← The Kirsh Connection
The Kirsh Connection
Leaving a Legacy Through Real Estate and Philanthropy. My Conversation with Mark Weinstein, Founder of MJW Investments
00:45:09
Loading summary
Transcript197 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate discussions with Andrew Kirsch. In each episode, Andrew interviews industry leaders. We'll hear their real time opinions on today's market, their background and unique career highlights and guidance for newcomers into the industry. You can find this show@skalalkirsch.com and on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts and more. Now here's the host of Real Talk, Andrew Kirsch.
- [00:31]
B
Welcome to another episode of Real Talk. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know me and my family did. I just want to say thank you to all my listeners, to all of our Sklar Kirsch clients. Without you guys wouldn't have a show and wouldn't have a law firm. So really appreciate you all. This week on Real Talk we have Mark Weinstein, the founder of MJW Investments. On the show, Mark is a born and bred Los Angeleno like myself, he started doing deals in downtown LA well before it was in vogue in the mid-90s when Staples center was being built. He talks about the growth of downtown LA and what it is today, unfortunately, and how he pivoted and entered the sub asset class of student housing and the types of universities that he selects for his student housing investments. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Mark Weinstein.
- [01:36]
Welcome to another episode of Real Talk. I am here with my good friend, client YPO colleague Mark Weinstein, founder of MJW Investments. Mark, how you doing?
- [01:49]
C
Doing good. It's good to be here. You have a beautiful new office.
- [01:51]
B
Well, Mark, thank you so much for coming in. You're the second person to experience the new studio and it's great to have you.
- [01:59]
C
Good to be here.
- [02:00]
B
So in case, look, you're so everyone knows you in la, but in case there's some audience members of mine who've been sleeping under a rock, why don't you briefly talk about mjw. We'll dive in and then we'll go into your background. But just what is MJW?
- [02:16]
C
So MW Investments, something I started about 40 years ago.
- [02:20]
B
40? You're only like 38.
- [02:21]
C
I'm only 38 but actually my kids. Listen to this kids. I'm 37 but we started out doing apartments and some development and we're mostly a student housing owner operator and also multifamily owner operator. And as you guys have worked on both product types for us and we have about a billion and a half square feet of apartments, storage, student housing, a few other asset types, but majority student housing and we are located in west la. I grew up in Canoga park.
- [02:59]
B
And I'm a local guy, so let's get into that. Canoga Park. So tell me about growing up there.
- [03:07]
C
So it's a little sleepy community. You know, it's a working middle class community in San Fernando Valley. My high school was kind of a melting pot of different nationalities.
- [03:21]
But a good school.
- [03:24]
B
What was that? What high school? It was Konoga Park. It is Canoga.
- [03:26]
C
And I lived down the street from the school and, you know, went to elementary school in the area, junior high, high school. I'm still friends with some of my friends from elementary school actually.
- [03:38]
And I ran track and cross country. I was a good athlete in high school and in college. And that kind of molded an experience for me because I think I got more accepted by the.
- [03:52]
Fellow runners. It was kind of something I was really good at, naturally.
- [03:56]
B
Wow. Did you run in college?
- [03:58]
C
I ran in College at UC Santa Barbara. Red tracking a little bit of CrossFit cross more for training. But track was my main thing and that in college and still friends with the guys on the team. We have reunions up in Tahoe and we do zoom sometimes and it was a great brotherhood and Ferrari for me was trash. And Friday night spaghetti dinners with all.
- [04:22]
B
The team because you have to carb up before.
- [04:27]
I played baseball in college, but I also ran cross country as a way to train for by main sport in high school. And I remember the carving up. Do you think track runners and cross country runners have the same diet today than they did 30, 40 years ago?
- [04:44]
C
I think with technology and all the new information on diet, I think it's probably a little different. But, you know, the carb thing still makes sense to me for long distance running. But I'm sure they're healthier than we were. We. We eat a lot of carbs.
- [04:58]
B
Yeah. Do you still run today?
- [05:00]
C
I don't run. I do the elliptical and bike. I stopped running a long time ago because I had a lot of injuries from running.
- [05:08]
B
Yeah.
- [05:09]
C
And I wanted to be able to exercise long term. I exercise every day. And so I did. The running was a little bit too much pounding.
- [05:16]
B
Yeah. So. So. All right, so you went to US ucsb and what did you do after graduation?
