Kyle Cowherd talks Crexi, A PropTech company with Cutting-Edge tools to Source Real Estate Deals

[00:00:10] Hello everybody, this is Jake Sands and our host Jake and Gino Podcast here with my co-host, the multifamily mentor, the coach, chef, father of six, the bestselling author, the G Daddy. Gino Barber, how's it going? Jake, I'm doing great brother, how you doing? Always making it happen big man, I have visions of you sitting next to me in my car listening to Eric Church, seeing the joy just beam off of you like an angel. Just there's this halo around you of just white and gold. Oh, it was beautiful.

[00:00:39] Jake, maybe it was just me sitting next to you, me enjoying your presence and that's what you thought it was. It was like me hanging out with the J Daddy and saying, wow, this is friggin' awesome.

[00:00:49] I don't want to believe it until I saw your knee moving, you're tapping your knee to the beat a little bit and you had this little groove in you. And so we're going to leave it there because we've got a lot of important stuff to talk about today, but don't stop fighting it. Just stop fighting it. Anyways, folks, we're here, we're back. Sorry for the craziness.

[00:01:05] Today's guest is the product manager at Crexie, where he spearheads the development of Crexie Intelligence, a cutting edge platform that empowers commercial real estate professionals like the G Daddy to analyze markets and seize business opportunities.

[00:01:22] So without further ado, Kyle Coward, welcome to the show.

[00:01:26] Thanks, guys. Pleasure to be here.

[00:01:27] Hey, it is our pleasure. So we've been on for a minute. We've been talking smack for the folks out there. He's got a great Top Gun mustache. If you're not on YouTube, this is the real deal here. Okay?

[00:01:39] So let's dive into you a little bit. Tell us your background with Crexie, how you got started and what you're doing there. What you're doing, man?

[00:01:48] Yeah, absolutely. My story is kind of a unique one to get to Crexie, but love to tell it. I actually went to go back to where I went to college, which is Northern Illinois University. So I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and stayed in state for school.

[00:02:01] And when I went to Northern Illinois, the reason I went there is I got a scholarship. And with that scholarship, we received a mentor. And my mentor was a guy by the name of Eric, who actually was one of the co-founders of Crexie.

[00:02:12] So both the co-founders, Mike and Eric. Not Eric Church. No, not Eric Church, for sure. Definitely can't sing like him either, but love him anyway.

[00:02:22] But him and Mike, I had met through this mentorship, through a scholarship and always kind of had this pipe dream of joining Crexie post-college.

[00:02:31] After I'd met them, they had just got their first million dollars. It's actually funny. They would always come speak to our classes.

[00:02:37] Like the business school would bring them in to talk about entrepreneurship and starting companies and whatnot.

[00:02:43] And I swear, the first time they came in and spoke about the business, I actually thought to myself, there's no way these two guys do this.

[00:02:49] Like they're talking about this trillion dollar industry, this changing product, etc.

[00:02:54] Why? Did they look like Ben and Jerry's or something?

[00:02:56] You know, it was something like that. Eric had played football, so he looks like a big jock.

[00:03:02] And Mike forgot to wear his hat that day and he had a little bit of balding going, no, I'm kidding.

[00:03:07] But looking at the two of them up there, I definitely had my doubts.

[00:03:11] And three years when I was graduating later, I called up Mike and said, hey man, I want to come work for you.

[00:03:15] This is exciting stuff. You guys are crushing it. I want to be a part of it.

[00:03:18] And that's how I got my foot in the door.

[00:03:20] And I actually started on our customer success team, which is where I trained brokers every day how to use Crexie to get more out of their business.

[00:03:27] I switched over to our sales team where I began kind of building the team for selling this product, the intelligence product.

[00:03:35] So I actually didn't start on the product side. I started selling it at first.

[00:03:38] Built that team out for about three years and then having talked to so many users and spent so much time in the product, decided to make a switch to start building it.

[00:03:47] So today, most of my day to day at Crexie is working with our users and working with the company to help align the product with where we want to go next and what we want to build.

[00:03:56] So it's been really exciting to kind of make that impact on the industry and change what the product can do.

[00:04:01] Kyle, what are some of the pain points that users have?

[00:04:04] What are some of the solutions or value that Crexie wanted to provide when they first started out for the real estate industry?

[00:04:11] You know, I think when you look back at specifically commercial real estate, right, because residential for a while has had Zillow, you know, apartments.com, you know, those sorts of platforms.

[00:04:21] Commercial had always been a little bit laggy in kind of that space.

[00:04:24] And for so long, it was a relationship business.

[00:04:27] You know, I think about when I was in college and high school and maybe even for you guys, unless you had family that were brokers or had done commercial real estate, you really didn't know anything about it.

[00:04:37] Right.

[00:04:37] And it's been such a dark industry that was about relationships and who you knew and how you got into it.

[00:04:43] That what Crexie really wanted to do when we when we started this company was to give more access to it.

[00:04:50] Right.

[00:04:50] We wanted more people to have access and availability to understand what's out there.

[00:04:54] Right.

[00:04:55] What opportunities are there for me to go build wealth?

[00:04:57] What opportunities are out there for me to go invest in my backyard or invest across state borders and that sort of thing?

[00:05:03] So I think that was one of our big key goals was kind of giving more access, openness and transparency to the industry to really move it forward.

