Starting Small in Real Estate Can Lead to Massive Wealth

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Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply. Subject to approval and eligibility, Built cards are issued by Column N.A., member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. Randy Fifield, welcome to Radical Wealth Plan. So nice to be here. And an old friend, for sure. For sure. It's wonderful for you to take time out of your day and spend it with us. One of the things that we do is talk to great entrepreneurs in real estate. Sometimes it's people just starting out. Sometimes people that have done it for a while and have an amazing track record. And you definitely fall into the latter. but start me out from, you know, I know, I know even as far back as college, you were, you were, you were starting out doing some real estate deals. So you've been doing it right from the get-go. Yeah. I am a self-made entrepreneur. I often think I'm really lucky because if I didn't get paid for it, I would have done it for free. And I started with a partner and really just by luck, Paul. The broker that we were working with understood finance and why you wanted to buy a minimum of six flat and the element of the oversized lot. And from there, it really worked out for us. It was a very good assignment and understanding finance and how to be marketable and successful. Now you said a six, a six flat. Yes. Yes. I know. I mean, some people start with one or, you know, a two flat, but. You're talking about units. Yeah, units. We started out with a center entrance, double-sided building. And, you know, when I talk to young entrepreneurs at business school, I often say, you know, you're going to achieve so much more in your life. Dream big. I stood in front of this building and I thought, oh my God, you know, I'm 22 years old. what is going on here? But it had real hardwood floors, high ceilings, plaster, great light. It was a beast to me, but a lot of opportunity. We were going to build it in Illinois. Danley Garage was the steel frame, you know, garage maker. And we needed the income, right? We wanted the return on investment. And so we built the garage, we rented the garage spaces, we renovated the units, we upped the rent, and lo and behold, a year later, we almost doubled our money. And that's on a six unit? On a six unit. So at that rate, nobody ever did, but we could have lived in it and paid the mortgage. What's interesting today is that you could almost do it today with a six flat. You can live in one unit and have those other five units, almost in categorically any other market in some markets you know it's hard in the apartment business to cash flow from month one but depending on the the way that you're going to optimize your building you you can pay your mortgage or cover that debt service right from the get-go and then as you're renovating as those units become available and you renovate them you're you're getting that rent growth and then refinance within your like year two if you're buying a three cap or a four cap it can go to a six or an eight depending on where interest rates are how you're monetizing your space what sub market you're in what zip code there's a lot of factors but even even today it still works and chase bank of america there's a lot of lenders out there harder today to get lending than in my, in my day, I had a partner. Um, so that was really good. When there's two of you on the mortgage, it's a little bit easier, but, um, you know, it, it, you can start with this. And if you say you're going to own or operate and live in the building, they're going to give you the mortgage. Right. Yeah. And there, there, there is, uh, there was a change in the FHA rules, uh, not that long ago. FHA always allows you to go up to four units. But even with an investment property, with a limited number of them, but they changed something. And that was if you occupy one of the four units, they treat it like a single family residence. So you could actually get into a four unit for like 5% down, which is totally unheard of. Yeah. Today, you can do that. Back in the day, we went to a local bank. So Cragen, which is no longer available for that. But local banks like to see people who live in their neighborhoods doing this in credit unions today also will lend on those types of assets. You know, I have my three rules and you're sort of touching on a few of them. But at that time, you were really, you were buying right where you knew the area. For sure. And then at some point, at some point you transition out of the six flat. It's amazing how long I've been doing this. And I never heard that term. Oh, six flat. Does that mean like not two-story or it's just six units? It was six units. Okay. All right. I've never heard that term. That's a Midwestern term. Right. Yeah. I'm from Pittsburgh. It's sort of Midwest, but okay. We missed that divide. And then when you doubled your money, it's not actually doubling the value of the property, it's doubling the amount of money that you have in the property. So you're achieving some of that through leverage. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, that's the key to real estate. You want to leverage your money. Right. And very, very conservative folks give advice about leverage because leverage accelerates, so it can really accelerate problems. And I know you've been through downturns and, you know, and survived and done, you know, come out the other side and, and, and, but, but leverage really accelerate, it will accelerate, dramatically accelerate a win. It can dramatically accelerate the downward spiral too. You have to be careful, you know, when you're, when you're looking at an asset and, you know, now I'm helping my children buy buildings and I'm investing in human capital and, you know, showing the next generation how to do it. And so we're running the pro formas. We're looking at how much we're putting down. But we're also looking at the same time running a parallel process with what's the exit. Is it a five to seven year hold? Is it a legacy asset? Because, you know, as you have generational wealth, which now we have generational wealth and, you know, children, you want to know, you know, are we going to hold on to this? In LA, one of the nice parts on a deal that we did just last year was buying in a zone that we, it's in Hancock Park. It looks like a house from the front. It's a two flat. It's zoned as a four. And, you know, we're always looking, right, Paul, for the hole in the donut. And this neighborhood has all the matrices, cranes in the air, medical, education, business. You know, you look for those factors, but a lot of people paid the same amount of money, knock the building down, and they're putting up four units to the front. And then they have found some mechanism that they're building two ADUs to the back. So very smart development, very smart family play in order to look for these two flats, because you can also use the Ellis Act. And if you have your children that are living in this building, you can take affordable housing and make it market rate housing. So, you know, we have to know the law, we have to know the zoning, we have to know the financing terms. You have to be very curious in our business to figure this out. And today, what I tell my kids is we need to check with our accountant, we need to check with a lawyer, and talk with the broker and know what you're doing in that sub market. Wow. Okay. So you said so many amazing things. I've got to unpack it a little bit. even just when you ran through your list, like I have to stop and put, you know, stop the stop the presses for a second, because you said some things like, like cranes in the air. And I know I know what you're talking about. You're talking about external signals that you can drive through a neighborhood and you can just look around and see these external signals that essentially are creating a buy signal. And