- [05:25]
C
I always wanted to be a lawyer like you. So I went to law school because that was something that I wanted to do when I was very young and went to Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and I lived downtown area to be able to walk to school. And it seems like a long time ago.
- [05:41]
B
Wow. And then did you practice law?
- [05:43]
C
I practiced law for about two years.
- [05:45]
B
See, this is where you got smarter than I am.
- [05:47]
C
Yeah. Basically what happened was really wanted to do philanthropy, and I didn't think as a lawyer, I was going to make enough money. And so it's a real. I saw people doing real estate. I go, whatever this real estate thing is, you know, I think I can make more money doing that and I can make a bigger impact on the community. And so while I was in law school, I organized my first deal.
- [06:09]
B
And what was it?
- [06:10]
C
So it was five units, four unit apartments and a house. And I went around school asking students, you know, do you have student loan money? Do you have work money? Whatever monies do you have? You should invest with me in this deal.
- [06:22]
A
Wow.
- [06:22]
C
And we bought. We bought the deal and we fix it up ourselves. We managed it ourselves. It was. It was near school.
- [06:31]
And yeah, it's my first deal.
- [06:33]
B
Most law students are just trying to make sure they don't, you know, fail out after contracts and torts and constitutional law. And here you're making deals happen at 23 years old.
- [06:46]
C
Yeah, it definitely was interesting. I had the bug. And once I started looking at the different stuff, I mean, the dean of the school told me that he thought I should.
- [06:57]
Focus on my studies, but I got him to go around with me and look at different things. I said, for the school, we should have student housing.
- [07:03]
B
Did you get him to invest?
- [07:04]
C
I did not get him. Father Michonne was his name. I remember.
- [07:07]
B
Okay.
- [07:10]
So you were the first student. You were a pioneer in student housing.
- [07:14]
C
Yeah, definitely. You know, the building was near school, but yeah, I didn't. I didn't go out and actually get more units for student housing like I first was actually thinking about. I did decide, you know, I got to focus on school and pass the bar and sure, my career.
- [07:31]
B
All right, so a couple years of practicing law and then what?
- [07:34]
C
Well, while I was practicing, while I was still doing deals and interesting thing happened is that this famous attorney called Melvin Belli had an office in Beverly Hills. He was a big famous trial attorney. And I had an opportunity to transition over there to work half time as a lawyer. He let me work on a really big case and with a lot of people that were much older than I was, and I had to do my. I could get a salary for that and I could spend half time doing real estate. And so I was doing more deals. And in the evening, a crew of people would come to the office. It was like a boiler room operation. We were cold calling from the apartment directory, reverse directories with Owners and seeing if they would sell their apartment buildings to us.
- [08:20]
B
Wow. I mean, a lot of lawyers turned real estate owner operators or equity providers. Stan Eisman, I think, Dick Simon and many others. And I don't know, I just, I continued the law path so.
- [08:39]
C
Well, you're a great networker and you're smart that you've invested in real estate and continue to invest. But you know, I just, like I said, I just saw it as a bridge to doing bigger things. And I didn't ever work for anybody in real estate, so I kind of had to figure it out as I work went. They take a secured transaction class at law school, I remember with trustees and things like that. But really I just learned by doing it. Yeah, that was, my education was going out and actually. And also it was really important that I did every aspect of it. I got my hands dirty, got involved and so I learned it from the ground up.
- [09:14]
B
And so what was the deal that basically said to you or you said to yourself, you know what, I, I can make this as a career. I don't necessarily need to be a lawyer. I'm going to be a full time real estate owner operator.
- [09:29]
C
Well, the first thing was a big development in Old Town Pasadena. So when I made the transition from the working part time as a lawyer, someone asked me to be their partner in a deal and I went to their office in Century City. It was a relative of the Watt family. Sure, the office was the Watt office family. And so I got a desk there or an office there, I should say. And the deal was taking an old livery stable and an old residential hotel and an old jail in Old Town Pasadena and converting it into work, live and retail on the bottom. And so my job was to do the tax credits. There was a facade easement credit and raise the money for the deal.
- [10:17]
B
I've heard of adaptive reuse. That is like as adaptive reuse as it gets. What, what did you say? A jail?
- [10:23]
C
A residential hotel. Yeah, and a livery stable.
- [10:27]
B
Wow. Okay.
- [10:29]
C
I like to take things on, you.
- [10:30]
B
Know, what, what time period is this?
- [10:32]
C
Gosh, this is late. Oh gosh, 1980s. Like late 80s. Like 89.