[00:05:12] That's a real thing.

[00:05:13] You know, I remember growing up, you'd see commercial buildings and it was who who owns that?

[00:05:19] How could they possibly own it?

[00:05:21] And it's like this huge barrier.

[00:05:23] You almost can't even fathom getting into it.

[00:05:26] And I think it's almost the same thing for people wanting to get in a multifamily.

[00:05:28] It seems like this this big dark space that you just you can't figure out.

[00:05:32] You know, you're on the edge of your seat here.

[00:05:33] What say you?

[00:05:34] Well, I was going to say it wasn't just then.

[00:05:36] It's still today.

[00:05:37] We still have a lot of Jake and Gino members.

[00:05:39] Well, I was speaking personally, but you're absolutely right.

[00:05:41] Yeah.

[00:05:41] They get on.

[00:05:42] They're like, well, who owns this 30 unit?

[00:05:44] I thought only corporations.

[00:05:46] Well, you can raise capital.

[00:05:47] And Kyle, speak to this.

[00:05:49] Is it true that Crexie is the largest marketplace online currently?

[00:05:53] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:54] Probably about a year, two years ago, we finally became the largest with the most amount of inventory.

[00:06:00] And a big reason what's attributed to that is we're not only free for our investors to search for listings.

[00:06:07] We're actually completely free for every agent or broker to list their properties on Crexie as well.

[00:06:12] And that was one of also our first key differentiators is we were the only platform to really start allowing that where any user could access us if they had an internet connection.

[00:06:20] So Jake loves you.

[00:06:22] You know why?

[00:06:22] Because Jake hates to pay until he sees some kind of value.

[00:06:27] You're giving the user's value up front.

[00:06:29] You're giving the broker's value up front.

[00:06:30] And you're foregoing a paycheck today to be able to grow into the future.

[00:06:34] And I think that's awesome.

[00:06:35] I think the fact that you can go on, and this is for anybody listening to say, how do I make connections with brokers?

[00:06:41] You go on Crexie.com.

[00:06:42] You search your area.

[00:06:44] You look for multifamily brokers.

[00:06:45] And you start connecting with the brokers in the area.

[00:06:48] You can start doing that for free today after you get off this podcast.

[00:06:53] Now, let's talk about the paid version.

[00:06:55] When you're on there, it's because it's a pay to play.

[00:06:57] It's great.

[00:06:58] You're getting access to brokers.

[00:06:59] You're getting access to listings.

[00:07:00] If you're starting to do underwritings, great place to start getting OMs off of there.

[00:07:04] What are some of the tools that you have inside your paid platform?

[00:07:08] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:09] And love to emphasize that free part.

[00:07:11] You know, for Crexie, and our CEO says this all the time, you know, we don't want people to have to pay to get value out of us, right?

[00:07:17] So there always will be value for users to some extent on the free side of Crexie.

[00:07:20] You can even buy a deal without spending a dime on Crexie and find an awesome investment, right?

[00:07:24] But when you do decide like, hey, this thing's really kicking off for me, I want to start to get some more value out of Crexie.

[00:07:30] There's a couple of different options.

[00:07:31] It really depends on the side of the house you're on, whether you're a broker or an agent or you're an investor.

[00:07:36] You know, we've got two different platforms, you know, for those individuals.

[00:07:39] We won't touch much probably on the brokerage side of that, which is our Crexie Pro product, which is really a marketing product to help brokers go out and get more eyeballs on their deals and find more investors and buyers for themselves.

[00:07:51] More so for the listeners, this podcast would really be focused on our intelligence product, which gives them access digitally to due diligence information and gives them, you know, a competitive advantage as well to help them do a couple really important jobs in commercial real estate.

[00:08:07] One being going out and sourcing deals, right?

[00:08:10] So what are ways that, you know, we always think about what are ways we can help people get creative in finding the deal, right?

[00:08:15] Instead of just having to sit there and wait for a deal to come online, how can we empower you to be proactive?

[00:08:21] And what does that even mean, wait for a deal to come online?

[00:08:24] Because a lot of the stuff that we see never, you know, you may never even see it online, right?

[00:08:29] So that's an interesting statement in itself.

[00:08:33] Totally.

[00:08:34] Well, you know, because from a lot of people, when they start, the only place they know to go look is on the MLS or a Crexie, right?

[00:08:42] Or another online platform.

[00:08:44] So essentially you're waiting for a deal to hit the market.

[00:08:46] And to your point that that's not how all deals transact.

[00:08:49] There are a lot of deals that are done.

[00:08:51] What percentage?

[00:08:53] I don't know.

[00:08:53] I wouldn't want to speak to that.

[00:08:54] Let's say multifamily.

[00:08:56] I would say in multifamily and it's size dependent.

[00:08:59] I would say it's less than 30%.

[00:09:00] Jake, I would say it's dependent upon the market cycle.

[00:09:03] In 2022, I would say 6%.

[00:09:06] I would say when me and you started back in 2011, a lot more because deals would go there and die.

[00:09:12] And I think it would come back.

[00:09:14] So Crexie, the free version of Crexie for the next 6 to 12 months and maybe even 18 months.

[00:09:18] I bet it's hot right now.

[00:09:19] Yeah.

