JM: Well, I’m 37. I think I’ve been doing, I’ve been, I’m 37. I’ve been in real estate for probably 33 to 34 years. You know, started picking up twigs with dad. Always knew that was a direction though, David. I mean, there was no, my parents and my dad was not, were not like, you know, you need to do this or you need to do that or whether it was in school or anything, they took the opposite approach because I was already obsessive and wanted to be the best at everything I did and I really just started through and learning through osmosis and dad made it fun. You know, we’d go, we’d pick up twigs. He’d give me a few bucks and then we’d go to the toy store and I’d buy something and, you know, I’d associate work with, you know, getting a few dollars and it became a game. It became fun and then as I grew, I mean, I live, eat and breathe real estate. That’s all I know.

DA: But it sounds like entrepreneurship. It sounds like you were, you learned the idea of, you know, to your point, working, exchanging for money. So some entrepreneurship early on as well.

JM: Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t going to play pro golf. Okay. Although I was good.

DA: Okay.

JM: A five foot three little fella. So I wasn’t going to make it to the NBA.

DA: Yeah.

JM: I play pro real estate. I mean, it’s very simple. When I go to golf, I want to shoot 75 or less. Okay. When I buy a building, we buy the building, you know, obviously to make money. That’s your scorecard in real estate and I’m very attracted to the game. It’s not my job. It’s my hobby. My wife would just yell at me for that this morning, to be honest with you. Right. It’s all I know.

DA: So the family was in real estate for long before and was it, and so you kind of had a sense that this was your path as well?

JM: I know who buttered my bread. So dad had about seven buildings in downtown Portland.

DA: Yeah.

JM: You know, he always had to, and he started as a realtor and then in 1987, bought his first building in downtown Portland, the Carlisle building, which we don’t own anymore. I actually sold that. My dad, you know, was very old school. That’s all he knew. You know, he didn’t have two pennies and again, I know who buttered my bread and he, you know, when I came in, it was like three years of really just kind of learning from him, three years of developing my own kind of new school opinions, three years, probably a little bit of back and forth fighting, maybe we’ll call it and he did a hell of a job letting go and I took on some good, you know, fixed debt to propel our first kind of growth, tranche of growth. Then we were in the second tranche and then we’d go, we’d buy buildings, all cash, and then we’d put debt on them. Okay. The market changed a little bit. We were selling then smaller buildings like the Carlisle building in downtown Portland. We would exchange and that would go into another, you know, asset. We’d pay cash and then we’d take that out. Very conservative, no CMBS, no floating. I don’t even know anything about that. You know, I still run numbers on an asset on a napkin or, you know, the back of a piece of paper. If I can’t figure it out by looking at the rent roll and a profit and loss for the last two or three years, then it’s probably not our deal, you know? So I’m very, very old school in that approach, but I really combined that new school of, you know, understanding what the tenant wants, the tenant improvements and so on and so forth and we have the same recipe, David, in every single micro sector that we go to.

DA: Right. Now, before joining the family business, you did, I think, work in the business, but at another company, correct?

JM: Yeah, it was a first property. Jeff Resnick, great guy, right out of college. Went to USC and I thought, you know, I’d be in brokerage and I was making more money in brokerage than I was when I went back to work with Barry. He runs a hell of a tight ship. You know, I came back when I came back with Barry, there was, it was literally him, a bookkeeper and a property manager and obviously we’ve had to add, add a few people. We prefer to try to grow with assets versus so many people. We’ve got a great staff now, but, but I work, you know, I thought I’d be in brokerage or work for another, the family office for, you know, five years and then go back. But I kind of scratched my head. I’m like, why the hell am I doing this? If I, I’m just losing time essentially. Right.

DA: So listen, just because it was in the family and sort of maybe your destiny doesn’t necessarily mean that you were going to be successful at it. So what do you think, aside from having the opportunity in front of you, why do you think you were in the end? So suited for this opportunity, though, what has helped you to be successful?

JM: Well, you know, success. I mean, everybody that goes, you know, Kentucky, there are different measures of success. I am very good at taking old school. Okay. Understanding the basics, the personal touch. Combining that with the new school and being able to evolve. Whereas, you know, the first generation, sometimes they get stuck in their own ways a little bit and my dad did an excellent job of letting it. It’s like letting the rope out a little bit at a time. First, we had to drive to the building that we bought. Then we flew to Seattle. Then we flew to Denver. Then we flew to, uh, you know, Dallas and now we’re in Chicago. So it, letting, letting go over time and that’s a whole other discussion on family business and, and how to do it right, how to do it wrong, where there’s mishaps, where there’s missteps, how to avoid the next generation from ending up in litigation and problems and so on and so forth.