- [10:42]
B
Okay, sure.
- [10:43]
C
And the challenge of the project was, you know, I was the money. I was the guy that figured out the tax credits. It was historic. We had historic tax credits. We had all these different things going on. So I used my legal background to help with that. But what ended up happening is the guy that was the alleged developer on the deal really wasn't that much of a developer. So I had to take over the project. And so a buddy of mine from junior high was, was a contractor and he gave me his foreman and basically took over, had a shell, gutted everything and had a shell and basically had to finish the project, build it from the ground up, other than the shell of the outside building.
- [11:28]
B
That's incredible. And then I know you've done a lot in downtown and before we started rolling, I mentioned to you that I think the first time I met you was when you gave a tour to.
- [11:46]
With respect to the Jewish Federation of Santee Village. Was that one of your first downtown projects or you. Because I thought you were involved in like the Sears building, if I recall. Okay.
- [11:58]
C
So basically I had an opportunity, is a guy called me, I knew from Sheridan. He said, there's a building downtown on Los Angeles street. Would you like to buy it? And I knew exactly where it was because when I was interviewing for law jobs, I got a suit on that street and it was a $99 suit and I paid a ticket $49. So I knew exactly what he said, where the building was, where the building was. So then he called me back, he goes, oh, no, it's 10 buildings. So it was 10 contiguous buildings in downtown. And it seemed like a great opportunity to do something transformative. Things hadn't really taken off in downtown.
- [12:36]
B
What are we, are we talking about early 2000s or 90s?
- [12:38]
C
This is 1998.
- [12:39]
B
98. So Staples center was under construction. Under construction, but you still hadn't seen the effect of.
- [12:47]
C
The effect of it.
- [12:47]
B
Yeah, but.
- [12:49]
C
So one of the things that I did was because I knew that in Denver and Dallas they transformed their downtown, especially Denver, with the sports stadium and how it went into the broader community. So I went and I studied. I used the YPO network to go and meet the mayors, the developers, the transportation people, everything to learn what they did in Denver in particular. And how could I apply that to LA and to turn into building to mixed use residential, commercial with lofts and condos. And that was, that was the plan and that's what we ended up doing.
- [13:28]
B
So how big of a project was that? Both from a square footage standpoint, unit count and total capitalization?
- [13:36]
C
Capitalization is hard a long time ago, but it was about 500 units, 100,000ft of retail, two creative office buildings, intermodal parking structure.
- [13:48]
And done in three phases. And it was all built as condos. The first phase I did as residential at least, even though it was built as condos. And I also condoed the bottom floor. So I ended up Getting a Rite Aid, a food court, a little market. They were all condos. So although retail is condo, what was interesting is how I got Rite Aid to come into the building. So Rite Aid thought they already had downtown location. Know, why do we want to be in the fashion district where these projects were, right? And so I basically told a bunch of people and some of the other office buildings, when I come by at this time, I want you all to come down and saying, where your client? We're your client, you know, because they were wondering, where. Where are our clients going to come from? Where are, you know, where would the people come from? So I got the people from the office buildings to come down and say, hey, we'll be your client.
- [14:36]
B
Yeah.
- [14:37]
C
So I got Rite Aid on a really great, you know, lease and got the other retailers. And it was hard because, you know, downtown hadn't been proven yet. So it was a lot of hard work.
- [14:48]
B
You know, today, development or even adaptive reuse is challenging with the city, even though we need so much housing. But so many of my developer clients are frustrated by just the bureaucracy. I mean, it takes LAGWP months and months and in some case a year or two to. To turn the power on and. And give final certificate of occupancy. What was it like in the mid to late 90s working with the city? Was. Was Reardon the mayor then?
- [15:21]
C
No, it was Han.
- [15:22]
B
Okay, I mean, what was it? More collaborative. I mean, how. How was it collaborative?
- [15:27]
C
One of our secret sauces. And even to today, we partnered with ewp. We partnered with the fire department. We part, you know, we told the. When we were doing this project, we got the building department on board, we got the planning department on board. We set up meetings and collaboration. The head of the building department was very collaborative, and basically we developed these really amazing relationships. And we were hearing about all the problems other developers were having. They were doing shortcuts or they were just fighting with the city. And so we found a way to get along. And also, the adaptive reuse ordinance made it a lot easier. The requirements were a lot less. But just, you know, there was. So I kept so many stories of things that we did with all the different departments. And when we had our grand opening, they were proud because they felt an ownership interest in making the project happen. So I think it was about how we approach the relationships. And we had those relationships for many, many years until some of the people retired.