so give me those again. So cranes are in the air, which means that there are other people developing other things nearby. So some of the things that we like, walk score. Can you walk to get your coffee? Can you walk to eat? Are you close to schools? Are you close to good health care? And are there other factors that say people are investing in this community? Hancock Park is such a great location in Los Angeles because one of my daughters is an interior designer. And so she's always in the design district. She can Uber for $5 and not worry about parking her car, load up another Uber, get it all back to her studio. And it's extremely efficient. And young kids today, they are so smart. They're so handy. And I learn a lot from my kids in doing this. But those are the factors. You want to look at job growth. You want to look at walk score. You want to look at where you're going to get your medicine. You want to look at where you're going to go to school or where you can go to school. Because those are people also, right, that are going to rent those apartments. And they're also people that are investing in the community. It's not that you just want to rent an apartment today, Paul, but you want people who are creating community, who are walking their dogs, who are looking after your wellness, who will help you if you, you know, I help somebody wearing a cast in a boot. How can I help you load your car? Like that's the kind of community this community is in this sub market. And and that builds wellness, whether you're an owner or a renter. I love it. I had a I had several very cool conversations with the late Sam Zell, who was Chicago man, who was, you know, a billionaire real estate developer. And I watched him give this talk. he was he was writing a book at the time and I knew my in I knew that you know and when I went up to say hi to him I was like hey I know you're writing a book everybody else is trying to figure out what they can get two seconds from Sam's I'm like hey I know you're writing a book mine was on the New York Times bestseller list are you interested in in how I might be able to help you with that and he's like oh my god of course you know the next thing you know I have Sam's cell phone number. But one of the things that he talked about was 24 hour cities. He made his money in the suburbs and then he sold his whole portfolio and then he was reinvesting again. He was reinvesting in what he called 24 hour cities. And I invest in LA. I only invest where I know and we'll talk about that later. But I had prior investments in Pittsburgh, which is where I grew up and then in LA and that's it. And, and I was like, okay, Pittsburgh. And he's like, no way. I'm like, oh no. Um, so I was, I had the opportunity to talk to him more than once. So I get to think about it, you know, so I'm thinking about it, thinking about it. Oh, you know, Sam's else tells me my portfolio is terrible. I got to listen to this guy. What's the, and then I realized that all of the units that I had in Pittsburgh were centered around, um, the not just local, but regional medical center, UPMC, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, you know, University of Pittsburgh is a massive school right down the street is Carnegie Mellon, another, you know, international school. And when I talked to him again about his book, I was like, okay, so the 24 hour thing, I'm not in a 24 hour, I'm in one 24 hour city, I'm in Pittsburgh, you said the last time we talked, you said no way. But what about being what if I'm near UPMC? And I explained, he's like, Oh, yeah, well, actually, when you're when you're in those areas, then it acts like a 24 hour city. And that's what you're talking about. A 24 hour city is exactly what I'm talking about. And it's, it's where the kids want to go, you know, and it's where I want to be, right? I love the walk score. I want to be able to go and walk to the grocery store, you know, and put my fresh food in my backpack. I want to go to the movies or shop or do things by foot. It keeps me healthy. It keeps me feeling good. California is a very dog-centered, friendly town. And so, you know, you can walk the dog and do a million things and be around a lot of very fun, curious, positive people. It does, I have to say, it does surprise me to hear you talk about, you know, a four unit that was just perfect, you know, in Hancock Park, because you've been doing it for so long and in such an order of magnitude at this point in time. I, I, I was talking to, you know, it's been, it's been a couple of years, but I was talking to our mutual friend, Rick Selby, who will have to get on the podcast. And I was showing, he's like, you know, show me, you know, show me, we'll do a deal together. Show me a deal. I'm like, okay, great. This is 24 units in Long Beach. It's near the ocean. It's dilapidated. It's perfect. You know, it's surrounded by the Catholic church, church had every feature that you're talking about. And he looks at the deal, he's like, this is a good deal. You should do it yourself because it just doesn't move the needle for me. Right. For sure. He's an urban infill large developer. And I've certainly done those deals. But today I'm 59 years old and it's the risk versus the reward. You know, with the pricing today of the land, the pricing of construction, tariffs, policy, California, you know, all of those factors, we definitely need more apartments, right? If we talk about cars and we say there's only so many finite cars, we're not going to produce any more, everybody realizes the cost of cars is going to go up, Paul. But somehow with housing, when you take it to a graduate school class or wherever you're talking about it, they don't really understand that apartments are actually constrained. And the taxes and the pension of these states and the constraint of not being able to build them fast enough is causing the prices to rise. It's not the greedy developer that's causing the problem and just charging more for rent. We have security to pay for. We have all of these other factors. And, um, we, I delivered, um, my last brand new building a year ago, um, in Florida and, um, it's leasing nicely. Uh, it took a lot of partners. It took a lot of money. It's not something that even Rick Selby is, you know, as big as his name is, he has a lot of partners and a lot of people investing on his behalf and his team. So you see one name in light, you know, like related companies, But there's a lot of people that, you know, are, I would say, sitting on the sidelines because of the risk. And, you know, small deals are, especially when it comes down to, for me, it's like taking my kids to graduate school and doing these smaller, smaller deals, right? It's an olive branch. And I don't think that we see many cranes. You know, we build stick in California. California. When you go downtown and you see concrete high-rise construction on apartments, very, very difficult to do today in any sub-market, New York, Chicago, even Nashville. And if you look to other markets like Arizona, Dallas, there's an overflow in Florida. So it's by the zip code. Some people have too much and some people don't have enough. But with people living longer and all of the peptides and exosomes and, you know, things that we're doing today, how wonderful, but we need more apartments just because people aren't going to always want to maintain the yard and the pool. And the thing about high rise developments that I love is that you have all of this community with shared resources. You know, you can have a pool and somebody downstairs It a lock and leave mentality But there also amazing neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles that have two flats four flats six flats the Palisades a lot of homeowners But before it burned, there were a lot of apartment buildings in Palisades that had a lot of older people in them. And that's where they should live. They need each other. They need community. They