What I’m Up To:
- Active offer out on a 24-unit in the Western Chicago suburbs
- Getting term sheets for a $10MM multifamily refi (3-year term, going agency after)
- DD on a data center land play in the SW Chicago suburbs
- Investing into a DTC ecomm startup, will be actively
Unbelievable
A Russian submarine commander was assassinated on his run yesterday
He was posting his workouts on Strava!
One of the people who liked the posts, was the Chief of Intelligence of Ukraine
Costco should have a donation bin after checkout for the local food pantry
I never need the 3 pack of ketchup, happy to donate 1
The 4 pack of pasta, the 12 pack of mac & cheese, so many bulk items there that I’d gladly donate if it was so convenient
Fun fact of the day
Bose, the company that makes the most popular travel headphones and so much more, is owned by MIT
Yep, MIT, the university, owns a company that does almost $4B/year in revenue
McDonald’s is launching a new concept and I was just there and grabbed pics of a whole new menu of items never been offered before
The concept is being launched in Bollingrbook, IL and it’s called CosMc’s
It’s not open yet and there was a full team of actors in the drive thru
Chicago is the only city in the US where all 7 Class I railroads converge
Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific
Diversity of industry, freshwater, no natural disaster risk, hub of Big 10 grad talent… long
Shout out to every aspiring parent who has been through IVF or struggled with fertility issues
Jillian & I have been on the journey for years and on our very last attempt, after 8 rounds of IVF, our son, Leo arrived on Tuesday
We need to normalize talking about fertility
Spending the week at The Boca Raton Resort and it may be my new favorite luxury, family friendly resort
Michael Dell, age yourself if you remember Dell Computers, bought it a few years ago for $875MM
- $589MM for FF&E and $285MM for the Premier Club
Goldman Sachs put up about
Amazed by old school immigrant real estate investors
In Chicago, I know a couple of groups (Persian, Indian, Vietnamese, Israeli, Polish) that own over $250M in random buildings across every Chicago neighborhoods
What’s amazing about them?
- They don’t know what a CAP rate
Things I’ll never understand:
- $80k truck, $150k house
- $5k car, $2k car stereo
- $50k watch, $398 in the bank
- Politicians being allowed to trade stocks
- There’s a max age for pilots, but not for Presidents
What don’t you get?
I found out yesterday that a tenant of mine has 15 active evictions in court.
Yes, she has 15 different apartments around the state that have filed evictions on her.
FML
Vegas table service idea:
Every table at the club gets engraved with the highest spend ever at that table
I guarantee people will try to outspend the current leader so they can get their name inscribed on the table
Current table leaders get exclusive perks
I don’t think
@Wendys
understands why surge pricing works and in this case WON’T work
The consumer will go to another restaurant if they even suspect surge pricing will be in effect
With Uber or Lyft, the alternative to avoiding surge is a far different alternative than going
Spotify should allow you to find your “Musical Soulmate”
They have thousands of hours of my listening history
Would love to know who in the world has my exact taste of absolute randomness
Neighbor got his ducts cleaned today
If the duct cleaner just knocked on my door and said, "I'm almost done with your neighbor's house and can do yours after for $150(?)"
I would have said go for it, missed opportunity
There’s been roughly $113 billion allocated to Ukraine since the start of the war
There are approximately 13k public school districts in the US
That’s about $8.7 million PER school district
Imagine making that investment into our education system
So you’re telling me all those Amazon stores that allowed you to just walk out with your stuff wasn’t AI technology and it was just 1000 people in India adding up your cart 🤣🤣🤣
I’ve used two different gutter cleaning companies for my house across the last few years
Neither one ever reaches out proactively to schedule another cleaning
Neither one offers a yearly plan for cleanings
So much opportunity in these home service businesses
New big city high rises have an amenities war putting in golf simulators, bowling alleys, multiple gyms, etc. and all targeted to 20-30 year old singles
Someone should build one around young families:
- Indoor toddler playground
- Kids gymnastics play area
- An arts and crafts
Is this one of the greatest stories of NIMBY karma?