- [16:25]
B
Yeah. And how did you capitalize this type of deal? Was it a friends and family raise or an institutional Raise neither.
- [16:32]
C
So basically when I did the deal.
- [16:36]
I thought, this is too risky to get investors. And so what I did is I got a 95% loan at 12% interest only and non recourse. And I verified that with their attorney that if this thing didn't work out, all I had to do is hand them the keys and stuff. So it made me feel a little more at ease. Yeah.
- [16:59]
B
Who was the. Who was the lender?
- [17:00]
C
It was Amory. It was. It was a Amresco, formed a reit.
- [17:04]
B
Okay.
- [17:04]
C
And I had worked for them. I'd been a receiver, I'd worked for them. So they knew me, so their loan committee knew me. So that was a big advantage. The second thing is that when they. When they credit the security deposits, it was a 97% loan. And then the broker gave me some of his commission. So I leveraged into this wow deal with virtually no money down, but I had to put money into it once we were going. And the biggest thing I had to do is I had to lease the retail to these other fabric companies to be able to eventually refinance out of that loan. And so that's what I did. So the capitalization was all me. And then as it went on, I created so much value that I refinanced for tax reasons. On the last phase, I did take an equity partner so I could exchange out of my equity in the project and go buy something very valuable that I still own today.
- [17:59]
B
And have you done other projects in downtown la?
- [18:02]
C
Well, those are the three phases of projects I did. The other project that I embarked on was the largest. This was large. It's only 800,000ft. Next thing I did is I bought 23 acres and a 1.8 million square foot building called the Sears building. And I went all the way through the development process with that, you know, spending tens of millions of dollars getting the contractors, the architects, the lawyers, and every. You know, got all the way to where we could put a shovel in the ground. And the economy changed. It was 2007. I saw the world changing and I had it sold and to Oscar De La Hoya and some other. And some other people.
- [18:42]
B
And.
- [18:42]
C
And it fell through. And so I ended up having to own it all the way through 2013. And. And then I sold it to Isaac Shulem, still owns it, and he still hasn't done anything with it.
- [18:53]
B
Wow, that's. It's tough. I mean, did you think when you look at downtown LA and the surrounding areas, up until Covid, it was a thriving area right? Like, so your premonition in the 90s of what downtown LA could become, it became that. Bars and restaurants and people living there. And then Covid, I would say, of any city in America, Louisiana, downtown la, probably was hit the hardest. Maybe San Francisco. But San Francisco's on the rebound with AI and just the natural beauty of downtown San Francisco. We were both in downtown LA for a YPO conference last week. It's rough. It is rough.
- [19:39]
C
It makes me sad. I got out of it downtown in 2007, but, you know, it hasn't developed the way that I had hoped it would. And Covid definitely was the death knell for downtown, you know, I don't know. It's gonna take a long time, I think, for it to recover. I've looked at deals periodically in downtown, but just. I could never pull the trigger. There's too much.
- [20:02]
B
The office.
- [20:03]
C
Office buildings are empty. It's a little more dangerous at night. Even by where we were at on 7th and Figueroa, it's not great at.
- [20:15]
B
Night or even during the day. So during that time when I met you and you toured us around Santee Village, I also remember you being a receiver, and you mentioned that you were a receiver. How did you get into that?
- [20:32]
C
So to keep everybody working and busy during the downturn, a couple downturns. I thought that, you know, I learned about being a receiver because I think on something that I was going to buy that there was a receiver, and I learned what a receiver did and how you went about doing it. Being a property manager, operator and lawyer, I was uniquely positioned to be a receiver. Some really interesting things. At one time, we had 80 different properties as a receiver. We were at a power plant. We did all kinds of very interesting things, and it was a great revenue producer. And we were able to take some of the profits from that and buy some real estate.
- [21:14]
B
And are you. Do you still. Does your company still do receiver work?
- [21:18]
C
No, we don't do it anymore because we're too busy with student housing and other things that we do. But it was definitely a good way to keep. Especially for the development. With the development team. We did everything in house. Like this antique thing. We did mostly in house. So I had all these people to keep busy. And so doing broken construction projects and doing things like that really kept them busy. We did condo projects and kept my staff busy for a long time. And then eventually we thought it didn't really fit in with what our core desires were.