were cost efficient and not big tax bills at that time. and that was a great way for people to live. Again, lots and lots to unpack and I totally hear you. It's refreshing to hear you say that you're still looking at some of these smaller deals again for your family and for teaching and that sort of thing. But you also did this giant deal, I know, the Ambassador Hotel. That's not a four flat. No, she is almost 300 rooms in the Gold Coast of Chicago. We paid cash for her, put a group together. Financing was a little hard. And I think that, Paul, the nice part of real estate is that there's always a cycle, right? There's a cycle to build and there's a cycle when things go quiet. And then I call this like the value-add cycle. I think people are tired of things or they sent jingle mail with office buildings that you know, weren't making sense with tax structures or occupancy. And so, you know, if you're somebody like me, I'm curious about those things. And I've owned the Civic Opera building in Chicago. I've owned right in between the Cardinal and the Playboy Mansion, an 11,000 square foot grand mansion that was fun and that got published in Traditional Home. I think, you know, for me, being a shapeshifter according to the cycles has also been really good because besides six flats and houses and tall buildings and mid-size stick frame buildings I'm so excited to have a hotel if you're going to buy a hotel the ambassador where Frank Sinatra was in the Rat Pack and you know she's a hundred years old this year and I do this unique thing because I've had office buildings and I've had apartment buildings and I have a hotel. I talk about the life force and you know, they're 24, seven, three 65 apartment buildings. And I love the hotel, except the hotel and hospitality are sometimes even more fun because you get weddings, you get trips, you have business, you know, the lights are on and it is stimulating and fun. And people are so happy, whether they're doing afternoon holiday tea or, you know, meeting somebody in the bar, it really is just like there's a heartbeat to it, right? Office buildings, not necessarily a heartbeat, but I think amenitizing an office building today, I could see, you know, owning another office building and redoing it with podcasters and, you know, unique things that give it a heartbeat, a club downstairs, you know, food, money, exercise. There are places that definitely need an incubator or two. And you see families doing it, like the Gores family invested in an incubator, right, in Beverly Hills. You know, this is really good for them. And I think people are better together. I know people don't always want to go in, but honestly, we are better when we're having coffee and saying hello and talking people need one another I mean my head's gonna explode because I'm trying to uh there's so much amazing stuff we're gonna have to like have the Randy Fifield part two and three um but I don't usually I don't have the opportunity to interview somebody that's doing an ambassador hotel size deal who's also looking at fourplexes and um The other thing, you know, and I also I do I learn from all of my guests, but I'm taking a course right now, Randy. So I appreciate that. Just the things because I've been in it long enough. I can catch the like little things that you say. But the the OK, so the Ambassador Hotel, which, by the way, I get it. I'm like, I've been staying at Hotel Chelsea, which is beautifully renovated. And my, you know, best friend from law school is an A-list entertainment lawyer now. And I'm like, he's like, where are you staying? I'm like, oh, I'm staying at the Hotel Chelsea. He's like, are you crazy? You know? And then I'm like, you have to come by. And then when I came by, you know, he's like, he knows more about design than I do. He's like, you know, wait a minute, this fabric, I like, I had the, I put the same fabric on my sofa at home. And like, it's the highest end ever. Like I can't, you know, he's lost his mind when he saw it. And then when you see the, the, the history of it, you know, like who has lived there, you know, not even just stay there, you know, Rolling Stones, I mean, just the number of poets, you know, so Ambassador Hotel, you know, carries that sort of, that sort of amazing life force, as you said it. However, if I'm looking at a deal, I would not do a hotel deal. Or if somebody came to me and they said, hey, I've had all the success in multifamily. It's great. I'm looking at a hotel deal. I'd be like, stop. You must have someone on your team that knows hospitality very well. How do you do that so that you don't fall into like, oh, by the way, I'm great. I'm great at multifamily. I have this tremendous, tremendous track record. So I'm going to do great in a hotel. And then that's where my friends lose their shirt. No, I definitely have friends that are in the hotel business that are helping with this project. There is no doubt that they know the matrices and how to optimize the SEO and the PPC in order to have that door and that occupancy stay high. I think having good partners, I have a great person who is from the hotel business. I have a great partner who's from the finance business in that and all Chicago families, all name brand. And again, we talked about knowing where the puck is going and knowing what you want to do with the asset. So many people we're like, oh my God, this is amazing. I know the quality of work you do. I can't wait to see this expensive renovation. And I said, hold the phone. This is the Gold Coast. We're definitely trying to keep it a neighborhood place. We're not competing with the Four Seasons or the Langham Hotel here. The Gold Coast needs this type of asset so that kids can come home with their grand babies. People are living in condos on Lakeshore Drive, but they want to co-work. They want a gym. They want to walk to the zoo. They want to walk to the lake. So we're definitely trying to keep it in a price range where people choose us and have an experience for a certain dollar value. And what's hard in Chicago, as with most hotels, is the taxes and the amenity fee that you pay to have the clean sheets and only have it for three days, which I think everybody is struggling with at this point in time. But the renovations are not, it has beautiful bones, like you said, Ian Schrager was the last person that did it. And we bought this asset out of foreclosure. I think if you had to ask me, I think this is a legacy asset, at least for me and my family. That's how in the category that it goes in to invest in Chicago, where a lot of people are turning their back on Chicago. It felt right to be part of a family organization that says, we believe in this neighborhood, we believe in this asset, we believe in this city, we believe things are getting better. You want to be the person who's the believer. And I believe in that asset. I believe in the neighborhood and I believe in the mission of allowing people to come. It is, Chicago has, it was in the World's Fair. It has the lake that looks like it's on the ocean. It has, it's the home of the elevator. It's the home of the high rise. University of Chicago, University of Illinois. It has tech. It has the Obama library that's coming to it. It has a great walk score. It has amazing food. It has amazing people. I could just go on and on and on and on and on and talk about a 24 hour city. So much fun. And the only free zoo, Paul. So in New York or in Los Angeles, families have to save money to take their kids to an outing. If we were in Chicago, we could have done the podcast walking and looking at the polar bears and looking at the animals that are from the great donors of Chicago. They keep those doors open and they keep it a public amenity on the lakefront. And the plan is to renovate the lakefront so that everybody can go. You know, the land planners of Chicago always had the idea that people should be able to work, live and play on that lake. And they do. They