[00:09:20] There's a lot more deal flow going on there because these sellers still haven't come down with their pricing.

[00:09:25] And brokers are like, I haven't sold this thing.

[00:09:26] None of my investors want to buy this.

[00:09:28] Let me list it on Crexie for free.

[00:09:30] Yeah, totally.

[00:09:31] And so last year, we definitely saw a huge decrease in volume as well, especially between the interest rates that we saw, the expectations that sellers were having.

[00:09:41] And we feel pretty bullish that we'll see that kind of start to turn around now and really pick up over the next 6, 12, 18 months, like you said.

[00:09:48] But to your point is like, hey, not all the deals happen on Crexie.

[00:09:51] And we're the first to admit that.

[00:09:53] We understand that.

[00:09:53] And that's why we created these tools was to say, hey, if you want to become proactive and start reaching out directly to owners or to property managers yourself, how can we help people do that?

[00:10:03] And if you want to make connections with agents.

[00:10:05] So, hey, I'm not seeing anything online, but I see this agent lists in this market.

[00:10:09] Can he find me sellers?

[00:10:11] Can he help me find deals?

[00:10:13] Those are some of those other things we're trying to do to help you get creative in sourcing is create some of those connections to agents.

[00:10:18] You know, offer this paid tool that allows you to get access directly to owners information and how to reach out to them to source deals.

[00:10:25] So you don't have to wait for something to come to market or you don't have to just pick over what's listed out there.

[00:10:30] You can kind of take matters into your own hands and get creative in sourcing.

[00:10:34] Big shout out to Sean at Crexie.

[00:10:36] He's done a couple of masterclasses for the Jake and Gino community.

[00:10:39] He's even done something really nice for us, Jake.

[00:10:41] He's offered a nice discount to any Jake and Gino community members or any listeners to this podcast.

[00:10:47] So in the show notes, there will be a link if you want to sign up with Crexie.

[00:10:52] And for me, starting out or trying to continue to grow the business, if I can get into a certain market and use Crexie tools,

[00:11:01] you can go in there and find out the debt of a deal when this debt is expiring.

[00:11:07] You can find out the owner's information.

[00:11:09] You can find out median income.

[00:11:11] You can look at comps.

[00:11:13] The list goes on and on.

[00:11:14] You may say to yourself, well, this is going to cost me money.

[00:11:17] This is so worth it because when you speak to brokers and you speak to investors and to partners,

[00:11:22] you'll have the information.

[00:11:23] You'll be an expert in the market.

[00:11:26] And I don't care if you live in a certain market, you've been driving around.

[00:11:29] You may think you know that market.

[00:11:31] Anyone using these tools is going to know the market a lot better than you are without you using the tools.

[00:11:36] Because it's just amazing how things change, the fluidity, the way the assets transact, the brokers that come into the space,

[00:11:44] the brokers that leave the space.

[00:11:45] All this information is on Crexie.

[00:11:47] Kyle, do you want to add anything to that?

[00:11:49] Let me say something.

[00:11:50] I wanted to clarify a point that I had before.

[00:11:54] He was saying when it hits the market or goes online, I think that's one of the cool things about Crexie is it seems to really catch a lot of that stuff that's out there.

[00:12:03] Where when we started back in our day, yeehaw, right?

[00:12:07] Nothing was on Realtor.

[00:12:09] You might find something on LoopNet.

[00:12:10] But it's true, though.

[00:12:12] It was a relationship-driven business.

[00:12:14] Gina's pissing his pants over there.

[00:12:20] Finding commercial deals, you can't go to Walmart and pick it up off the shelf.

[00:12:25] It was where the hell are these things?

[00:12:27] And so that's one of the cool things about Crexie.

[00:12:29] You actually go shopping to a certain extent, and it's more of a hub than a lot of this stuff.

[00:12:34] So that's what I meant.

[00:12:35] I think it's really cool what you guys are doing.

[00:12:37] Gina, you're going to ask something.

[00:12:38] Well, I was just saying you got the yeehaw going.

[00:12:40] You're still thinking about Eric, man.

[00:12:41] Do you really want me to sing some country?

[00:12:43] I will make a promise to you.

[00:12:44] I want you to practice a little bit because you're better after you get a few reps in.

[00:12:48] I don't want you to get out there too early.

[00:12:50] I'm coming next week to Knoxville.

[00:12:52] I will be ready for you next Wednesday, bro.

[00:12:53] I'll even bring the cowboy boots, and I'll have the hat on for you.

[00:12:56] How about that?

[00:12:57] I got a – well, go ahead and ask me your next question.

[00:12:59] I'm going to pick out a couple songs for you to practice here.

[00:13:01] All right.

[00:13:02] Kyle, as we're talking about country music, give us some of the other tools that Crexie can really offer to the providers, to people signing up.

[00:13:12] Absolutely.

[00:13:13] We've talked a lot about sourcing business here, but that's one key piece.

[00:13:17] Once you find a deal, you want to understand your market.

[00:13:20] You want to understand the other properties that have transacted around and where pricing is because, to your point, you want to be an expert when you go into this deal.

[00:13:27] Because if you don't know all the details, who are you listening to?

[00:13:30] The broker, right?

[00:13:31] They're the ones that are trying to sell the deal.