Green Acres Country Club was once one of the best clubs in the Northshore of Chicago, in Northbrook, IL
It's nearing 10 years of it sitting closed and dormant, with numerous proposals being presented to Northbrook to redevelop
We just sold our 168-unit for $22MM and what a ride it was
Bought it for $14.1MM on March 26, 2020 (holy crap was it scary to close right as the country had gone into lockdown)
Debt with Fannie at 3.09% fixed, 12 year term and 5 years IO (assumed)
The property is in Oswego,
Shoot your shot
Years ago I was working on a project and needed a meeting with Stubhub exec's ASAP
I figured out which exec was the most likely decision maker for my ask and then did some research and realized they were a big University of Texas football fan
I went on eBay
My offer to fellow Chicago area real estate owners/investors
My entire Rolodex is open to you
- Need a lender? Whether $2MM or $100MM, I’ve got great options
- Need high quality, but cost conscious cabinets? Been using two different local groups for years now
- Need a
Biggest threat to Chicago
Slowing down the flow of Big 10 graduates moving here
For decades, Big 10 grads top cities to move to after graduating always had Chicago in the top 3
Nowadays, there’s just more options… options that weren’t really popular 20 years ago
Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago has been an absolute and utter failure
It comes as no surprise to those who knew him before becoming mayor, this was predictable and avoidable
“incompetence of this administration” is starting to show more and more
We need to do better for
If you’re not married and/or have kids, don’t you dare talk about work life balance
The reason I’ve reached this point in my career is because I basically slept at the office during my 20’s
And I don’t regret it one bit
Smallest, but my favorite deal of the year
Bought a 10-unit right next to Wrigley Field. Covered land play.
Almost 8k sq fit of dirt that can one day be turned into up to 17 units
I send handwritten thank you notes on Crane Stationary
Crane also provides the paper that US currency is printed on
My thank you notes literally feel like money
Why are we allowing ourselves to be poisoned?
When you go to Mexico, something you may notice is that cereal boxes are different, less ingredients, less sugar and in 2021, the Mexican government banned cartoon characters from the front of any food packages with warning labels
@BostonBen5
Create an email address for them, set yourself up as a back up for password recovery
Starting today, start emailing them
Tell them what you’re feeling today, nervous, anxious, excited? Attach a pic of your wife and you.
Email them after birth and continue every so often
I’m the A hole who can’t walk into small businesses and keep his mouth shut
The local barbershop uses a tablet POS for payment and their tip options were way too low: $4, 6 & 8 and then Custom
The avg service is about $35-45. I suggested they up it $6, 8 & $10. At my next
A little over a year ago I started buying units in a 240-unit condo complex
Then I joined the HOA board
Then we made a deconversion offer to buyout all the condos and turn them into apartments
Last week I was voted off the HOA 😂
Instead of buying $100k of crypto last year I should have bought chickens
An egg laying chicken is about $25, so about 4k chickens and each chicken lays about 5 eggs/week, so 20k eggs/week output
At $8/dozen we’re talking $50k+/month
What am I doing buying crypto or RE?!
Expecting a kid or have young kids already?
The obvious thing to do is to create them an e-mail address, but the not so obvious one is to start writing them emails before and after they're born
Start today, start emailing them
$208,963.85
That's how much we've spent on legal fees in the last 12 months on evictions alone
Currently have 21 active eviction cases across 875 units
This is across Lake, Cook, DuPage and Kendall Counties in Illinois, none of them are in the City of Chicago.
Let me make
A friend recently opened a new restaurant and did something I love
In what was a non-revenue generation portion of the restaurant she put in a fridge selling some of the restaurant’s staple items
Salad dressings, soups, marinara sauce, tuna salad, etc.
Smart!
Chicago has over $5B of CMBS office debt and 75% of that collateralized debt is DISTRESSED
There’s no way around it, Chicago/Cook County is going to see property tax revenue from commercial RE drop quickly across the next few years
That leaves the county with two choices, cut
And if you’re a GP, this place is absolutely crawling with money
I was in an elevator wearing a
@rhone
shirt and guy goes “nice shirt, I was an early investor”
This place is an LPalooza
If I was the CEO of Costco I’d look into adding car washes to new build sites, alongside the gas station
Make it reccurring monthly membership only, either month to month or tack on $X/annually to a new tier of membership for Costco
I was blessed for almost 40 years to have no one in my life who had committed suicide
Sadly, a few years ago, that changed and it’s been one after another
4 in the last 3 years and it’s breaking my heart
Artem and I first started talking in January. We’d DM about random
Posted a job on Craigslist today, a sampling of replies:
- “I want it.”
- “What’s your address? I’ll be there Monday.”
- “HEY! YOU HIRING?”
- “When do I start?”
- Multiple with just a phone number and nothing else
This is not how you land a job people
@McDonalds
@McDonaldsCorp
If you're not mad at me for leaking the menu photos, can I do a sneak peak tasting of some of the new items?
Pretty please with a golden arch on top
After talking to a few Chicago area multifamily brokers
We’re now in a stage where there are deals, primarily $2-15MM, with little to no bids
It’s about to get ugly
@GrulkeLamonte
Moral of the story:
You do you. Don’t listen to keyboard warriors on here. 99% of the people won’t ever try doing what you’re doing, but they’ve got opinions like they’re experts.
Keep killing it.