run, they play baseball, they play soccer, they play volleyball, they walk their dogs, they lay in the sun, they swim. We have the polar bear plunge for the crazy people that want to jump in and it's freezing. And it all sits on some of the most beautiful real estate in the world. If I had to put one of the subtitles to this particular episode, it would be connection to the community. And there's just things that you say like, oh, well, this is interesting. That's interesting. You know, office buildings, not so much except for. And then you use the word amenitize. And immediately, like, I know what you mean. And you're talking about, okay, so you've got office building, office building, office building, they're all the same. But if we put one in this building is Soho Works, which is like the super fancy version of WeWork. And so if you took an office building, and that's, it's private club. And if you took an office building, you had like the same amenities, like who doesn't want to go there instead of the other thing. And I know that's what you're talking about when you say, okay, office building, amenitize. I'm going to go back to another thing, which was when you talked about the ambassador hotel, I pushed back a little bit and I say, look, you know, you're not really a hotel person. You must have hired a hotel person. Yes, yes, we do. But then you said something else and you're like, oh, and we bought it out of foreclosure. So the other thing is, the other lesson in that is like, for example, unless I have a team on it, I'm not good at like a fix and flip. You know, we have clients that are fix and flip and they're like, they're so good at it that they actually make their profit because they're so good at it. So they're buying something that like might, there's probably a bad buy for, or a mediocre buy for everybody else. And it's a good buy for them because they do the fix and flip so well. So I'm like, okay, there's no way that's for me. However, the properties that I buy, I always say I made the money on the way in and then, oh, well, you know, geez, you're not good at fix and flip. It doesn't matter, you know, and if it's, especially if I do it with my own money, if I do it with investor money, then I've got a duty and I've got to make sure we really have the right people on the, you know, saw this amazing piece of land that I know is like, it was so inexpensive. I just know that we're going to be able to develop it and, and it's going to be something fabulous, but because I own it myself, I'm like, eh, when I get around to it, it's 40 acres in Yucca Valley. It's pristine. You can subdivide it by right into four sections. So you have four 10 acre lots. I would never break up that beautiful space, but to put my own house there on the top 20 acres to develop two high end houses on the bottom. And I paid $120,000 originally for the land with a partner. And then immediately we got an offer for double. The partner wanted out. I created a net sheet and I'm like, okay, here's what we'll do. Here's the net sheet. If we sell to that person, let me take, go to the bottom of the net sheet. Here's what you would have netted. Let me give you a few dollars more. So I paid 60,000 for half of the lot. And then I paid 120 for the second half of the lot. My partner was as pleased as to be because, you know, he doubled his money in a year. And now I'm sitting on 40 acres that I spent $180,000 for, which you can just, is just irreplaceable in that area. So, so the connection to the community also really is that a sort of a connection to the product. So you're like looking at all these like office buildings and now you can buy them, you know, inexpensively. And, you know, now you're going to amenitize it, which really is sort of all the way back to the Sam Zell thing of like, well, we're going to take this thing and we're going to make it cool. And then, you know, the kids, whatever, people are going to want to want to be there instead of one of these other jury. Did I do okay? You did great. But we want to be there too, right? I mean, I think that I learn a lot from being around younger people. And I think that the energy of creating, whether you're amenitizing or I love the, I love the flip. I've, I've done the, the flip myself. and yeah, I mean, I think being a shapeshifter, I like all those things and I do love the hotel. I am so excited about her. I can't even stand it. We had about a hundred people in Chicago. I called them the champions of Chicago and one was a broker and one was an architect. Another person was an association person and this was right at the beginning of December And we just filled everybody with all the good things. The news, it's really hard to listen to the news because, you know, it's like if it bleeds, it leads. And it's become such a negative society. But honestly, Paul, I think the world has never been a more interesting place. It doesn't mean that it's easy. I said interesting, where people are learning to collaborate, right? Today, in the beginning, it was very lonely for me to do deals by myself. Today, I love that word collaboration. I love the fact that in the hotel, I probably have five or six people that I enjoy at every level. And what do I love most? I love the fact that I don't have to watch that asset full time myself. We get on a call Monday morning, or I touch base with my partners about different things that we're talking about. and I have great quality of life. I can be in Florida playing pickleball one day or peer designing with my kids in LA on what they're wanting to do. And in the Palisades, like let's talk about the Palisades for a second and all the people that have, it's not fast, but Rick Caruso is a huge champion. There's a lot of people, including my daughter and myself that are trying to help people still go home with dignity, grace, love, renewal, it's I think when when you're somebody who has I you can't see it but I was given a heart of gold and it was a gift from somebody who said you are the most positive loving compassionate person that I know I you need to wear a heart of gold and I think that there is something that comes across whether you're at the hotel whether you're at one of our buildings anywhere in the nation And being privately owned, operated, they just feel differently because that love streams through. They feel like they're having an experience when you're turning the door. They know that somebody cared for them or in that environment while they were there and they leave. You can say a lot of things to people, but how you make them feel stays with them. So I think that that's one of the things that we look for. is making people feel good. And honestly, it's like, it's like the opposite of the Leona Helmsley, you know, stereotype of the, you know, I guess you have to be old to know, you know, to know that story, but you know, they dubbed her the queen of mean because she would just be so mean to everybody. And they had a great, you know, hotel and real estate empire. And, and she, you know, she was just the opposite. You don't find a lot of women. in this business that are willing to sign the loan and take the risk. And you do have a lot of personalities. I know a lot of really mean men that are very, I know more mean men in real estate than I know of mean women. Most of the women that I know are really problem solvers and they show up and they have also a good heart, but two good hands and they're super uber smart. In fact, one of my partners on the hotel is an engineer and she figures out how to fix the roof and how to do the bricks and mortar. And you can have a lot of problem solvers, but you need your team of good people. And I think today, like Rick Caruso is just such a, I was at the tree lighting in the Palisades and you think about all the things that he's done good for this city. It's an altruistic position that he has. And I think it interesting the philosophy of that he came from an