DA: Um, it’s all too often, right?

JM: Yeah. I’m, I’m good at putting things in, in their own, as we call them, you’d folders or jackets, whatever you want to call it. There’s problems every day, but remember when, whenever some, whenever you feel like something’s not going good, when it’s going bad, it’s really not that bad and when you’re rolling and you feel like you’re doing great, it’s really not that good. Stay kind of level and I, I’ve really, and, and I’m still every day working hard to, to, to staying level. Um, and I think it helps you make more astute business decisions, uh, from, from the small ones all the way up to the big ones, like buying, buying an asset.

DA: Interesting. So, you know, certainly there’s been a lot of change in our industry and I think we’re going through a period of time where, uh, you know, the, the, the world itself, the industry itself, and certainly the way technology is impacting commercial real estate, there is a lot of change. Um, and we’re certainly seeing it from a, um, you know, a purpose perspective, you know, the purpose of office, the purpose of space, um, we’d love to get your thoughts on how, um, you see the industry changing from just being a provider of space to being a provider of a place where people want to be, we call destinations of choice. you know, they’re coming now for more than just sit at a desk and work. They’re coming for different reasons. Just wondering what your thoughts are on how not only commercial real estate at large, but how your business is changing, evolving to meet the needs of, of today’s, uh, workforce.

JM: Okay. First thing you can’t replace personal touch. Okay and we’re playing in, in a unique kind of playground and that I buy institutional size deals, but I’m not an institution. Okay. Um, right now, for instance, that’s working really, really well, like in Chicago or the Denver tech center or even downtown Portland. Okay. If there’s 10, 10 buildings that attended his touring for 10,000 square feet in any of those cities right now, six of them are ghost buildings. Okay. They can’t do a deal. Okay. So now we’re down to four and we’re one of the four, two of them are going to be institutionally owned. Um, and it’ll take them six months to make a decision, or they’re going to wait for the next deal to get the higher rental rate of which now tenants really care as the economy begins to soften and that puts us in the position. You can raise net operating income. Remember by a increasing rental rates, of course, you can always drop expenses, but a increasing rental rates or B decreasing vacancy, right? Like increasing occupancy, get tenants in the door, treat them well and that’s the recipe. This is nonsense. Okay. That it was the end of office. Is a bunch of BS. It was an overreaction. anybody can say what they want. We started seeing it. You and I, and everybody else about six months ago, you’d start seeing little trickles of good news and green shoots as they’d call it in office. Now the faucets on. Okay and you’re going to see it went from fear. Now you’re going to start to see greed kick in and when it does, when New York life starts buying in downtown San Francisco and Blackstone in New York, and then it’s coming in Chicago. Okay. That’s when everybody starts to jump on the bandwagon. It’s been all about data centers. Okay and I don’t even know what the hell happens in those data centers, but I know that all of the people that leased data centers are not making money. We know that meta and Amazon and Microsoft, and they are, but what about, what about the guys that aren’t eventually just like stocks and companies you need to make money in order to stay afloat, especially in an, in an interest rate environment like this, which is, you know, completely different than it was just five years ago during COVID. Everybody overreacted just like everything in life. I mean, my iPhone. For years, you and I were using the string, the string, you know, connect to your iPhone. You put it in your ears and everybody went to AirPods. Next time you’re in an airport, look around. Guess what’s back the string jeans. You want to talk about jeans? This is just, this is just humanity. This is fear and greed and, and, and following the guy that or lady that’s in front of you. Jeans. We were, I was in high school. God, I was wearing those, the carpenter, the baggy carpenter jeans and boy was I, well, at least I thought I was cool. Then finally, now I’m finally, my wife has me wearing the skinnier jeans, still not too skinny cause I don’t look great in them. But then a month ago, my wife comes home and she’s wearing baggy jeans and she’s got a pair of a penny loafers on. What do you think, honey? I go, what the hell is that? She goes, well, look on Instagram. It’s a new style. Everybody overreacts. We were never going to fly after 9/11. We’re flying again. Oh my God. Are we flying again? Okay. Nobody was ever going to go back to the office. It was dead.