[00:13:33] They're going to sweet talk you, get you to feel that this is the best deal you've ever seen.

[00:13:36] However, if you've got a tool like Crexie to help you understand, hey, what else is sold in this market?

[00:13:41] What's the actual price per door that we're seeing for multifamily here?

[00:13:44] What are the average cap rates based on the last 20 transactions that took place in this market?

[00:13:50] That way you know, if this broker is telling me he's asking an 8 cap and I see that the market averages a 10, I can ask those questions.

[00:13:57] You know, I'm more educated to know like, hey, maybe that 8 cap is worth it because it's more stabilized.

[00:14:03] It's in a better area.

[00:14:04] It's a class A property.

[00:14:05] But I better know to ask him that so I have that justification before, you know, otherwise I wouldn't know.

[00:14:12] So that's one of the big things is giving people access to sales comps and market reporting within.

[00:14:19] So we just launched about a month ago our new market reports tool, which gives people an aggregate.

[00:14:24] You guys are going after CoStar, huh?

[00:14:27] We're trying to close all the gaps that we can to get there.

[00:14:30] You know, we always tell people they've been around 30 years.

[00:14:32] We've been around, you know, 8 years-ish now.

[00:14:34] And if you see what we've built in 8 compared to 30, I think you can see the trajectory that we're on to catch up, you know, relatively quickly.

[00:14:41] But yeah, we just released our own market report section to help users get into these markets, these submarkets, and really see that story that's been happening.

[00:14:48] We're going back to 2020 until today.

[00:14:51] So you can see, hey, from COVID, post-COVID, how have things changed?

[00:14:55] What do markets look like?

[00:14:56] And ultimately, like I said, it makes you, you know, more prepared to ask the right questions to an agent, right?

[00:15:01] We're not saying that we're here to replace, you know, that interaction with an agent or replace that expertise.

[00:15:07] But we're here to give you more knowledge to understand, you know, hey, what questions should I bring to my agent?

[00:15:12] Or what questions should I be asking an agent or broker, right?

[00:15:16] Like that's the real goal behind having access to these tools.

[00:15:19] Kyle, it's interesting.

[00:15:20] You say you've only been around eight years and they've been around 30.

[00:15:23] It's very similar to companies like Yardi, RealPage.

[00:15:27] They've been around forever.

[00:15:28] And you've got a company like Actfolio or you have these other companies that are newer.

[00:15:32] It seems as if the newer companies are more nimble.

[00:15:34] They're more apt to embrace technology.

[00:15:37] They've got much cleaner and newer interfaces.

[00:15:40] Can you speak to that?

[00:15:41] Like, you know, if I'm sitting here going,

[00:15:43] I'm CoStar, this price point, Crexie's is less expensive.

[00:15:47] But how do they compete one against the other?

[00:15:51] Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.

[00:15:52] We talk about that all the time that we feel lucky that, you know, we don't have necessarily a – we're not public, right?

[00:15:57] We don't have a group of investors that we're reporting to and we have to keep happy and thus makes us slow and have to make all these bureaucratic decisions, right?

[00:16:05] We can get feedback directly from users week by week and go say, hey, we're going to go build that, right?

[00:16:10] You know, that's a lot of what I'm doing in building the product is, you know, Sean, who you mentioned, comes to me and says,

[00:16:15] Kyle, I talked to 20 of our guys this week or 20 of our, you know, users this week.

[00:16:19] And they all were saying, hey, we really want this or we're really struggling with this.

[00:16:23] We can turn around in one, two, three months.

[00:16:24] If it's that big of an issue, we can go fix it, right?

[00:16:27] Whereas on another platform, it might take them six months, 12 months to really roll out a huge product because of all the different hoops and things they've got to jump through.

[00:16:36] Also, we're raising, you know, capital and have a lot of extra capital that we've been raising to help us have the money to go do these things, right?

[00:16:42] And be able in that.

[00:16:44] So to your point, yes, being a young company, there's definitely advantages and disadvantages.

[00:16:47] We're new in the market.

[00:16:48] We don't have the name right yet necessarily everywhere.

[00:16:51] I think now it's better than it was four years ago for sure.

[00:16:55] I think we're finally becoming that name, that home name.

[00:16:58] But, you know, the advantage is we can move quick and we can make changes and, you know, we can make mistakes but quickly fix them, right?

[00:17:05] You know, we know we're not perfect yet and we're okay with that.

[00:17:07] We'll take some risks just to give us a leg up in different areas for sure.

[00:17:11] One of the similar areas that I see between Crexie and Jake and Gino is – I'm going to use Sean as an example.

[00:17:16] Sean is actually in the business.

[00:17:19] He is actually investing in multifamily.

[00:17:21] He understands the product.

[00:17:23] Whereas our sales advisors, they're invested in multifamily deals.

[00:17:26] They believe in the vehicle.

[00:17:28] And that's something that's comforting to me because if you're going to be selling a BMW, you better be driving a BMW.

[00:17:33] And that was something that was really impressive with me with Sean.

[00:17:35] He actually could have a conversation about multifamily.

[00:17:39] He could actually talk about market cycles and talk about market dynamics and talk about cap rates and not just technology.

[00:17:45] The technology is behind it.

[00:17:47] Can you speak to that as well as far as you guys start growing?