- [21:52]
B
Sure. All right, so you had all this growing up in Canoga Park. You Were doing these deals in and around la and.
- [22:01]
What made you go outward out of California, out of Southern California, doing student housing deals throughout the major conferences in the country?
- [22:14]
C
Well, basically every year at our business seminar that we would do a retreat, we talked about student housing because we said, you know, this is interesting. You know, it's recession resilient. It's interesting. I like sports. I was always watching all the sports and following all the different schools. And we talked about it for years and we said, listen, we're doing mixed use developments with condo associations, homeowners associations and all these different, you know, we have restaurants, we have operating businesses and you know, student housing is kind of a, you know, a, that's almost like a hotel type business. But we figured all our expertise with multifamily mixed use and different things that student housing could be really good. It did well in all different time periods. And so we said, you know, we should get into student housing because we, we think this is going to be an industry. And we got it. We got in. We bought our first formal deal in 2007.
- [23:15]
At my alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, and we bought an Oregon. Both Oregon and Santa Barbara were early projects and we did well with those and it was a springboard.
- [23:27]
B
And so when you go out and buy student housing today, what do you look for? What is the right type of campus? Whether it's demographics, location, upward trend in enrollment, all those things are important.
- [23:44]
C
So the first basic thing is assuming a school has good enrollment, you assume that there's not that much of a pipeline for new development. But you're going to the big, the PAC 12, big 10.
- [23:57]
B
There is no more PAC 12. But yes, back in the day, yeah.
- [24:02]
C
You know, SEC, you know, all the major conferences. And the theory that I had was I want to be at a school that students want to be at. I wanted to have a great sports program, I wanted to be walkable to school. And I wanted to be a research R2 university that has at least 20,000 students. And it served us well. We're national. And interesting thing was that.
- [24:30]
My wife's an endodontist. And the one and only time I went to visit her office in Anaheim, she used to work all the way from Santa Monica to Anaheim. And I was going there and I had been cold calling around Oregon, different brokers to find me more stuff at Oregon or, I said, or Utah or different states. I gave him a bunch of things. This guy calls me on a deal on BYU and so he gives me a call and I get kind of Excited about it because it's off market deal. And I go back to the office the next morning, I write an offer and we end up getting into byu and it's been a grand slam deal and we ended up buying a bunch of properties there and we're the largest owner there.
- [25:16]
And it's a great university. It's tuition is inexpensive, there's no building going on. So it's been a really great place for us.
- [25:26]
B
What? I've done several deals at byu. One of the best things about BYU is from a landlord's perspective, it's a violation of the honor code if you don't pay your rent.
- [25:37]
C
Right. Pay your rent, if you have sex, if you drink, you know, all the different things.
- [25:45]
Definitely make it more landlord friendly. But it's changed a little bit. You used to be have contracts with the university. That made sense. Now it's a little, it's, it's not as easy as it was when we first started, but it's still been a great place for us to be.
- [26:01]
B
Well, thank you for saying the word sex. Now my ratings for this podcast will go up significantly, so I appreciate it.
- [26:07]
C
Well, you know, the quarterback from the BYU team had a lead because of that. He's, he's at Tulane now because he violated his student code.
- [26:15]
B
I have a feeling he's having a little more fun at Tulane than at byu.
- [26:18]
C
Yes, I think so.
- [26:20]
B
That's a great school, Tulane. I mean, New Orleans. Do you own anything down there?
- [26:25]
C
I don't. My niece went there.
- [26:26]
B
Yeah.
- [26:26]
C
Told me I should buy something. But we do not own anything there.
- [26:30]
B
My two favorite schools now, even though my kids are only 11 and 9, but I'm hoping that, you know, I went to Northwestern, my Courtney went to Penn. But the two schools, I would love my kids to go to Tulane or Vanderbilt because I would want to visit them at New Orleans or Nashville.
- [26:46]
C
Yeah, Vanderbilts have been really great in football this year.
- [26:48]
B
Yeah.
- [26:49]
C
My friend, a friend of mine's a big fan and. Yeah. So it's been nice watching Vanderbilt do well.
- [26:55]
B
Sure. So, all right. We talked about the positives about owning student housing. What negatives are there?