DA: Well, Jordan, that’s why I started this podcast in July of 2020. The rhetoric at that time was the world was coming to an end. No one was ever going to come back to an office and I started this podcast specifically to talk to people in the trenches. What was going on each and every month so that I could, as I continue to roll out new episodes, it was always a barometer on how the world was changing and I always said, and I didn’t say it too loudly, but I always knew and said that I think the world will, will look more like it used to than it does now. The now being during the pandemic and it’s happening and it’s not that I think that before it’s better. No, I think what has come out of the pandemic is this notion of flexibility. The notion that we can work from anywhere and we have the flexibility to choose where and when to work, but office is still an incredibly important place in now a much larger workplace ecosystem. That’s my perspective.

JM: David, people need people who are more collaborative, people, more innovative people, more productive when they’re with people. Okay. People are happier when they’re with people and if you look at what’s happening now, specifically in the office sector, it’s actually not only coming back, but it’s price and the pot, the literally the pump is prime to boom. Once again, every New York, if you, if you want to go into a class, a building in New York and you’re 10,000 or 20, there’s no space. They’re out of space. Supply for office is going negative is going down and demand is now going up. Well, that, you know, we learned that in, in eighth grade economics 101. So that that’s our take on it. We take care of the customers. Yes. The world is changing. The world is always going to change for good or for bad.

DA: You know, it’s such a fun, you know, I, you hear, you speak to people. There are some running from office. There are some who run from office, but then run back to it and there are some that are running towards it. Well, you know, you seem to be running somewhat towards it. You’ve made acquisitions. You believe there’s opportunity. I, like you believe that there is a value and purpose in office. If done, right. What do you think the future from a, a buy sell perspective is going to be.

JM: Keywords done right. 

DA: Yep. 

JM: Done. Right. I’m not going to name names and by the way, there’s going to be massive winners out of this. Right and some of the winners are going to be the ones that have been losing. Right. Let’s call out Blackstone. Okay. Giving back to the bank, but buying fantastic deals over here. Right. XR Vernado. This, this is, this is, this happens every time. We just want a little piece of the pie. Okay. Real estate out there for everybody. But it, but it’s fascinating to, to see the over reaction and over correction of anything and everything in our lives. I bet you in 15 years, I’m going to be wearing a goddamn suit again to the office. The way it is. It’s the way it is. I mean, look at, look at your car. Your car has got very few buttons now, and it’s got a screen and then you touch the screen. Well, you get schmutz all over your screen now, right? My handprints, fingerprints, my kids. I bet you in the next five years, 10 years, you’re going to have a bunch of buttons.

DA: Go back, go back to the buttons.

JM: This is just basics.

DA: Yeah. The other day we had to learn, we had to figure out how to reboot the software in the car. Like the flickers wouldn’t flick the, the rear mirrors, the rear cameras didn’t work and it was, it needed a reboot. So, you know, and we don’t think about it.

JM: David, let’s go back. The done right thing.

DA: Yep.

JM: A lot of folks, um, my age and really specifically older are excellent buyers. Okay. But let’s be real clear. Anybody with that talent can buy. Right. An older man who’s a billionaire, actually about 77 years old, told me that if you buy a, a garbage, garbage disposal machine at the, at a good enough price, you can make money on it. There’s some truth to that. You, you make your money on the buy, but you have to be able to operate and you have to be able to execute and you have to be able to do it quickly and you have to, if you say you’re going to do something, you better do it.

DA: So, so we, we’ve zeroed in on this notion of doing it right. We’ve you, you shared that obviously, um, one way to make money is to keep tenants longer and to reduce churn. Um, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a lot harder to, um, get a client than it is to lose. You, you, that’s where the focus needs to be.