entrepreneurial family He kind of led the torch in a different direction And now he has the opportunity with also a hotel right You know you see him doing the pivot There a lot of us doing the pivot that remain wanting to give back in ways that we can And by creating business, by creating jobs, by creating opportunity, by making things look pretty, it feels so good, Paul. You know, and it's it's sometimes I have no words. I just am filled with grace. And I'm so glad you made that point because when I was thinking about, Leon, I was thinking about how kind I know you are and how that can sit inside of a for-profit business. And you're not going to look at a deal and it's a bad deal and do the deal because you have a heart of gold. You're going to look at a deal, you're going to find a great deal and handle it like a person with a heart of gold. and and you know and i'm glad you mentioned the the thing because i was just thinking about you know all the press that leona helmsley got and now that you mentioned it's like i wouldn't be surprised by the way if she got the queen of mean and all that sort of thing because she was a woman and that she got more outsized outsized bad press because of that and and you're right you know i know a lot of mean men in real estate and other businesses are they right there's no question. But you did say that you don't see a lot of women that will like sign the loan and, you know, and do the deal. Do you think there's, is there some reason for that other than? I think it's in the future, we'll see more. You see Jeannie gang, you see people, and she's also a really nice person and a very thoughtful person. You will see more women, you know, Jeannie's an architect, right? So she's not really signing the loan. She gets a lot of credit. But in Florida, there's a lot of lady developers that you'll see. You'll see more in the future because they're learning how to take that risk. And we've lived in a time where people realize that women are good, thoughtful, mindful builders, and they're not going to shy away from these opportunities. One of the things you said was you went to the value add, you said this is a value add cycle. And a stat that I read was in 2026, there'll be $1 trillion of debt maturing. And I didn't research it, but my guess would be that's probably, it's not like, it's probably average, right? The same amount of debt is maturing each year because the debt was taken out a certain amount of years ago. However, of the $1 trillion worth of debt, $120 billion of that debt was taken at a time when interest rates were half what they are now. And so that is going to create tremendous opportunity in the years to come. For sure. I mean, you see this in every sector, whether it's the home, the apartment, the office building. Yeah, everybody talks about it as the great reset, right? And we've also had COVID and we've also had all sorts of hurricanes and fires and people getting older and not wanting to work as hard as they used to. And listen, the banks don't want to be in the real estate business. They're going to make the right choices with the right people to reimagine these spaces, which will create a lot of opportunity for men, women, children, families. And that's how real estate is always gone. You know, Paul, we've seen the cycles, we've seen these times, maybe not these exact circumstances, but they're reimagining all sorts of parts of California. And I think that hopefully our politicians and administrations are realizing, you know you want your retired people to be able to stay how do we make that happen we want new families so today i read a statistic that used to be 30 years old as a first-time home builder today some people are 59 years old and they've never owned a home but they're buying these homes in palm springs there's buying they're buying their first family home or in retirement they're settling down and they're paying cash for things if you go to certain sub markets in florida in naples all they do is pay cash. Really, nobody has a mortgage in Naples, Florida. So there's all sorts of unicorns out there. But what I think, for me, what is a very important message when I'm speaking to you or schools is that young people today feel this intense pressure to be a unicorn. And what I would really want somebody to know about my story is that I started out with a partner buying one building, never realizing that there'd be over a billion dollars in assets or buildings, right? You have to start, everybody has to start with one, right? If they're an organic entrepreneur, you start with one, you're scared out of your mind, you figure it out, and then you either take some time off or you're like, I want to do it again. And I describe myself as a vampire. There are times when I have to like sit, sit out and think like I've delivered this building, I'm tired. I and I'm always looking like there's always deals like, you know, sometimes you talk to people like, Paul, there's no deals. There's nothing's getting done. And I'm like, that's not true. Deals cross my desk every day. It's whether you have the appetite to do them, the money to do them, the desire to do them, the risk profile suits you. So like that's a bunch of hooey that, you know, deals are there all the time. And you can play the mind candy game of just doing them for the exercise of just trying to figure out the puzzle. but sometimes, Paul, I am going to look at one deal and then I'm turned. And at this point in my life, I can vibrate. I'm like, just like the Ambassador Hotel. And also in real estate, you love depreciation. You love renovating. Why? Because it's very good for your taxes. You don't always want, especially now today in the stock market being as high as it is on this very day. You need depreciation. You need, especially, you know, that big, bold, beautiful bill. Like there are things in there that you should get curious about, like, because they offer unique things that you can take advantage of, like taking all your depreciation in one year. That can change your deal. Like that is a game changer for some people in certain places. the 529, giving money to your grandchildren. You can pre-fund three years of, and take it out of your deal. You know, I mean, that is a very good way. And that's one of the things that you learn at being 59 years old, right? You learn about a 1031, you learn about a 529, you learn about a Roth IRA, you learn about human capital and investing in people. At least I hope that, you know, people learn about these things and continue the cycles because that's, that, that is what leads us to our next deal. And, you know, Sam Zell died doing a deal. I think I'll, I'm not, I'm not retiring. I will definitely die with something in the progress. And I'm so lucky that I have five people and my children know what's going on. You know, I don't believe in keeping secrets. I'm a very transparent person. And I think that's how we all learn and grow. But I also am just so excited about how to reimagine the world. And no matter what market I'm in, I'm in Denver, I'm in Dallas, I'm in Atlanta, I'm in San Antonio, Texas, I'm in California, I'm in many sub markets in Florida. Some, Paul, I have won the median age. When I started in this business, everybody, it was like Melrose Place. All of my tenants were 22 years old and beautiful. I own a whole, like almost half a block. And one of the brokers said, oh, you know, Randy Fifield, she's the, like the Melrose Place, hang an American flag, paint it white, put up a fence where the puppies and the kids drink beer in the yard over their fire pit. And I was like, really? Like, that's how people think of me. And he's like, well, in this neighborhood, they're really thankful because you've created this brand where, you know, they were discombobulated buildings and you just kept buying them one at a time. And the most profitable building in that fleet was actually a house that the developer of all of these units