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at noradacapital.com today. Welcome

1:02

to Passive Real Estate Investing, the show

1:04

where busy people like you learn how

1:06

to build substantial passive income while creating

1:09

wealth for the long term. And

1:11

now, here's your host, Marco Santorelli.

1:13

Hello and welcome to another episode

1:15

of Passive Real Estate Investing. I'm

1:17

your host, Marco Santorelli, and

1:20

I am glad you're joining me today because I

1:22

do have a special guest, someone who's very interesting, and

1:24

I just had a lot of fun with him

1:26

over the last hour being a

1:28

guest on his podcast. And

1:30

we had a great conversation and we were all over

1:32

the place and that's what helped make

1:34

it a lot of fun. But

1:37

my guest today is James Nelson. He

1:40

is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author

1:42

of the book called The Insider's Edge

1:44

to Real Estate Investing. He's also a

1:46

podcast host, which I believe is of

1:48

the same name. He is

1:50

also a principal and the head of

1:52

Avison Young's Tri-State Investment Sales Group in New

1:55

York City, and he's had a career

1:57

that has lasted over 25 years. He

1:59

has sold more than... than 500 properties and loans

2:01

totaling over $5 billion. That's

2:04

what they'd be. James is also

2:06

a serial real estate investor and he has

2:08

launched two real estate funds with total capitalization

2:10

over 350 million. This might be

2:12

an old stat, but you can correct me on it.

2:15

And has many accolades, including being

2:17

named the number one broker at Avison

2:19

Young Globally, a commercial observer's power 100,

2:23

a costar's power broker and an

2:25

REBNY, he'll have to explain this

2:27

one to me, deal of the

2:29

year award winner. And he regularly

2:31

lectures at Columbia. Fortin, I believe

2:33

it is. NYU, Wharton and

2:35

his alma mater, Colgate. So with that,

2:37

James, welcome to the show. Marco, thank

2:39

you so much for having me on.

2:41

And yes, that was so great to

2:44

spend the last hour and hearing your

2:46

story and just thank you for all the

2:48

incredible content that you put out there and share

2:50

for the real estate community. So this is a

2:53

lot of fun to now be on your show. Yeah, no,

2:55

it was a blast. And it's great to do these back

2:57

to back because it just feels seamless. Like it's just going

2:59

from one to the other. But I

3:01

tried to cover as much as I could in

3:03

introducing you. It was kind of the bio I

3:06

constructed, as I mentioned to you before. Why don't

3:08

you take a minute or so and just tell

3:10

us a little bit more about yourself so you

3:12

can kind of flesh out what I've either missed

3:14

or skimmed over. No, Marco, that was perfect. And

3:17

yes, as you mentioned, I've been doing this for over 25

3:19

years. And I know

3:21

you are also a lifelong learner and

3:23

that's something that I certainly love about

3:26

this business is every day we're learning things

3:28

that are new. But look, I didn't know

3:30

about real estate when I got into it.

3:32

I was an English major at Colgate. I

3:34

didn't even know real estate was a thing.

3:36

I was very lucky that the

3:39

founder of Massey Knackler Realty Services

3:41

was at Colgate Alung. They

3:43

gave me a shot and started

3:45

off as an investment sales broker,

3:47

which is still what I do

3:49

today. I sell apartment buildings, office,

3:51

retail, development, industrial, pretty much everything

3:53

except hotel. Avison Young has a

3:55

hotel business as well. But I've been doing that

3:57

all along and I was very lucky early on.