JM: You’ve worked so hard to get them. What is right? That’s a question. So what does right look like to you in office today? It’s knowing what a building wants to be. I know that sounds absolutely absurd and now I’m going to tell you that when I buy a building or when I’m in due diligence to buy a building, I’ll stand outside on a corner and look up for three hours trying to, and then I’ll sit in the lobby and see who’s coming in. Who’s going out. Is there a music? Is there a TV? Is it, is it, is the lobby activated? Are there the proper amenities for that particular asset? Okay. If the answer is yes, we move forward. I mean, all the numbers and the due diligence and everything else checks out. If the answer is no, we don’t say we’re out. What can we do to make it or position it in a way that it wants to be what it wants to be? Montgomery, Montgomery park in Portland, Oregon, the third largest office building in the state of Oregon. Famous. The old Montgomery ward building. It would just add, there was the same building, a larger transaction just traded in, in Chicago to Mr. Sarver and his group. The group before us paid 255 million for the asset. Okay. They wanted to make it. I’m just going to use the Taj Mahal. Beautiful. I’ve seen the book 60, 60 pages of bars and multifamily and restaurants and, and this park and that park and take your dog here and let me tell you, Mr. Ward. In his, in his, in his grave said, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not what this building, this historic hundred year old building on an 18 acres wants to be in Portland, Oregon, just outside of downtown and next to one of the largest parks, west of the Mississippi forest park. It said, no, it ended up back with the bank. I think we paid somewhere between 30 and 33 million for the asset. No. Have to understand that what the building wants to be was, does it need a fitness center? Yes. The answer is unequivocally. Yes. Does it need a $5 million fitness center? The answer is unequivocally. No, it needs a $700,000 fitness center with the right equipment that people are going to use and not just look at that. Just one example. Does it need a food and beverage? Yes. Does it need six restaurants? Absolutely not. Knowing what a building wants to be two 30 west Monroe. Does the, did the lobby need to be updated? The answer is yes. Did I need to spend $2 million on it? The answer is absolutely no. So how do you do things tastefully and in a way that people will notice without breaking the bank and gold plating them when they don’t need to be gold plated.

DA: So, so you’ve zeroed in without saying it exactly. You’ve zeroed in on this notion of experience that even when you’re deciding to buy a building, you go and physically situate yourself in proximity of the building in and around the building and you try to get a sense of the experience. What does it feel like? What is it going to look like? What is going to, what is the flavor that you need to create to make people want to be there? So that it’s a great segue to a conversation around this notion that, you know, buildings are really all about experience. Now it’s no longer, you know, just space rental. You’re not in that business anymore. So you’re already thinking about it. What are you doing to help bring that experience to life? And is there any connection to any technology that you’re using? That’s helpful, helpful in the delivery of that experience.

JM: Yeah and, and part of the experience that I strive for, and we strive for in every micro market that we’re in the West loop of Chicago, the tech center, little, it could be a three block radius. I want to be the best value too. So I got to be clear about that. Value does not mean cheap value is what does a tenant get for? What does a tenant pay? Right and I want to be the best value for sure. The best gym within a $10 per square foot range of anyone around me. Okay. The best food service, the best amenities, the best you talked about technology, you know, now we’re using Cove and Profia and of course CoStar and I mean, there’s, there’s many technologies, but, but Cove has been a good one lately. Building engines is good. A concierge service. You don’t need to have the top tier, you know, your own Brookfield labeled concierge service, but you need to have something because the building I’m sitting in is not a class a plus building right now. Okay. It’s a B plus building two, two 12 story buildings, 400,000 square feet at a plus location in Dallas, Texas.

DA: I think we should change the classification system for buildings. Right. I think to your point, you know, it’s a B class building that maybe it’s an eight plus level of service and experience. So is this still a B class building?

JM: Well, I don’t care what they call it because it’s 95% leased. There you go. They can call it whatever they want. Also you tenant touch, touch the tenants. That’s so important. Every 30 days, touch the tenants, do something. You know how much, how much people appreciate honestly a free ice cream cone or a free breakfast or doing, doing the right you know, donation drive through salvation army. For instance, in the, during the holidays when Thanksgiving was paired right back to back with Hanukkah and Christmas is this last year, instead of being the year of getting, we made it across the board, the year of giving, because everything was so, so tight touching your goes back to the personal touch, David.

DA: I agree. I agree. As you continue to think about the business, I’m going to wave my magic wand. You can thank me later and I’m going to give you an unlimited budget. Okay. To do something that you think will be helpful in your business, to position it for the next three to five years for success. So, you know, if you all of a sudden had a treasure chest of, of dollars available to invest, to build, to create, what would you do? What, what one, two or three things would you do within the confines of the commercial estate industry to really position the Menashe properties for success?