- [27:01]
C
Well, negatives are, you know, that it's, you know, a lot of times what would happen with us is we pick a school and we do really well and everybody else would want to follow us. And it started over building. So even though you might have it in the pipeline, a lot of these places, it's relatively easy to get things approved. Some of them are not. Some of the schools like at byu, it's not easy to get things approved, but other places it's a little easier to get things approved and they can get built pretty fast and things can change. We were at University of Michigan for a long time. It's a great school. We did very well there. But we saw the writing on the wall. They started Preparing to build 7,000 more beds and so we wanted to get out of dodge.
- [27:45]
B
And those 7,000 beds, were they to be privately owned or university owned?
- [27:51]
C
This particularly owned. So our stuff is off campus. So the on campus is where the university is. University owned stuff off campus, which is either purpose built or apartments that are used as student housing is what we buy off campus.
- [28:08]
B
And you really have one shot to lease up the building for the year. And if you miss your mark, it's not like you're going to get students to rent your units during the school year. You need to get them before August 15th.
- [28:22]
C
Yeah. So that's a big thing. You have to really hit your numbers.
- [28:27]
Last year there was a couple of properties that because of different things, there was construction stuff like that. We didn't get quite to the usual 100%, we're 98% as a portfolio. But we had a couple properties that didn't get all the way due to different things at the universities. And that could happen and you know, it's, you know, it's not fun to have a bad year.
- [28:50]
B
Yeah. And how do.
- [28:53]
How, how is the cap rate? What's the cap rate delta between owning a student housing deal versus an apartment deal? If, if the, if you're looking, if you're comparing similar markets, it's hard to.
- [29:08]
C
Tell because it shifts a lot. But like a general average for you know, 1990s, 2000 student housing deal, you'd shoot for like about a 6 cap where that would be 5 and a half maybe for apartment of similar vintage.
- [29:23]
B
And any change in interest rate that lenders would give you, is it a higher interest rate on student housing or not?
- [29:31]
C
Often the agencies will be a little higher. We've been doing a lot of life code deals with the student housing and I mean the BYU deals that we have, I think they're in the low twos. Unfortunately they're both coming up for refinancing now we have the low twos for those. It was a five year deal with Voya.
- [29:55]
B
So going forward for mjw.
- [29:58]
What is next? I know you are raising a fund and you've been in both multifamily and student housing.
- [30:07]
C
So.
- [30:08]
B
So what do you see the next 5, 10 years for your company?
- [30:13]
C
Well, the fund is really kind of the first step to having an alternative source of capital.
- [30:20]
We've done really well in student housing for a really long time and we thought that having a fund would be a great vehicle to capitalize on a certain deal size, like between 10 and $30 million. And we looking for value add. And the economics for the investors are really good and there's always a good tax write off. There's some cash flow and a lot of appreciation.
- [30:48]
B
And will it focus just on student housing or student housing and traditional multi.
- [30:54]
C
The fund will be exclusively student housing.
- [30:58]
B
And so what.
- [31:01]
What is your ideal.
- [31:04]
Acquisition in terms of purchase price? Beds.
- [31:10]
How long you're going to hold it? I don't know if you can give us a little more flavor.
- [31:14]
C
We'd like a minimum of 150 beds and we're going to hold it between three and five years. And we're looking at the major universities. We're looking for an opportunity where the interiors have been neglected. The clubhouse needs to be upgraded. And so it's basically a three to five year hold, which is a little unusual for what we usually do because we're holding longer term because refinancing, pulling money out, getting great cash flow. But these will be for the fund, they'll be actual sales and.
- [31:46]
That'S what we're going to do.
- [31:48]
B
You know, the last couple years there's been a lot of.
- [31:52]
I know you're very philanthropically involved, Jewish Causes Federation and many others definitely want to get into philanthropy, but it was the first time that I had seen, I mean, look, you go back to the 60s, there was a lot of.
- [32:09]
I don't know, uprest in campuses and some violence I guess, but nothing like what we have seen in the last couple years with respect to antisemitism.
- [32:27]
Any campuses where you guys own real estate where there was antisemitism to the point where you felt that you didn't want to own at this campus anymore.
- [32:39]
C
There was nothing where we felt we didn't want to own, but we felt really bad. I missed. There was a lot of stuff and we're not at CUCLA.
- [32:50]
Or the UC campuses other than Santa Barbara. And Santa Barbara wasn't that bad. We talked to the local Hillel there and our students in particular at our properties didn't complain about anything in particular. But definitely the UC system in general was really poor and the response was very muted and I was personally disappointed. But it didn't really impact our investments.
- [33:17]
B
Anywhere going forward, do you think? I know there's talk about how is college going to be as important for the next generation? Are people going to go to college in the same numbers as the prior generations? Is there a concern from your thesis about the future of these colleges?