called and said, listen, I'm just going to give it to you at cost because I can't have you owning all that you own. And I don't want this one to maintain that has to be yours. And then I walked in and I thought, oh my God, like I'm an apartment girl. What am I going to do with this house? And I said to one of my construction guys, punch a hole in the ceiling and tell me what is above it. And so it was an A-frame house. We punched the hole and I'm like, okay, keep hitting it, keep hitting it keep hitting it and we took down and it had 12 foot vaulted ceilings with the original beams and a doctor ended up overpaying by like three times because he wanted that and then we ended up renovating it was an old garage but it had the rights to be a guest house it was amazing right and so you didn't buy all those other ones thinking that this was going to be the pick of the litter but that's how it worked out and that's not what the pro forma said because it was a low rent and a really yucky house. Well, lo and behold, she was the cherry on the Sunday. Again, I'm just going back to the things that you're saying, but one of the highlights, a takeaway is, you know, going from your first six flat and being scared to death to getting to a point where you can just sort of vibrate. And, and that, that is, that's decades, that's decades on the job and it's paying attention the whole time, it's learning, you know, your willingness to learn still at 59 and having done it for this long. That's how you sort of earn your way to being able to vibrate, you know, for a great deal. And that's a great message for people is, you know, sitting on the sidelines is not going to get you, it's not going to get you anywhere. I agree. I'm part of the Money News Network and their lead, Nicole Lappin, she's phenomenal, top five podcaster in business. And she's just very geared toward the stock market. And she looks at it and she said to me, she, she, she said to me, look, the S and P 500, you know, has done 10% over this, you know, big, long period of time and, and, you know, real estate in the same period of time has done four and a half percent. So why don't we just rent and, you know, invest in the stock market? And I'm like, I don't have, you know, I don't have clients that want four and a half percent, you know, no, they're taking a four. They might take a four cap, you know, that's a value add, figure out how to make it, you know, a six cap. And they've only put down 40 percent. I mean, you can almost do that math in your head. You've now increased the total value of the building by 50 percent. Right. Because you're going to take it back down to a four cap from a six. You do that by increasing the price. And now the 40 percent that you put down has just doubled. My people are not doing a 4.5% long reign, long term, let alone the other thing you mentioned was the big, beautiful bill, which is something we've talked about before. Probably we'll shoot a solo episode where I'll just sit down and say, okay, look, this is what cost segregation is. This is how it works. Everybody that's making, I have clients that are just doing so well, making lots of money doing what they're doing that's not in real estate. And I'm like, you have to buy some real estate that we can cost segregate and get the 100% depreciation to offset that income. So we'll probably do one of those. One of the things that you said too, it's a while back in the interview, but of course I earmarked it, is sort of getting your team together. And Even when you're talking to your daughters about, you know, a fourplex in Hancock Park, you're like, okay, we've got to know the law. We've got to know the zoning. We've got to know the financing. And we've got to have a great broker. How does someone who's new to this game cover those hurdles? So you could go to the internet and you can go to loopnet.com. You can look if you wanted to look at apartment buildings. You have to, I used to call it the back of the envelope. And so you don't need a fancy algorithm to do a back of the envelope pro forma. And brokers in Los Angeles that are doing small multifamily deals, they really do want to educate you. They're like teacher brokers and they know who to go to for financing. They know the engineers. They know the people that you can get your insurance that can help you pour new foundations. that the Ellis Act, one of my daughters is a lawyer. I have to say, and in filing the Ellis Act, which is very helpful, you really do need a lawyer. And we did a third party manager. And that's another reason why I love what I do. I don't self-manage. Somebody like Rick Selby, he does self-manage. And so when I say I have a lot of partners, third party managers for me have been fabulous because they're the people that get the call when there's a problem. And they're also the partners that help you fix your problems. So having a lawyer in our family has really helped us do these deals as well. But you can go, there's also books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, real estate development books that you can read. And a lot of podcasters will tell you. I think there's a lot of people that have learned from me, whether, you know, in Chicago, there's very few women real estate developers and more so today. But people say, you know, she started with one. You know, they know you for a high rise that sits on the corner of LaSalle, but they really don't know that you just started out renovating a building, you know. And so they dig a little bit and then they figure it out or they'll listen to you. how how many uh do you have a sense of how many units you've done oh your career um or value of the real because i know you mentioned the billion dollars have been a billion dollars through the portfolio or yeah today uh in my whole lifetime uh oh my gosh probably like eight billion dollars of development, but sold. You know, if you look at the algorithm, we thought that we would, we built a development of five buildings in K Station, and we thought that we would own them as a family legacy. And then 2008 happened, and they all got sold. Today, we don't own any of them. And large buildings, you know, there's a sweet spot, by the way. You talked about Rick Selby and people doing high-rise construction today. We lived in a very interesting time, Paul, because sometimes people built skyscrapers that were 30, 40, 50 stories tall. And then you found out they're very hard to sell because not a lot of people can afford them. And so the sweet spot in our business, if you were going to build something today, it's like 250 units is really the sweet spot. because you can find families that right here in LA that want to own those. And LA, they say it's a very interesting market because they'll get a 3% return. They just want to own in California. A lot of people like you, you don't really leave California today. A lot of people don't leave California. They really like California real estate and they're willing to work here. For me, I'm chasing cash flow and I love Atlanta. I love Florida. I love Chicago. I love a lot of places and I have really good partners in all those places. And so, you know, we talked about too, you know, you mentioned the girl who's in the stock market and she's like, why would you even possibly do that? There are people that are risk averse. There are people, you know, and that's the love of real estate. There's people that love shopping malls, Simon companies that, you know, they don't really want to own the apartments, even though they probably own some. But you and me as shapeshifters, as people who inspire people, there's probably somebody that's going to watch this podcast that has a lot of money in the stock market and runs an operating company. And it's like, wow, I'm going to go and I want that depreciation. I don't want to pay all those high taxes. And they're going to call you or they're going to call me and be like, show me a deal. Show me how