JM: Well, I love building spec suites. I think you can control, again, it goes back to controlling your costs. If you understand what the building wants to be in, what the tenant wants in, in, in any particular micro market environment, spec suites are, are, are, I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re doing them in Portland, Oregon, who the hell is building spec suites, 20,000 square feet of spec suites in downtown Portland right now. I’m trying it as a litmus test, right? People, people want, when, when I go to look at a new car, which isn’t, isn’t as often as, as, as my wife would like, but yeah, car forever. But when you go to look for something or I go into get, want to get, go to get a new iPhone. I want it now. Yeah. We’re in a now world, you know, that I will hardly agree being able to walk into a space. It does not matter if you’re in Portland or New York. Okay. That is furnished and saying, wow, that light fixture is cool. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive light fixture in the world. Could have gotten off Amazon, but boy, that looks, that’s very tasteful and being able to envision. Okay. I think that is a big, big, big selling point. It gives you a massive advantage in today’s world and I think it’s going to continue to, as things speed up. I mean, things are moving so quickly. I think that gives us a great advantage. I’m not going to go into the AI and the robots cause I’m not smart enough. But, but I think if, if I mean, yeah, I would buy, I would continue to buy. I think there’s, although I think that the market, I don’t think the market did unequivocally bottom across. Remember people are buying slamming deals from 2000 and to 2009 to 2016 and that’s when greed kicked in and things started to ramp up a little too high and so on and so forth. So obviously I would, I would buy as well from it, but, and then and then again, our heartburn, you can’t replace a personal touch. So there’s no amount of money that can replace that taking care of the customer. If it’s a restaurant, you got to do it. If it’s a grocery store, you got to do it. If it’s an office building, you got to do it and that goes right back to what you were saying about the experience, create an experience within your little ecosystem that people appreciate and want to be at.

DA: Right. We’ll talk more about experience and hospitality shortly. Let’s take a short break and we’ll be right back.

JM: Thanks.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

DA: And now I’d like to welcome back to the show, Jordan Menashe, Principal and CEO of Menashe Properties. Again, Jordan, I’m really glad you could be with us today. Let’s pick up on a theme we were just chatting about. Guests after guests on this podcast have continued to echo the same sentiment that each and every person that comes into their building is now their customer. It used to be you may agree or disagree, but in the old days, the old school was the person who signed the lease, that was the customer and those days are gone. Every person that comes in has a chance to have an interaction with, to your point earlier, and we’ve got to make it amazing. We’ve got to surprise and delight our customers at all times and this notion of hospitality, we think is key and we think that the office sector can learn a lot from hotel and restaurants. We love the writings and the teachings of Will Guadera. He wrote a book called Unreasonable Hospitality, which I highly recommend. This whole notion that we are now entering or are in a hospitality era, and every industry needs to think about how we interact with our customers. So I’m just curious, as buildings compete, we talked about the different classes of the buildings. I don’t think just class A buildings are the only ones that can compete. I think any building can also compete on the level of service and experience and start to erase those definitions of class A, class B, class C. But just curious about how you think that’s going to continue to impact your business and the industry at large.

JM: You know, it’s the old saying, treat others how you want to be treated, okay? From top down in our small organization, the 300 square foot tenant and the 300,000 square foot tenant are treated the exact same. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO, the chief marketing officer, or a property manager, or the janitor, okay? It just doesn’t matter. We treat everybody the exact same, and it goes back to the basics. We were just talking about old school and new school. The old school approach is treating everybody with respect and putting, I think, the right teams together at the corporate level, but also at the building level. I think that is extremely important, motivating people. Some of these larger institutions, and even larger family offices, they don’t appreciate the people that are actually working physically in the buildings, from the security, to the janitors, to the engineers, to the property managers, all the way up. Takes a village, right? Yeah and I go into Chicago, and I’ll bet you, I know that those guys, Mark and Scott, okay, they’re excited to see me. They’ve been there a long time, and they know that I appreciate what they’re doing. They’re our first line of defense. They’re going to change the light bulb, or take the complaint from whoever it might be and I think if you really try to call the line and put the right team together, you’re setting yourself up to succeed. It goes back to taking care of the customer.

