The two sides of our business

One of the weird things about our business is how different it looks to Jon and me.

On my end, most deals are almost abstract.

I can tell from the location, the building, the existing rents, and the price whether we can make money and how much. For me, then, it’s mostly about passively looking at endless numbers of deals until I spot one where the above factors line up, then trying to win the auction for the property before someone else realizes it’s a good deal and steals it away from me.

Once I’ve got the deal, because I have the luxury of working with Jon and an incredible team, I’m pretty damn sure the numbers will end up where I forecast them, if not better.

For Jon, the business looks entirely different.

For him, buildings are most assuredly NOT abstract. They are collections of fiddly, annoying problems that need to be solved. The solutions don’t necessarily need to be 100% optimal, but there’s an enormous difference between 50% and 95%… a difference we count on to make our numbers work.

To make matters worse for Jon, he’s not working with automatons. He has to find, employ and manage contractors, each of whom has his own agenda, needs, level of experience and expertise, etc. Even under the best of circumstances, when we’re working with an experienced, (mostly) honest contractor with whom we have a long relationship, there are inevitable disagreements about scope, change orders, timing, etc.

Obviously, the thing that makes us a good team is that I set up the deals and then Jon knocks them down.