Excelling in Office despite the Pandemic with Brian Adams
03/17/21 • 29 min
Everyone embraced the stay-at-home and work-from-home instructions at the beginning of the global coronavirus pandemic, quickly adjusting their work, organizations, companies, and lifestyles. Offices became somewhat redundant and remained vacant, begging the question if we will ever use them again. Almost a year later, however, things are shaping up to be a lot different than originally expected. Today’s guest is Brian Adams, the President and Founder of Excelsior Capital, where he spearheads the investor relations and capital markets arms of the firm. He has 10 years of experience in real estate private equity. Before forming Excelsior Capital, Brian co-founded Priam Properties in 2010 and provided leadership and direction for them in connection with capital markets, investment management, and investor relations. Tuning in today, you’ll find out what got him interested him in real estate, why he changed his career path, how COVID has impacted his company and their portfolio, and the effect of the recency bias. Brian also shares some interesting takeaways on the commercial market and how office space is shaping out much differently than predicted. Tune in today for all this and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Hear more about Brian and how he became interested in real estate.
- Why Brain didn’t want to end up or become like the 60-year-old lawyers he met.
- The concept of the Hero’s Adventure: taking the step while being ignorant to the risk!
- More about Excelsior Capital and what they are working on.
- Hear about the assists they are focused on and the deals they are working on.
- How 2020 and COVID have impacted their portfolio.
- How COVID has impacted the thoughts behind office space; pre-and post-pandemic.
- How recency bias affects us all: it’s not going to be the same as before.
- Hear how their strategy has changed going forward: the suburban office deal challenge.
- Brian explains what a one-story flex is: that area two to three miles from your airport.
- What a traditional commercial deal looks like for an investor and how it is structured.
- The types of investors investing in these deals: taxable, accredited investors only.
- Why Excelsior Capital’s direct response to feedback is cash on cash.
- How they plan to continue to grow over the next couple of years.
- Brian’s perspective on cap rates in the commercial market sectors.
- One question that every investor should ask their deal sponsor, according to Brian.
- What Brian is most proud of in his career: pushing through the painful process.
- What books you should be reading, like The No Rules Rules.
- The number one key to success: grit!
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Everyone embraced the stay-at-home and work-from-home instructions at the beginning of the global coronavirus pandemic, quickly adjusting their work, organizations, companies, and lifestyles. Offices became somewhat redundant and remained vacant, begging the question if we will ever use them again. Almost a year later, however, things are shaping up to be a lot different than originally expected. Today’s guest is Brian Adams, the President and Founder of Excelsior Capital, where he spearheads the investor relations and capital markets arms of the firm. He has 10 years of experience in real estate private equity. Before forming Excelsior Capital, Brian co-founded Priam Properties in 2010 and provided leadership and direction for them in connection with capital markets, investment management, and investor relations. Tuning in today, you’ll find out what got him interested him in real estate, why he changed his career path, how COVID has impacted his company and their portfolio, and the effect of the recency bias. Brian also shares some interesting takeaways on the commercial market and how office space is shaping out much differently than predicted. Tune in today for all this and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Hear more about Brian and how he became interested in real estate.
- Why Brain didn’t want to end up or become like the 60-year-old lawyers he met.
- The concept of the Hero’s Adventure: taking the step while being ignorant to the risk!
- More about Excelsior Capital and what they are working on.
- Hear about the assists they are focused on and the deals they are working on.
- How 2020 and COVID have impacted their portfolio.
- How COVID has impacted the thoughts behind office space; pre-and post-pandemic.
- How recency bias affects us all: it’s not going to be the same as before.
- Hear how their strategy has changed going forward: the suburban office deal challenge.
- Brian explains what a one-story flex is: that area two to three miles from your airport.
- What a traditional commercial deal looks like for an investor and how it is structured.
- The types of investors investing in these deals: taxable, accredited investors only.
- Why Excelsior Capital’s direct response to feedback is cash on cash.
- How they plan to continue to grow over the next couple of years.
- Brian’s perspective on cap rates in the commercial market sectors.
- One question that every investor should ask their deal sponsor, according to Brian.
- What Brian is most proud of in his career: pushing through the painful process.
- What books you should be reading, like The No Rules Rules.
- The number one key to success: grit!