[00:17:49] How are you guys staying in touch with the market itself?

[00:17:53] Absolutely.

[00:17:54] It's a great question and it's a challenge I'm glad I don't have to solve alone, right?

[00:17:59] You know, to your point is a lot of the core that started Crexie is still here.

[00:18:04] I think we had our all-hands meeting yesterday and Mike had said the original 10 guys, you know, almost all 10 are still here.

[00:18:09] And all those guys, you know, had played in multifamily or in investing in commercial real estate and really passed that along to a lot of the others in the industry.

[00:18:16] What we've done is we've hired a lot of people from industry as well.

[00:18:19] You know, we're not going after Google hires.

[00:18:21] We're not going after Yahoo hires, you know, things like that.

[00:18:24] We're looking for people that have been in the industry and can speak to the users.

[00:18:27] You know, we can teach them the product.

[00:18:29] We can teach them how to do sales.

[00:18:30] We can teach them how to do Crexie.

[00:18:33] But if they have that industry knowledge, to your point, it comes off very good to the end user.

[00:18:37] It makes them more knowledgeable when they do speak to our product.

[00:18:40] So we actually have a whole internal team that's focused on onboarding new team members.

[00:18:46] And a big chunk of that, almost a week, is just focused on learning commercial real estate.

[00:18:50] How does this really apply to our users?

[00:18:53] And from my seat as a product manager, when I go and build a new tool for our sales team to use or for our consumers to use, you know, when I go build it, I have to be able to tell the story from the user's shoes, right?

[00:19:03] I'm not going to build a product that's going to go and make Crexie better for ourselves.

[00:19:08] It's no, how do I go build a product that makes it better for the investor, makes it better for the appraiser, etc.

[00:19:13] Because when I tell that story to our sales team to help them sell the product, that's how they can speak to the users because it was thought to be built for them, right?

[00:19:22] So that's a huge piece that we try to always ingrain across the organization, for sure.

[00:19:26] Last question before we go to the short answers.

[00:19:29] What I wanted to ask you, you said something very interesting, and you guys have the data.

[00:19:34] It seems as if deal flow slowed substantially over the last 12 to 18 months as far as deals coming online.

[00:19:40] What do you see happening now and in the future?

[00:19:42] Do you see deal flow picking up?

[00:19:44] Do you see cap rates decompressing?

[00:19:47] Do you see a little bit more euphoria since interest rates have dropped?

[00:19:51] Yeah, I think we were just talking about this yesterday.

[00:19:54] We saw the 60 basis points change, you know, was it last month or recently, which was a huge sign for the industry, you know, that some things were going to be changing.

[00:20:02] We're always very bullish, you know, on the commercial real estate market and feel like especially with the technology we can offer, you know, that it helps the industry kind of recover faster and be able to go in.

[00:20:11] But definitely seeing, you know, deal flow start to increase and especially on crack seed deals in the market and seeing things, especially with that new market reports tool we've seen.

[00:20:20] We've started to see those cap rates, you know, start to come up and have that change in other markets and that sort of thing.

[00:20:26] I will say there are some markets that are the darlings that are really trying not to change, you know, and they're really competitive and really strong.

[00:20:33] But in most places across, you know, we do see a change coming over the next 12 to 18.

[00:20:38] Tell me about the darlings.

[00:20:41] Who are the darlings?

[00:20:43] I mean, I think most people know it, but the Nashvilles, right, the North Carolinas, Charlotte, even still Texas markets, the Sun Belt is where we get so many investors that come.

[00:20:53] And, you know, one of the first questions in Gino, maybe Sean had asked you when you joined one of the calls with him is, where are you guys looking?

[00:20:59] And it feels like still the main thing we're hearing is that that Sun Belt market, you know, the Nashvilles, North Carolinas, et cetera, kind of the things we're still hearing from investors.

[00:21:09] The darlings, Gino.

[00:21:11] The darlings of CRE.

[00:21:12] All right, guys, let's take a quick time out to hear from our sponsor.

[00:21:14] Now, we have had a great run in multifamily going from zero units to over $250 million in assets.

[00:21:20] That's over 2,000 apartment deals that we've been able to purchase through our framework, buy right, manage right, and finance right.

[00:21:27] Now, Jake and I, we created the Jake and Gino community back in 2015.

[00:21:30] We launched our first book, Build Our Profits.

[00:21:33] And since then, our students have closed over 60,000 units.

[00:21:37] That's over $4 billion in assets they've been able to close over the last six years.

[00:21:41] And that's why this community has been so successful.

[00:21:43] We call it results-based education.

[00:21:46] And we pour back into the community everything that we've learned on our journey from zero to 2,000 units and all our systems and scale that we use on our very own property management and investing companies.

[00:21:56] Jake, I love that.

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[00:21:59] So what I want you to do, click on that link down below, apply to work with our team, see how we can help you on your journey in multifamily.

[00:22:08] All right, we are back.

[00:22:10] So we were talking about the darlings in terms of geographical.

[00:22:14] What about breaking down the commercial real estate space?

[00:22:18] Any change with, say, office, retail?

[00:22:22] Are they still getting clobbered?

[00:22:23] Multifamily, industrial?

[00:22:24] Were the darlings for the longest time?

[00:22:27] What are you guys seeing?

[00:22:28] What's your internal data telling you?