DA: Right and again, we have many, many customers today, and it’s our commitment. When I ran my agency before founding Hilo, Brookfield Place was my first client in Toronto, an absolutely magnificent class A property. But I also had smaller buildings in and around the city, and my philosophy was it didn’t matter who you were. If you were a client to the agency, you got the same level of service. If you were a client to the agency, you got the same level of my attention and that’s why we kept our clients as long as we did. You didn’t define by size, or class, or not a good way to do business.

JM: If you start to do that, things will go the other direction on you. Right.

DA: Agreed. We bring a lot of different backgrounds and experiences to this world of office and the future of work. What else are you thinking about? Aside from what I’ve asked you so far, as an entrepreneur, as a buyer, as an operator of buildings, what are you thinking about? What’s critical in terms of moving forward? There’s lots of letters that we use to define important concepts in office, from ESG to IoT, ROI and M&A, but what are you thinking about that I haven’t even asked you about yet?

JM: I think being on the younger side of things, at 37, and being, I guess, quote unquote, in charge, there’s a lot of stress, and that’s why I’m losing most of my hair. But I love traveling and looking for the next best thing. I think it’s so fun, and tenants are so appreciative, whether it be two years ago, a cold plunge, or an indoor pickleball court, which is hot now. These are trends. These aren’t going to nothing last forever, right? We’re changing all the time, but I love looking for the next gimmick, the next best thing that the tenants can enjoy, that I can enjoy when I go to the building, whether it be a new game center with the arcade games. It goes back to not just being a place to go, but being a place to go and enjoy, and enjoy with your colleagues and your friends. The more you do that, the more productive they’ll be, the more happy they’ll be, the more likely they’ll be to stay. Real estate’s always going to change. Right now, everybody’s loving data centers and industrial, and they were loving multifamily. Remember, in 2020, it was the end of retail. Amazon, I’m a big stockholder, but Amazon owned retail. It was the end. I was cleaning my packages with Lysol and gloves and a mask. My Amazon packages, in Portland, Oregon, dare would I go to a grocery store in the middle of COVID? Point being, there we are now. Retail may be the hottest asset class right now. Don’t always … What excites me is, look, what’s next? Not where the puck is, but where is it going? That’s why we’re going office right now. I’m ready to buy another office deal. We’re working on two, to be honest with you, David. 

DA: That’s great.

JM: I can barely wait to close, one or both.

DA: I love it. It’s great to hear. I definitely think that opportunity is real. I’ve heard those that have gone on to say, so much is that the supply and demand, we’re going to have a real crisis perhaps five years from now because there’s no new build, and we’re going to literally run out at some point, and then we’ll be scrambling.

JM: It’s the same example every time. Just an overcorrection. Everybody overreacts to everything. Now, you’re right. Now, we’re not going to see any buildings, any spec office buildings, maybe in New York, but go up for the next at least five years because nothing’s coming out of the ground, maybe 10 years and then we’re going to have a crisis because we’re not going to have enough office space. What does that mean for the lower tier buildings? Well, it’s a trickle down effect. Right.

DA: And nothing gets built overnight. It’s not an industry where you can correct it one to two year period. Just getting approvals and plans, that could take two to three years. So, it is a long leash there, right?

JM: Yeah. That’s why I don’t develop. I’ve got the attention span of a monkey.

DA: Right. Jordan, let’s get to know you a little bit more. Our closing speed round is an opportunity to ask you some very pointed questions, get your perspective on a few different fronts. So, looking back over your short, long, you’ve still got a lot of career ahead of you, but what is the one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were first starting it?

JM: A lot. Expect the unexpected, I think is probably the… I’ve learned, obviously, the last five years that’s been a prominent theme, but expect the unexpected. Anything can happen at any time. 

DA: Right. 

JA: And not letting again, when something’s not going your way, it’s really not that bad and when something’s going really, really well, and you feel like you’re on top of the world, it’s really not that good. Stay centered. Stay the course. Stay the course. Stay humble, but really expect anything.

DA: Okay. Is there a favorite book or podcast that has positively affected your approach to work or life?