- [33:40]
C
Well, you know, this has been a talk for a really long time about people not going to college, online, learning things like that. But again, the thesis of going to. Buying at a school that has great sports, great social life, being near campus, being at a good university, I definitely think that some of the smaller universities are. The ones that aren't Main street, you know, are definitely at risk. And Covid actually, you know, basically closed some of the schools that were on the fringe before. But I think that the thesis of going to better schools, sports and everything, I think it works long term because people. The socialization part of it, people want that and continue to want that, I think, in the future.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah. So.
- [34:29]
If a week goes by where I don't see you at a charity event or some YPO event, there must be another Covid then, because we definitely see each other a lot. Tell me about the importance of philanthropy to you, your family.
- [34:49]
And why you do it.
- [34:51]
C
Well, I think it's really important to give back. I've been fortunate to do well in business, and I look at it as my legacy. I'm very passionate about philanthropy, making the world a better place. I'm particularly active in the Jewish community. I got a scholarship to go to overnight camp, Camp Hess Kramer. And it was transformative in my life. It taught me about community and about connecting and giving back. And so one of my big things was when the Woolsey fire happened, that camp burned down. And we're one of the main donors to the rebuilding. We dedicated the dining hall to the camp. There's an active campaign now. We've gone through entitlements with the. It's actually in Ventura and it's going to be, you know, it's going to be a very beautiful camp as it's rebuilt, but takes a lot of money, a lot of different sources of money. And so I'm very active with that. And, you know, obviously I want to get back to that camp because that camp had such a transformative effect on my life and on philanthropy. So that was one of the main things that. That where I got that feeling to want to give back.
- [36:03]
B
Yeah, you know, we at Skar Kirsch, we. We just did a charity, a team bonding charity event at our big kitchen. La Obk La. I don't know if you've been there in The.
- [36:17]
C
Our school. Brentwood School.
- [36:19]
B
Yeah, in the Pico Robertson area.
- [36:23]
It was my second time I was there. First time was with a YPO chapter. Our firm didn't bring kids. We just. It was just the.
- [36:34]
Lawyers, the staff of Sklar Kirsch. But what that organization does in terms of providing hundreds and sometimes a thousand meals a day across the city to different shelters and different organizations to make sure that people in need have food. But what is so great about, I guess that experience is that you can bring your kids and your family to experience philanthropy from the ground up, from actually getting your hands literally dirty. And I find challenges, especially as you know, we're living in a very blessed.
- [37:16]
Means, you know, in Santa Monica, previously the Palisades. It's one thing to write a check, but it's another thing to get kids and you have young kids like myself to have them understand about charity and get them involved in charity. And so how do you as a philanthropic person, get your kids to understand about philanthropy?
- [37:40]
C
First thing is that we have had a lot of events at our house and we explain, you know, people come, whether it's aipac, the camps and other charities that I've involved with have come to our home and the kids.
- [37:55]
Meet the people, listen to the speeches, learn about the organizations. So that's. So that's one way. And also just by doing all the different things that we do, the kids see it. We gave a big gift recently. We had the kids sit in on the presentation from the organization and ask questions. We also take them on a hands on MJW does a hands on thing with foster kids where it's a day where they get to go shopping for different things that are brand new stuff supplied like luggage and clothes. And then we give mgw in particular gives a $100 gift card so they can go shopping for food. And the kids go, and we're doing it again this year. And so they get to do a hands on thing with that. And I've taken them to homeless places like the va. Homeless. We had a YPO event that I was involved with and we took the kids and they walked the grounds and met some of the residents. And you know, they learned, they learned we've done a lot of different homeless things. So they've learned about that. And just various things that I've done, I've taken them with me where they've been able to experience, you know, the recipients or what it is that we're doing related to charity.
- [39:07]
B
Yeah, the more that we can do active philanthropy, not just yes, the dinners are important, but so that we can be part of the community rebuild process and have our kids see it firsthand. I think it's just much more of a powerful experience.
- [39:28]
We're at about that time where. Are you ready for the world class or world renowned real talk lightning round set of questions?
- [39:36]
C
Sure, I'm ready.
- [39:37]
B
It's the only, it's the only time where I bring out a piece of paper. So.
- [39:42]
Quick answers to the following questions. Mark, are you ready for this?
- [39:46]
C
I'm ready.