to show me how to do this. And that's what you really want. You want diversity on your team. You want diversity in the workplace. You want diversity in the assets You want diversity in your investments We love that word diversity It a good word You talked about the back of the envelope pro forma That something that I talk about all the time. I talk about it to the point where I actually got an envelope out. I'm like, let me show you how to underwrite a deal on an envelope. And the flip side of it is the guy that got me into Tiger 21 was one of my business partners. He's part of Tiger in Austin, you know, from so many years ago, and he's very successful and very smart. And he got into business with somebody that was doing this like, you know, massive pro forma on, on multifamily, you know, which I was like, hats off to you. You know, I'm not, I'm not down to that level of, of, of analysis. And then he called me and said, you know, I've had it with, with multifamily. I just lost a fortune in multifamily. And I literally asked him not to be a jerk. I said, how did you lose a fortune in multifamily? Because I need to know this because I haven't, you know, like, I don't want to be a jerk about it. Like I haven't, I haven't lost any money in any deal ever, which is, you know, it might be that I'm not far enough out on my skis. I, maybe I should, should take more risk, but, but, you know, just following the basics. And one of the basics that he didn't follow was he's living in Austin and he bought in Texas, but he bought in an area that he didn't know. And the pro forma looked great. Every pro forma looks great. They don't make them look bad. Pro forma looks great. And then the building got yellow flagged for gang related activity, which means the next thing is a red flag, which means you get into big trouble. And he didn't know how to handle it because he wasn't local, didn't understand the local laws and he just exited and he exited rather than like lose all of his money, lost half of his money. It was a fortune, you know? And, and those are the things that, you know, you don't need to, you, when, when the, when the, when the brokers send me the packages and I'm, I look at the package and I'm like, I've been in business, I've been at this for 30 years. Like, I don't understand the package? Like how is somebody else going to understand the package? And part of it is I don't understand the package because it needs to have an executive summary that's about a page long that tells you exactly what it is. And then probably if I read, if they did that, and then I read the executive summary, I'd probably throw it in the garbage bin immediately. And I didn't have the patience to get past the first few pages because there's no real value add. There's no real whatever they're expecting the market to go up. And that's how you're going to make your money and over time and blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, you really can, you really can underwrite these deals on the back of the envelope. That was also one of my points back to Nicole, which fabulously smart, amazing. And then after I got off the show, because she sort of surprised me with a question because you asked me, Hey, what are the questions? And there's no, there's no hardcore surprise here, but she likes to, you know, really hit somebody with a surprise or two. And that was my surprise. And afterwards I went and I looked at it. Okay, well, let me fact check her. Okay, she actually is right. So it's 10% over this period of time in real estate on average return, four and a half percent. She's right. And then I'm like, okay, well, what percentage of fund managers, professional fund managers beat the 10% return on the S&P? Very few. Right. Okay. That's right. Right. I would have guessed 50 percent because if you throw a dart against the board, you're going to get 50 percent. But then there's the cost that they charge. And when you bake in the cost, they're throwing the dart and they're 50 50 just went down to like 70 or 80 percent of fund managers do not outperform the S&P 500. Right. So when I believe that this is still true, two things are true. Two things are true and two things can be true. And, you know, one of the jokes is, you know, how do you make a small fortune in real estate? And that is you start out with a large fortune. But the other thing is, is that in real estate, you get and this, of course, changes with the government and the times and who's your president and what state you're in and all of these things. There's a lot of benefits to owning real estate that putting your money in the stock market just doesn't offer. um again you have to have an appetite for those things and not everybody is built the way that we are i wasn't the general partner i have had um buildings go back to the bank not because i did something wrong but the proformas said you need to rent the parking you need to uh rent the units at this price and the land was purchased for X and it was as of right. And then it wound up in a municipality that had a 30% affordable contingency. And then the general partner deemed that we could give away parking for free as an incentive and the retail never leased. So you can lose money by not just one whammy, but like your friend in Texas by multiple cuts to that, that you just, and then you have to worry about recapture. Did you, did you take, did you get any distributions? You know, is there phantom income to writing that? And so you have to understand, you know, why, why you're doing the deal, what you're looking to get out of the deal. What are the odds of the deal. Is your building stabilized? Are you doing a lease up? In COVID, I was in the process of getting divorced, building my own brand, my own name. I was working out of a trust and I found some great opportunities. And the lender gave me 3% money for 20 years. Wow. What a gift, right? But I also, they knew of my track record. The developer couldn't lease the building because of COVID. And he said, you know what, why don't you let Randy try and come in and help you lease these? She's a good marketer. And Randy, we're going to give you the loan. Here's the letter. When you get 70%, when you help this developer get 70% lease, we're going to trigger to close. And we got it to 70, almost at market rate rents. But we created such a vibe and such a zhuzh at 70%. It took me, I want to say like eight months to close that deal. We found the asset at 20%. It took us a long time to lease it. It took me less than six weeks to get to 94, and it stayed at 94. That 3% mortgage and those people, they knock on my door all the time. What are you doing lately? And I'm like, yeah, I don't have those things. But when you're doing a deal like that, you have to work all the way through. And then as I'm going to Dallas, I'm meeting with my lenders. As I'm going to Atlanta, I'm meeting with lenders. As I'm going to Chicago, I'm meeting and always shaking hands and doing podcasts and, you know, trying to work my brand. I don't always necessarily like lease apartments these days personally, although I'm happy to tour you if I'm in the building and people know who I am. I definitely can do that. But I think the point is, is that, you know, it's risky. The stock market's risky. You know, not everybody's going to pick NVIDIA and not everybody's going to pick a high rise or a mid rise or, you know, there's a lot of people out there, Paul, that just want a roof over their head. You know, Americans are by and large fairly simple. And I still think the American dream is to own a home. I want to believe America is a good, right place for doing that. And if we can help them, inspire them with renovation or community or however, I'm grateful to do it. I love it. I guess we have to stop somewhere. And maybe we'll do this again. Off camera, we sort of looked at talking about optimizing online presence because so many things are online. and I looked at your Google