JM: Oh, yes. I think it’s, dare I say, Donald Trump’s book, Winning by Intimidation. I read it and I liked it, but it’s not necessarily what I agree with or what I like, but it’s learning from that, in my opinion, what maybe he did right and other things, maybe what went wrong along the way. Warren Buffett has another book that I can’t think of that I read, but he’s a perfect example. You asked me something earlier about if funds were unlimited or so on and so forth. I wanted to say I’d put a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars or whatever I got into Berkshire, the Oracle. Once again, Bill Gates is the second wealthiest man in the world. I look at a few people. I really study people, though, more than anything, Warren Buffett being one of them. Elon Musk is a fascinating person. Whether you like him or not, he’s still fascinating, one of the most brilliant people of our time. Donald Trump, again, dare I say the name, but he’s fascinating and his family’s fascinated to learn from. Watching January 20th, I stopped. I was so astonished by what was going on and what people were saying and how the top CEOs in the world were right behind him, but yet three years prior, they said they couldn’t stand him. Looking at people, that’s really how I study.

DA: That, my friend, is a full-time job. I wish you good luck with that. That’s no easy task. Commercial real estate continues to evolve. What new skills do you think the industry is going to be hiring for as you continue to be the best in the business? What do you think you need today versus what you might have needed five years ago?

JM: I mean, the answer, obviously, is as simple as technology. It’s a simple and it’s a cliché answer, but it’s true. Again, I’ll say it. You’re not going to replace personal touch. I think kids, kids, I’m a kid. I shouldn’t say that. I think we need to remember that, though. I think that my generation is quite entitled and quite spoiled. Scott Besant said it real well like the American consumer needs a bit of a detox. I think it’s all healthy to take a little detox and step back. I mean, technology is important. I think that from a technological standpoint, and I’m not good with technology at all. I can barely turn on the shit in my car, the radio for that matter. We have so many different programs within our real estate corporation now. I mentioned a few of them earlier. If somebody, and I know that CoStar is trying by acquisition, if somebody can figure out or a group of people how to bring them together and integrate them, I think that’ll be extremely useful, not only for owners, but for tenants alike. I’ve got that on my mind. I don’t know how to do it, but when I have to list out all the programs and software that we’re using now on a piece of paper because there’s so much, that means I’m confused. Others are probably confused.

DA: Right. We got to simplify the tech stack and make things work. I also think some of these companies just need to play nicer in the sandbox together and make it easier for the operator owner to, even if they have to put two or three together, just not make that a daunting process.

JM: I couldn’t agree with you more.

DA: Yeah. Now, we’ve already actually already established that you’ve got real estate in your blood from day one, but if you were not doing what you are doing now, is there a fantasy? Is there a dream? Is there something else you’d be doing instead?

JM: The dream would be playing in the Okay. That didn’t happen. Reality is I’ve had three different stints. It’s almost like you have to do it in our family. We weren’t forced to do anything, but I’d probably be selling shoes at Nordstrom. Completely honest with you. I was a hell of a salesman. I’d sweat. I’d work so hard during the day that I have to bring three shirts. I sold men’s shoes, kids’ shoes, women’s shoes, three different times at the Grove, at Washington Square in Portland. I think it really, it helps you hone in your sales skills. Right. When you have to approach people and kind of eat what you kill.

DA: You know, as I continue to look at growing our company, one of the number one places that I like to look for new talent is the hospitality and restaurants. When I go into a restaurant and I meet someone that has just this incredible personality, they’re outgoing, they’ve got great communication skills, tons of passion. I always inquire. I say, what do you do? What’d you study? What do you want to be doing? Because often hospitality is a stepping stone to something else. I give them my name and my business card and I say, reach out when you’re ready.

JM: Right? Again, David, you couldn’t be more right. Again, you just solidified the personal touch. When somebody at a restaurant looks you in the eyes and they go out of their way to just check on you or make sure that the drink is okay. Or, I mean, it can be so many different things that catch your attention or catch my attention. You’re exactly right. It’s that personal touch and if you’re able to obtain that or have that inside of you, you’re going to go places. 

DA: Agreed. Jordan, thank you very much for spending time with us today. Thanks for sharing a little bit about your journey, your passion for commercial real estate, your approach to business, your thinking about the future of office. Wishing you just tons of success as you continue to grow the company and I’m looking forward to hearing more about some of those acquisitions down the road.

JM: Yes, sir. Thanks for having me, David. My pleasure.

DA: Thanks so much.

JM: All right. Bye-bye.

DA: That’s a wrap on today’s episode of 10. I want to thank Jordan for joining me on the program. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find the show. Thanks for listening and until our next time, I wish you all continued success in building community where you work and live.