[00:22:30] Yeah, for the most part, we are seeing it pick up across all different areas of the market.

[00:22:36] And what we really saw throughout this time was not that these deals couldn't get done.

[00:22:40] People just had to get creative in what they were doing and what they were using them for.

[00:22:43] We've seen a lot of these old office, multifamily properties or things like that start turning to self-storage.

[00:22:50] And we've seen a huge uptick of investors reaching out to us for help in self-storage deals and these conversions and that sort of things.

[00:22:57] You know, we've also seen an uptick in a lot of these multifamily deals being done and stuff as well across the nation, especially it seems with, you know, the elections and stuff.

[00:23:11] Things always start to get a little bit interesting.

[00:23:12] So we'll be very interested to see what happens post-cycle as well with changes.

[00:23:17] But really, it's been just how can people repurpose properties, right?

[00:23:20] So for the offices, for these that, you know, we're not doing well, how are people getting creative and making them, you know, fit better in the market?

[00:23:27] Because ultimately, that's what it is.

[00:23:28] It's not that buildings are useless or that they won't be used again.

[00:23:30] It's just finding the right use for them, you know, now that it may not be for office purposes or other things.

[00:23:36] But I think I did just see Amazon is going five days a week in the office company-wide again.

[00:23:42] You know, we're seeing a lot of these companies start to bring back.

[00:23:45] Yeah, but I feel like they're building all new product.

[00:23:49] I have seen that a lot.

[00:23:50] You really class A custom projects that are really off our experience.

[00:23:53] Do you know from the top rope?

[00:23:55] What are you going to say with the flying elbow?

[00:23:56] I got to come in from the top rope.

[00:23:58] I just read an article stating that Amazon's doing that because they want to self-select.

[00:24:03] They want to get rid of some of the dead weight.

[00:24:05] So if, like, you don't want to come back to the office, Sia wouldn't want to be here.

[00:24:08] They're trimming it, baby.

[00:24:09] They got too much fat.

[00:24:10] Oh, dude, that's such an interesting thing.

[00:24:12] So it's like, you want to be here?

[00:24:13] We don't need to lay people off.

[00:24:15] You got to come back to the office.

[00:24:16] Let's see if we can just trim 5% without looking like the bad guy.

[00:24:18] I'm not saying it's true or not, but that's the article.

[00:24:21] Dude, it's definitely true.

[00:24:22] It's brilliant.

[00:24:23] Yeah, and the thing is, I get it, and some positions may not.

[00:24:27] But I can totally see when you're in the office at least two to three days a week, at least.

[00:24:31] You're engaged.

[00:24:32] You're around the water cooler.

[00:24:34] You're shooting the breeze.

[00:24:35] You got ideas.

[00:24:36] It's just so much more energy.

[00:24:38] To me, I don't think –

[00:24:40] If Elon can cut 80% of Twitter, these guys may be looking just for another 5% or something, right?

[00:24:45] And that's a ton of money.

[00:24:47] So that's very interesting.

[00:24:48] I think more companies are going to start doing that.

[00:24:52] You're in Chicago for a little bit there.

[00:24:54] You're still in Chicago?

[00:24:55] No.

[00:24:55] I've moved out to Los Angeles because that's where Crexie's headquartered.

[00:24:59] But grew up in the suburbs.

[00:25:00] You went from the fire to the kettle?

[00:25:05] Yeah, my family would always say you went from one dumpster fire to the next, right?

[00:25:12] So –

[00:25:12] You know, when I can come back with those, at least you got good weather now, right?

[00:25:16] No, I do miss Chicago.

[00:25:18] I love that city with all my heart.

[00:25:19] There's so much character and charm.

[00:25:21] And I always tell people three months out of the year, it's the best city in the United States for sure.

[00:25:25] Sounds spoken like a true New Yorker, right?

[00:25:27] Yeah.

[00:25:29] So I was just curious.

[00:25:30] Ty, you were in the – you went to college and things.

[00:25:33] Any run-ins with Sam Zell?

[00:25:34] Did he ever come in and speak to any of your classes or anything like that while you were in Chicago?

[00:25:38] No, no.

[00:25:39] We never had any run-ins, unfortunately.

[00:25:41] Oh, man.

[00:25:41] I was hoping when he was going because I know he was active in academia out there and whatnot.

[00:25:47] So that would have been cool.

[00:25:51] The leasing space, you've been – it sounds like you have a – you guys have like pictures of CoStar up in the office.

[00:25:57] And you're like plotting to take them down.

[00:25:59] Are you guys going to be putting listings on there for leasing or anything like that on the platform in the future?

[00:26:05] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:26:06] So when we first started, it was just a sales platform.

[00:26:10] But really, roughly four years ago is when we launched our leasing platform.

[00:26:14] Oh, so you're already competing at that level.

[00:26:16] I haven't seen that yet.

[00:26:17] So yeah, so we do have the leasing side on Crexie.

[00:26:19] And spent the last four years really trying to build that up and get it on par with our sales side.

[00:26:24] And ultimately –

[00:26:25] Even for individual units though, not like leasing out – no shit.

[00:26:28] I wasn't worried.

[00:26:28] For individual units on the residential side, not yet.

[00:26:32] Sorry, that was my question specifically because what you're seeing is like Zillow in the last three to five years has really taken off.