confidence score, I was expecting it to be a 24, despite how prolific you are. And, you know, it's, it's 10 times that. And I guess if I had had, we had had the podcast and then I guessed I probably, I might've done a little better on my guessing because you're doing so much in the community. They're doing so much with, you know, something like a project like the ambassador hotel. One thing I didn't ask you about, I just wonder if we even have time to get there is I also know that you did quite a bit in affordable housing. And do you want to tell me about that and then we can wrap up? So I have a workforce housing fund. Right. It is not, it's a unique unicorn. It's a market rate affordable fund that it caters to baristas, teachers. It follows the same algorithm as the mid-rise and the high-rise. And basically I was able to start it in Chicago. knowing that, knowing great brokers. And it still is today. It's about $50 million. I also do have a low-income housing deal. I think that for people that do that, they just love that segment. They're not going to be, for me, it was like a little bit of an adjunct. I was going back to graduate school, like I am with the hotel and being like, oh, I'm a shapeshifter. I'm going to look at this. There's a lot of moving parts to that working with municipalities, working with charities, working with that. And so not my favorite, but I'm still glad that I did it. I'm still glad that I learned. I'm still glad that I'm taking care of people. It has a lot of depreciation. And so it does help with where the stock market is today. But I think that I still own her. I don't think that it's something that I would love to do again. She takes a lot of my time. And so the one funny thing is, is that that workforce housing fund, at one point, it was like $100 million fund. And every now and again, I would look at how much time am I spending on the buildings. And I would make the good girl list and the bad girl list. If I was always like upgrading and not getting the rent growth and having to work on things and they became very hard, I packaged them and I sold them and redeployed the money. And today, a lot of the things that I have are really, I'm very lucky. They're really good girls and they're really good long-term. And you can refinance. Interest rates dropped yesterday and I am, because the basis is so low, I'm taking money out. And that's how you, another way that you can do this out. I'm going to go and buy another building just on what I'm taking out and refinancing. I'm going to go buy another one. So I'm like looking for a deal and, and that's how it goes. I love it. Um, it's been like amazing. And like I said, you know, maybe I'll even just digest this and come up with part two and, and, and, you know, what we'll, we'll, we'll come to maybe come to the lobby or someplace cool in the ambassador hotel and shoot the, shoot the part two. I would love you to come to the ambassador hotel, but if we come, we definitely have to walk because it's right between sin and redemption. The Cardinal lives on the corner. The Playboy mansion is there. It has, we can walk to the zoo. We can walk to the park we can walk to the lake and i think it'd be really fun to kind of take the paul show on the road and uh we do have a lot of the legacy pictures in black and white of marilyn monroe sammy davis jr uh loretta switt you know just a lot of these iconic i i as i get older i cherish the years where we come we've come from paul and um to own the ambassador hotel and that little slice of history is an honor. Oh, and I know the young woman at 22 that was scared to death with the six units was not thinking that the Ambassador Hotel was in the cards. I went to prom at the Ambassador Hotel. Yes. And when I walked in, we have a beautiful, glamorous, like small staircase. And when I was 18 years old, I thought, wow, I am home. Like, this is my place. And so I go back to all these years later where I'm saying how I vibrate. I was tickled even then to be able to walk in the door. And now when I go visit, you know, the rooms are still old. The bathrooms are small. Instead of carpeting, we have hardwood floors. And it's very still Ian Schrager, black and white. But she's mine. And I love her. And I'm so grateful to be home at the Ambassador Hotel. Wow. Even if she's always going to be under renovation, you know, it never stops. You just with the hotels, you just every seven years, you just keep redoing her. Wow. It really, truly gave me chills to hear that you went to your prom there. And now I'm going to have to like change my own bucket list, you know, some iconic moment that, you know, I had. Interesting. Okay. so one of the things we do is uh what i call the fire round and i've got questions that you know we could talk forever about but i'll just ask the question i'm not going to comment you give me top of the mind uh what your answer is and uh we'll we'll take it from there um what's your idea of perfect happiness wanting what you have what's your greatest fear i don't really live that way. What's the best compliment you've ever gotten? A heart of gold. What's an insult you've received that you're proud of? I'm cheap. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Negativity. What's a trait you don't like in yourself? Well, I love it and I don't like it. Being persistent and consistent. What do you consider to be the most overrated virtue? Being self-assured. What's the quality you most like in a person? Oh, I like a lot of qualities in people, but honesty and integrity. What's a talent that you don't have that you'd most like to have? There's always room to ask more questions. What's your greatest extravagance? probably my children what's your most treasured possession my children and my dog what do you consider your greatest achievement I think seeing things through a lot of people they'll start something and they don't finish or they they're good strong starters but they run away and I'm going to show up for you with you by your side and you know finishing is difficult but I'm going to wrap it up in a bow whether it's a melting ice cream cone or it's a rising star I'm going to shake your hand and thank you for the experience of learning. Wow if you'd be remembered for one thing what would it be? Giving to a world that I a time I wouldn't see. You referred to yourself as a shapeshifter several times during the podcast, what does that mean to you? I think somebody, it's like, you know, having clay, you know, you can mold it to be a lot of different things and you have to consider a lot of different factors and being okay with the outcome. You know, I also wanted to say that, Paul, you know, we live in a time of kids thinking that they have to be a unicorn in order to be successful. And I was always just happy, like with that first building to get on first base, and then to run to second and then to run to third. Very few times in my life, have I ever hit a grand slam. And honestly, just getting to first base, getting to second, getting to third and crossing the home plate, like that, that is very fulfilling. And a lot of people, you don't hear that story. But if you looked at my net worth and who I am. And the fact that I'm 59 and that I still want to like take the bat and I love to go and hit baseballs. I love to hit golf balls. I love to hit pickleball. I love to play catch and fetch with my dog. I'm constantly like very youthful and playful and joyful. And that's how I approach my deals. I love it. So Randy, we've got some great, we have some great some great hikes in LA. Um, you, you climb up to the top of sort of a difficult climb. You get to the peak of the hike, you look down and you see your, your kids and your, maybe your dog's with you, but you see your kids and your family and the people you work with and colleagues in your whole community. And you shout one thing. What do you shout? We did it together. We're better together. I love it. Thank you.