Have been doing some thinking lately about what my career is likely to look like when it’s all said and done. There are several way I can see it going, from continuing to do pretty much what we’re doing now, through building large apartment buildings all over the country. The common denominator in all of … Continue reading “Thinking about my future”
Category: Building Adaptive
Thinking through the environmental consequences of what we do
On this Earth Day, no one would confuse me with an environmentalist. I generally take the view that environmental problems are best solved by pricing in the externalities of our industry / consumption, rather than restricting activities by law. So, for example, I’m fine with people using a bunch of water to grow almonds in … Continue reading “Thinking through the environmental consequences of what we do”
More on getting our hands dirty
In case you’re still having trouble believing we’re not traditional money managers: I just got a phone call from my assistant, who is attempting to drop off a relocation payment to a tenant and get his keys. Turns out he is in jail for, among other things, threatening neighbors with a machete. So now I have to … Continue reading “More on getting our hands dirty”
Building a vendor network
Thinking about moving back the garage has put me in mind of another interesting facet of our business: The network of vendors we’ve created over the years. With respect to the garage, we needed to determine exactly where the property line is so that we know how much to cut. This is a job for a … Continue reading “Building a vendor network”
We still get our hands dirty
Sometimes I have this image in my mind of Adaptive as a sophisticated real estate private equity shop. After all, we raise discretionary investment funds, deploy them, and then (hopefully) harvest the returns for our investors. But nights like Tuesday snap me back to reality. Jon and I spent a big chunk of the that evening in … Continue reading “We still get our hands dirty”
An appreciation of our team
Two of our agents are close to closing difficult deals right now. Both agents spent a ton of time with their respective clients, looking at who-kn0ws-how-many deals before finally honing in on these targets and getting them into contract. In escrow, both deals have had multiple issues with appraisals, lenders, etc. It’s looking like both deals … Continue reading “An appreciation of our team”
A few new deals
Just removed contingencies on two more deals. One is a fee for service deal with a long-term partner. The other is the first deal with the new pot of money we’re putting out. Both are pretty classic deals for us: 10 and 8 units, respectively Interesting bones Tons of deferred maintenance Improving areas near to … Continue reading “A few new deals”
How we forecast the rents
One of our key advantages in this business is our ability to accurately forecast rents for renovated units. We’ve previously discussed the importance of this skill: It’s understanding the rents that allows you to properly underwrite deals. We are able to do such accurate forecasting because we are constantly leasing renovated units in the neighborhoods … Continue reading “How we forecast the rents”
Why I love my job
One of the best things about my job is that it forces me to learn new things all the time. Today, I need to review a proposed Tenants-in-Common (“TIC”) agreement that will govern the relationship between two entities which will jointly own a property we intend to renovate. I have never seen a TIC agreement … Continue reading “Why I love my job”
How we would enter a new city
Have been thinking about what it would take for us to learn a new city. Other people do this by reviewing research reports and then visiting a few times for broker tours. That is not how we would do it. We would start with research in order to narrow down the choices to those cities … Continue reading “How we would enter a new city”