[00:26:40] Because we're strictly multifamily.

[00:26:42] So we're kind of like tunnel vision.

[00:26:44] But I was curious if you guys have a future there to compete like apartments.com, leasing actual individual apartment units, Zillow, etc.

[00:26:54] Yeah, I would say for today we're really focused on perfecting at the investment and building level for commercial real estate.

[00:27:01] We want to be very careful of if you start to expand into too many things too fast.

[00:27:05] Sure, get out of your skis.

[00:27:07] You know, the other things.

[00:27:07] And we want to be careful of that.

[00:27:09] We feel like we're not perfect in all the other areas yet to really do that.

[00:27:12] But we have a ton of plans where we would love to start to expand to other options, of course.

[00:27:19] Is there ways we can start to impact the funding?

[00:27:21] Is there ways we can start to impact the appraisal process?

[00:27:24] Is there ways we can start to impact all these other parts of the business?

[00:27:27] Of course, we're always thinking about that and thinking about how we can get into that.

[00:27:31] But hey, let's go perfect what we've got today and make sure people are satisfied there and really become something that transforms the industry before we start to get too crazy in over our heads.

[00:27:42] You guys seem open to sharing some of the smack before you get somebody hooked, right?

[00:27:47] You got a little bit of that drug dealer in you.

[00:27:49] You're going to send me a couple of those market reports after this or what?

[00:27:52] Can I get some of that?

[00:27:53] Yeah.

[00:27:54] Yeah.

[00:27:54] I don't know if we would ever market that out.

[00:27:56] Is that there, Jake?

[00:27:58] No, dude.

[00:27:58] We get what you're doing here.

[00:28:00] Do you see what I said, Kyle?

[00:28:02] I said he wants free stuff you don't want to pay.

[00:28:06] He's hitting you up, Kyle.

[00:28:07] You know what I'm saying?

[00:28:08] I'm just saying, Kyle, can I get a market report here, right?

[00:28:11] Yeah.

[00:28:11] We're always happy to let people get a little bit of a taste, at least before they know what

[00:28:15] they're getting into yet.

[00:28:18] I'm guessing you've reviewed yours versus the stuff that CoStar is putting out there.

[00:28:22] How does it compare?

[00:28:23] What are the differences?

[00:28:24] Where do you see your competitive advantage in that space?

[00:28:27] Absolutely.

[00:28:28] I think one of the biggest advantages that we see, I think people notice right off the

[00:28:32] bat is just the interface in general.

[00:28:34] To your point, when you look at us compared to any commercial platform out there, the UI

[00:28:39] is friendly.

[00:28:40] It's easy to use.

[00:28:41] It shouldn't take a lot of time to figure out how to leverage the platform.

[00:28:45] Outside of that, though, it's really the technology.

[00:28:47] What I say about a lot of these other commercial real estate companies is they were a commercial

[00:28:52] real estate company that then became a tech company, right?

[00:28:55] Because they all were around before PropTech was really here.

[00:28:58] We were the opposite, right?

[00:28:59] We had in mind, we were a PropTech company that services commercial real estate.

[00:29:03] So in mind with everything that we build, there's technology behind it, right?

[00:29:08] And that's, we want to think about how we can optimize for the latest and greatest.

[00:29:11] We have a really cool project we've been working on that's been in beta for a little bit now

[00:29:15] where we're finally leveraging AI and Crexie to help with searching and document processing

[00:29:20] and some other really cool stuff that we've got coming down the road.

[00:29:23] So that's one of the key advantages we'll have over a lot of these other platforms is

[00:29:27] that because we're nimble, because we're young and we're a PropTech company first, we can

[00:29:32] go embrace a lot of these technologies and not have it really impact the core business

[00:29:35] or really impact the core functionality.

[00:29:38] I would say the other thing that's big is our speed to update and our speed of the platform.

[00:29:43] A lot of these companies, when they release reports or they release data, right?

[00:29:48] It's at a monthly cadence, a quarterly cadence, you know, right?

[00:29:51] You have to kind of wait for their next iteration.

[00:29:53] All of our technology updates in real time.

[00:29:56] And as you move a map and adjust to pinpoint the sub market you're in, your data updates

[00:30:01] in real time, right?

[00:30:02] I like that.

[00:30:03] So that's a huge advantage to us too is you kind of get your fingers on the real time

[00:30:06] data, you know, as you move and adjust your map based on what you're trying to find in

[00:30:10] your market, the things are updating.

[00:30:13] So you can really have the most up-to-date view of what's happening.

[00:30:15] Yeah.

[00:30:16] I like that too, from the sense that, you know, we have a geographical footprint and

[00:30:19] kind of can hone in via that using, using that.

[00:30:22] So, um, so, you know, best way for folks to get ahold of you.

[00:30:27] I mean, they may not be reaching out to you, but, um, what's, uh, what makes the most sense?

[00:30:31] How can, how can people connect?

[00:30:33] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:34] Um, so if people want to reach out, you know, I've talked to customers every day to get feedback.

[00:30:39] So if there's any of the listeners too, that are avid Crexie users and they have this thing

[00:30:42] that annoys them or something that they want to, you know, say that this could be great for

[00:30:45] Crexie, they can always reach out directly, you know, to myself on LinkedIn.