- [39:47]
B
All right. The best show that you are currently watching or maybe recently finished swat. I don't think I know that one.
- [39:56]
C
Netflix and my son. It's something I do with my son, actually, my wife too. And last night we watched the End. It's eight seasons and I haven't watched all. The beginning. I started watching with him kind of in the middle. I got totally addicted to it. And it's a, it's about SWAT in LA and it's high action, very interesting. And it usually ends on a positive note at the end of each session.
- [40:21]
B
Wow. By the way, that was the most emphatic answer that you've given in the last 35 minutes. So I'm going to have to check out SWAT. I just finished. Let's see what. Nobody wants this.
- [40:32]
C
Oh, I watched that too.
- [40:33]
B
That's a good show.
- [40:36]
Yeah, that's a good show. The diplomat.
- [40:39]
Black rabbit. Jason Bateman with long hair. Yeah, yeah. We go to a lot of YPO events together. We were just at 1 in LA and Mike Milken spoke to us. Alex Rodriguez spoke a Rod, Ryan Reynolds and many others. You've been in YPO for many years. What's the one or two best YPO events that you've attended?
- [41:04]
C
I've also did a lot of charity events with YPO where we hands on things with the kids were we put together furniture for people that had their first apartment out of homelessness and that was kind of an impactful event. But I put on a homelessness event for multiple chapters and that was very rewarding and very big success.
- [41:25]
B
I think I was at that event in Hollywood, right? Yes, I was in Hollywood. Yeah. So you've been to a lot of campuses around the country. What's your favorite college campus?
- [41:35]
C
UC Santa Barbara.
- [41:36]
B
Oh, I mean, come on, you went there. How about excluding the one that you attended? Although UC Santa Barbara is gorgeous, Michigan's pretty cool.
- [41:45]
C
I did not go to any of the games, but it's, it's, it's the big house is their stadium and that's quite an event to go to one of their football games. But I, I was invited, but I never actually made it.
- [41:54]
B
Yeah, it's, it's a, that's a great campus. I. In 1995, Northwestern football went to Michigan, and we beat them. I still remember, I think it was 1715. And let's just say we didn't act responsibly at certain bars at Michigan and we deserved to get our ass kicked when we were just these rowdy Northwestern fans. It was. All right, a couple more. How about the best advice you've ever received?
- [42:28]
C
You know, it was after the fact that. But Howard Marks, the guy from oak Tree, told me, you have to manage your downside. You know, you can always look at your upsides, but if you get singles and doubles, you're doing good. But you really got to manage your downside. And that was something that I, early on in my career, didn't think a lot of, and now I think much more about it.
- [42:49]
B
Yeah, no, that's great advice.
- [42:53]
What about. I mean, I know that you meet with a lot of people who are coming out of college looking for advice to get into the real estate business. What advice do you give to people who are 22, 23 years old and they want to be the next Mark Weinstein?
- [43:06]
C
Well, I think internships are a really good way to start. Sometimes firms aren't hiring and you basically challenge the firm and say, listen, I'll work for free at first, and then if you want to pay me later, then you can pay me and just get your foot in the door. Get experienced. Don't say, I want to be a developer. I want to do this, I want to do that. Get, get to a firm where you can get the most experience, learn a bunch of stuff, become valuable, you know, take course, take courses, you know, at the extension, at ucla, usc, and different places where they have extension courses on real estate. You know, learn analysis and learn as much as you can. Be a sponge.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And if you weren't in the real estate business, what business would you be in?
- [43:55]
C
Be in philanthropy full time. Okay. That's. That would be my passion.
- [43:58]
B
That's great.
- [44:01]
Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show, but we have one parting gift. Are you ready for this? I don't know if you watched, like, the World Series and David Ortiz would give the guest on the postgame show his big My dog T shirt. Well, I don't. My dog. I don't have a My dog T shirt, but instead, I've got something better. The brand new Sawtel Los Angeles hats with a Sklar Kirsch logo on the side. Make sure everyone sees that here. Yeah. So right. Hot, hot, hot off the presses. We are embracing ourselves in the Sawtel neighborhood. So enjoy that. Mark, I really appreciate your years of friendship business relationship, but thank you for coming onto the show.
- [44:45]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [44:46]
B
It's been great. And that's another episode of Real Talk.
- [44:50]
A
You've been listening to Real Talk real estate discussions with Andrew Kirsch. You can catch prior episodes@skalarkirsch.com and on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments, and for sharing this show with others.