesting. I, it’s just gotta be done in the right way. Are you on real estate 

[00:53:08] Patrick Donley: Twitter? Is that something that you’re part. 

[00:53:11] James Nelson: I spend the most powerful social media platform for me is LinkedIn for sure, and then Instagram.

[00:53:17] James Nelson: But I am starting to spend time on Twitter just because that’s where people are. So I’m watching it for sure. 

[00:53:23] Patrick Donley: It seems like it, it’s where I do a lot of my research for guests. It’s really been a great resource and it’s big education as well on Twitter. I think it’s a.. 

[00:53:32] James Nelson: Oh, for information for sure. I just, again, when it comes to raising capital, you gotta be very careful about what you’re seeing and how you document them . 

[00:53:40] Patrick Donley: For sure. Looking into the next few years, where are you seeing the biggest opportunities and trends that are, that’s exciting you? 

[00:53:48] James Nelson: Well, I just wrote a white paper, so maybe I’ll just direct people to real Estate Weekly can Google my name and find it.

[00:53:55] James Nelson: But yeah, there’s a lot of things. I think the challenge of financing [00:54:00] deals today, we might the return of seller financing. So if the bank’s only going to give you a 50% loan, I think sellers could help bridge the. I still, you know, we’re talking asset classes. I really like retail right now. Retail’s had a huge resurgence.

[00:54:13] James Nelson: I mean, so is multi-family. I mean, you gotta just buy it at the right price, obviously, talking about office conversions and how to do that. So yeah I list out about eight ideas on investment themes that I like. 

[00:54:26] Patrick Donley: The office conversions interest me. My wife and I just bought a building. She’s a therapist, mental health therapist, and we do, I don’t know if you have Salon Lofts in New York City.

[00:54:34] Patrick Donley: Basically a loft or a space for hairdressers that are rented out space, you know, individually that are rented out. And they do really well. 

[00:54:41] James Nelson: I’m selling one right now. 

[00:54:42] Patrick Donley: Okay. . Okay, so you’ve heard of ’em. So we’ve got the same concept. It’s weak, it’s salon lofts, but for mental health therapists, 

[00:54:50] James Nelson: I love it. And what I will tell you is the one that we’re selling is completely full. So all this concern about, well, are people going to come back to the office? Like when you’re dealing with a therapist, and I guess you can do some of that online, although I’d prefer to do that in person, certainly to go to a stylist, you can, that needs to happen in person.

[00:55:06] James Nelson: So I, I think that’s interesting. Yeah. Anything that involves having to do something in person seems to be a good long-term user of real estate . 

[00:55:14] Patrick Donley: It’s the same for therapy. Most people want to do it in person. So this is our second one. The first one’s a hundred percent rented, and we’ve had demand, so we bought a second one. And you know, we’re doing a conversion now and renovating it, and we’ll see how it goes. 

[00:55:28] Patrick Donley: James, this has been a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed this. I’m super excited to read your book. When is it being released? Can it be ordered on Amazon now? 

[00:55:35] James Nelson: So the plan is for the end of this month, you can go pre-order it right now.

[00:55:39] James Nelson: So if you go to Amazon and you search for The Insider’s Edge to Real Estate Investing, you can definitely pre-order it there. Or if you’re part of a company or you want a bulk order, you can also go to jamesnelson.com. That’s where you can find all my stuff, the podcast, white Papers, video series, and you can arrange for bulk borders there.

[00:55:57] Patrick Donley: Anything else you’d like to add as we wrap things up here for our listeners? 

[00:56:02] James Nelson: No, I just, I think it’s great that everyone is taking this time to invest in themselves. I mean, we talked about coaching. I mean, this is a form of it, right? If you’re listening to great podcasts, you’re taking the information. Again, I think the important thing is to quote my friend Rod Santomassimo, which is Knowing Isn’t Doing.

[00:56:18] James Nelson: So really think back to what are, you know, a couple of things that you found that were hopefully interesting in this interview and make them a habit. 

[00:56:25] Patrick Donley: What would you say one actionable thing is for a listener to do, like, today?

[00:56:29] James Nelson: Well, I think from now on, whenever you buy property, just ask what’s the seller’s motivation, really get the story.

[00:56:35] Patrick Donley: That’s a great question. And so often it’s just you don’t, a people don’t ask it. 

[00:56:39] James Nelson: You’d be surprised how rarely I’m asked. 

[00:56:42] Patrick Donley: Aside from your personal website, is there any other way listeners can get in touch with you? 

[00:56:46] James Nelson: You can definitely go to search me on Avison Young and you can see everything that we’re spelling in the New York area.

[00:56:53] James Nelson: Yeah, we’re very active there as well. But yeah my handles are James Nelson NYC so you can see the stuff we’re posting [00:57:00] on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. 

[00:57:02] Patrick Donley: James, thanks so much for being with us today. Really enjoyed this. 

[00:57:05] James Nelson: Thanks so much for having me. Best luck to y’all. 

[00:57:08] Patrick Donley: Okay folks, that’s all I had for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed the show, and I’ll see you back here real. 

[00:57:14] Outro: Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin, and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com.

[00:57:35] Outro: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consultant professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.