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Previous Episode
How to Become a More Advanced Passive Investor with James Kandasamy
The more advanced your passive investing understanding gets, the smarter your decisions become, leading to higher returns and success in achieving your investing goals. Today we speak with James Kandasamy about how you can become a more sophisticated passive investor. An award-winning multi-family syndicator in his own right, James is also the author of Passive Investing in Commercial Real Estate, a guide to passive real estate investing. Early in the episode, he shares how investing in real estate can help you unlock more wealth than can be provided by other asset classes. We then dive into an important theme in this episode: ensuring your deals align with your investment goals. After hearing his insight on setting investment goals, James unpacks the idea of risk-adjusted returns. Following this, we discuss how James builds relationships with sponsors and other investors before we look at the role that hard work, vertical integration, and doing things differently played in scaling James’ business. Later, we touch on finding off-market deals, with James wrapping up our conversation by sharing his keys to success. Tune in to hear James’ insider tips on growing your business and becoming an advanced passive investor.
Key Points From This Episode:
- James shares details about his successful real estate career.
- How James discovered real estate and why it appealed to him.
- We break down the contents of James’s book on passive investing.
- The challenge of aligning your investment goals with syndication deals.
- Insights into setting your investment goals.
- The power of becoming an increasingly sophisticated investor.
- How you determine your risk-adjusted returns.
- Using risk-adjusted returns to assess how good a deal is.
- Hear top advice on communicating with sponsors and other investors.
- How passive investors can vet sponsors.
- What James did to so quickly scale his business.
- The value of having a vertically integrated investing business.
- Unpacking the different types of ‘off-market’ deals.
- Why you’re overpaying for your on-market deals.
- What it means to be a conservative versus an aggressive investor.
- Hear James’ keys to success.
Tweetables:
“My goal has always been to make the passive investor more advanced than the active investor. Once you know what questions to ask and you look closely at how you invest, you start making smarter decisions.” — James Kandasamy [0:10:21]
“Passive investors are the passengers in the flight, whereas the active investors are the pilot. You didn't want to go and ask the pilot if they know how to fly the plane.” — James Kandasamy [0:24:42]
“Not many people are willing to do the property management side. It’s a thankless job but you need control to get the maximum return of your investment.” — James Kandasamy [0:29:22]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Next Episode
“Not Every Property is Going to Be a Homerun, But You Will Hit Them” with Charles Carillo
Charles Carillo was introduced to real estate by his dad at a young age, and although it didn’t immediately appeal to him, since finding his feet in the industry in 2006, he has never looked back. He shares the story of how he took his very first property from 0% occupancy to 100% occupancy in 90 days. Although the work Charles did on that property is still his proudest moment, he has come a long way since then, and as managing partner of Harborside Partners, he is now in charge of numerous properties. Charles explains why having more properties in your portfolio is far safer than having less, offers advice for making the property management process as seamless as possible, and gives examples of metrics that he uses to determine how his sales are doing. We also delve into the reasons that Charles prefers to work with investors who have worked through part downturns, the importance of setting goals, the elements that give you a competitive advantage in the real estate sector, and more. Remember, you aren’t going to be hitting home runs all the time with real estate investing, but when you do it will be worth the wait!
Key Points From This Episode:
- The introduction to real estate Charles received from his dad, and why it didn’t appeal to him at first.
- Why Charles will only buy in certain asset classes.
- How Charles’s company has grown from 2006 to the present.
- The factors which motivated Charles to enter the real estate industry and how his approach differed from his dad’s.
- Benefits of scaling up and owning lots of units.
- Advice for making property management as easy as possible, whether you are doing it yourself or using a company.
- Ways you can still keep a level of control of your properties if you are using a management company.
- Team members and VAs are vital parts of Charles’s business.
- Where Charles does his marketing for his properties.
- Examples of metrics that Charles’s uses to determine how his sales are doing.
- The elements which give you a competitive advantage: capital, relationships, and more units.
- Why Charles likes working with investors who have gone through downturns in the past.
- Charles shares why the first property he bought was the proudest moment in his career, and probably the craziest.
- Real estate investing isn’t all about the home runs.
- Charles’s top two book recommendations.
- Why setting short-term and long-term goals has been so helpful to Charles.
- How you can get in touch with Charles if you want any advice on setting your own goals!
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Ritter on Real Estate - Excelling in Office despite the Pandemic with Brian Adams
Transcript
“BR: It’s the hero’s adventure, right? It’s the cycle of, you choose to step off the ledge, and take that risk, and go there and it’s really scary. In our world, there’s a bit of a hero complex where people don’t want to talk about being vulnerable and beings scared when they take that initial step. But looking back on it, and I tell people this all the time. Knowing what I know now, I just was oblivious to the risk, like I didn’t really a
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