[00:30:49] It's, it's Kyle Cowherd.

[00:30:50] They can add me, shoot me a message or note there.

[00:30:52] I'm happy to connect.

[00:30:53] Uh, also if they want to just reach out to Crexie in general to learn about our products

[00:30:56] or learn how to use it, uh, if they message our direct support line and let them know

[00:31:00] what they're looking for, they'll connect them with the right person within the company,

[00:31:03] uh, that, that can speak with them.

[00:31:05] Yes.

[00:31:05] We, we still have real people on our chats on Crexie and yes, a real person will call and

[00:31:09] talk to you if you want to.

[00:31:10] Uh, that's a huge thing that we pride ourselves on with our customer service and that team

[00:31:14] as well.

[00:31:15] And I will, I will, you know, kind of give you a nod on this too, because there was this

[00:31:20] phantom person that started the call.

[00:31:22] I'm guessing she was your assistant or something and we couldn't see her.

[00:31:24] And I was questioning whether it was a robot or not.

[00:31:26] And then, you know, they kind of turned the lights on camera came on and it was real.

[00:31:30] So he's, he's putting his money where his mouth is folks.

[00:31:32] He's telling the truth.

[00:31:33] Yep.

[00:31:33] And then if there's anybody that's interested in the, in the product, as Gino said earlier,

[00:31:37] Sean would be kind of the best person to reach out to, to, to speak directly about seeing

[00:31:41] the product, how it works.

[00:31:42] Does it fit for any of the folks here as well?

[00:31:44] How'd they get ahold of Sean?

[00:31:46] Yeah.

[00:31:46] So it'd be S Mir at Crexie.com would be Sean.

[00:31:49] So Sean Mir, M I R, uh, would be that person that you'd want to talk to.

[00:31:53] And we've got the link down below if they want to, you know, actually access the platform

[00:31:56] and get a discount for the program, for the product itself.

[00:32:00] All right.

[00:32:01] Gino, um, you got a story to tell us?

[00:32:02] I do have a story.

[00:32:04] You've got a young Kyle with that stash sitting in a classroom in Northern Illinois, hanging

[00:32:09] out, scrolling through the gram.

[00:32:11] And all of a sudden two gentlemen that look like Jake and Gino walk in and these two jabronis

[00:32:16] and Kyle's like, who are these guys?

[00:32:18] What the hell are they doing here?

[00:32:19] Right.

[00:32:20] But it dawns on him a couple of years later.

[00:32:22] And I want to work for these two jabronis.

[00:32:24] I love their charisma.

[00:32:25] I love their vision.

[00:32:26] I love the way they want to democratize commercial real estate and get it out of the shadows.

[00:32:32] And all of a sudden he decides to join, starts on the customer service side.

[00:32:36] And from customer service works his way through.

[00:32:38] And now he's on the sales side.

[00:32:40] And the amazing thing about Crexie is they are a prop tech company that started as prop tech

[00:32:46] to help the real estate.

[00:32:48] They have so many, so many, as I would say, unique selling propositions.

[00:32:52] One of them to me is the ability to actually speak to the consumer, solve the value, the

[00:32:58] problems that these consumers have.

[00:33:00] I mean, as far as getting market data, as far as getting comp data, as far as being able

[00:33:05] to connect with brokers.

[00:33:06] Now, if you want a free taste, get on there.

[00:33:08] Get on the free site.

[00:33:10] Start twirling around.

[00:33:12] But once you see the value behind the curtain, you're going to say to yourself, I need to

[00:33:17] join these guys because this data is invaluable because I want to be a player in the space.

[00:33:21] I want to be able to speak to a real estate broker intelligently.

[00:33:24] I want to be able to network with other brokers intelligently.

[00:33:27] And I need this data.

[00:33:29] So, Gino, commercial real estate was in the shadows.

[00:33:33] Is that what you're telling me?

[00:33:33] It was in the shadows.

[00:33:34] Yeah, well, that's what you're telling me.

[00:33:35] You're like, who owns this building?

[00:33:36] I don't know who owns this building.

[00:33:37] You're Jake Senziano in the 1980s hanging out in Western New York saying to himself, I don't

[00:33:42] know, I'm going to tell you rich people.

[00:33:44] How do I get a piece of this?

[00:33:45] Yeah, I was just trying to ride a BMX bike, bro.

[00:33:48] So what I'm seeing for all the nerds out there, commercial real estate was in Mordor.

[00:33:54] And they just came across the line into Gondor with Grexie.

[00:33:57] Is that what we're hearing here?

[00:33:59] I like that.

[00:33:59] Yeah, yes.

[00:34:00] I knew you would.

[00:34:00] I knew you would.

[00:34:01] Yeah, I think Gandalf coming and he got the Nazgul coming and Gandalf is shooting the staff.

[00:34:06] And he's saying, come baby, come.

[00:34:08] I love it.

[00:34:08] I love it.

[00:34:09] Wow.

[00:34:09] That made my day.

[00:34:10] Gang, as always, we believe in buying deals for the long term.

[00:34:13] Think in decades.

[00:34:14] I'm Jake.

[00:34:14] He is the G daddy.

[00:34:16] He may be Gandalf today.

[00:34:17] We make it happen.

[00:34:18] We'll see you next time.