4:00

my career to have the

4:02

opportunity to invest in real estate and

4:04

understand all the benefits that you talk

4:06

about. And so that's been an incredible

4:08

thing, was involved in two real estate funds as well

4:10

that you mentioned. But the real passion,

4:13

again, I love giving back, I love sharing,

4:15

and I'm hoping that someone's listening to us

4:17

today and will inspire them to jump in

4:19

as well. Yeah, it's great interviewing people like

4:21

yourself that do like to educate and talk

4:24

about real estate and the benefits of it

4:26

and how to get involved in it at

4:28

any level. You know, just to share

4:30

what we've learned and the successes that

4:32

we've had and carry it forward. So

4:35

this is great. You know, I

4:37

have kind of a wide range of thoughts, topics, and

4:39

questions that I want to ask you. So I might

4:41

be a little scattered here because I know you talk

4:43

about a wide range of things.

4:45

I've heard you speak a little bit,

4:47

you know, online in various platforms, from

4:50

YouTube and whatnot. One of the

4:52

things I heard you say, I don't know if

4:54

this is in your book, but you talk about

4:56

real estate investing as an investment opportunity, you compare

4:58

it to the stock market. So it might sound

5:00

like just a basic or trivial question,

5:02

but why, in your opinion, is real

5:04

estate a better investment opportunity than what

5:07

most people invest in, which is

5:09

the stock market? Yeah, it's

5:11

a great question, a great place to start,

5:14

and it's why the name of my book

5:16

and yes, podcast is the insider's edge to

5:18

real estate investing. So as everyone probably knows,

5:21

if you get inside information when you're trading stocks,

5:23

not only can you not do that, that's a

5:25

great way to end up in jail. So the

5:27

point is when you're investing in the stock market,

5:30

everybody has access to the

5:33

same information. Whereas

5:35

– and it's a very efficient marketplace where

5:37

you can go and you can buy a

5:39

share today. You can sell it within minutes

5:41

later, right? As we know, real

5:43

estate is not that type of efficient

5:46

marketplace, okay? But where there are inefficiencies,

5:48

there's opportunities. And a lot of what

5:50

the book talks about, a lot of

5:52

what we've discussed and with other credible

5:55

investors have told me on my

5:57

podcast is that – By

6:00

having that insider's edge, that expertise,

6:02

right, you talk a lot about

6:04

focusing in on an asset class,

6:07

understanding all the drivers for demand

6:09

and having that knowledge that the

6:11

competition does not have, and then

6:14

having an incredible team to execute

6:16

on that opportunity, you will be

6:18

able to outperform the market. And

6:20

look, I also learned this very

6:22

early on in my career when

6:24

I saw two properties that sold

6:26

on the same block, and one

6:28

went for almost 30% more

6:30

than the other, and I asked the question,

6:32

why is that? Well, one of the properties,

6:35

we went out and we widely exposed to the

6:37

market, and we got

6:40

multiple offers and drove up the price, and

6:42

the other property sold off market. And maybe

6:44

that owner said, well, hey, I'm saving

6:46

myself a brokerage commission, but again,

6:49

left millions of dollars on the table in

6:51

that instance. So that was a lesson to

6:53

me early on that there are inefficiencies in

6:55

this market that you can take advantage of.

6:57

Yeah, that's really true. If you look at

7:00

the housing market, just real estate in general,

7:02

it's very fragmented. There's not

7:04

even, take the MLS, you know, one of

7:06

the most fundamental tools that all real estate

7:08

agents and brokers use. It's still

7:11

to this day very much localized.

7:13

There's such an incredible amount of fragmentation

7:16

in this industry, which to me just

7:18

presents great opportunity if you can identify

7:21

where the opportunities are. Is that a

7:23

fair statement? Absolutely, yes.

7:26

And many of the times, especially on

7:28

the commercial side, owners decide

7:31

not to let their brokers post

7:34

the property on multiple listing sites, or the

7:36

brokers just choose not to do it, right?

7:38

That might be a separate conversation. So

7:41

– but yes, I mean there

7:43

are tools out there to effectively market

7:45

commercial property like you would residential and

7:47

the various multiple listing sites, but for

7:50

every one of those properties that sell

7:52

on those platforms, there's

7:54

plenty that sell quietly and without

7:56

a marketing effort. Yeah,

7:59

it's interesting.