Matthew Maschler:
Welcome to the Real Estate Finder podcast. I’m Matthew Maschler, real estate broker at Signature Real Estate Finder. And with me as always, Stacy Garcia. Hi Stacy. How are you? I’m awesome. How’s your summer going so far? It’s very hot. It is very hot. I am actually headed to California. That’s awesome. You know, with my daughter, she’s studying, uh, marine, uh, mammals with, uh, university of California San Diego. Oh, that’s So that should be fun. Yeah. So we’ll be out there for a few weeks. Uh, but anyway, back to the podcast. Uh, welcome to the Real Estate Finder podcast. We have a very, very special guest with us today. Uh, Mr. Doug Chavelle. Uh, Doug is the, uh, team leader of the commercial division of Signature Real Estate Finder and of the signature real estate companies. He’s a, uh, commercial realtor, something I know nothing about.
And, uh, you know, I know a lot about a lot of things and, and when I do, I’m happy to talk about ’em. But when there’s a subject, I don’t know, I don’t want to even make shit up. I just tell people to talk to Doug <laugh>. Hi, Doug.
Doug Shavel:
Hey Matt. Hi Stacy. How are we today? We’re good. How is the commercial real estate market? Well, it’s like the weather. It’s like the weather. It’s hot. It’s hot, it’s hot. It is very interesting times. Um, you know, this recessionary, recessionary, uh, loo recession looming, um, has got a lot of people concerned, but it doesn’t seem to be really impacting the activity in the market. Um, as you may or may not know, in commercial, we look at, uh, different sectors. You know, we have multifamily, we have industrial, we have office, we have retail, we have development land, and, you know, hospitality.
And the only sector that seems to nationally be having a little bit of difficulty recovering is the office sector. And that obviously is because people aren’t coming back into work like they used to. That makes sense. And Oh, I wanna interrupt you for a sec. You said there’s a, we’re in a recession. Oh, we’re looming in, you think looming. Yeah, I think so. I believe that we’re gonna hit the recessionary button here. Okay. In the next few months. Just if few listeners are out there. That is Doug’s opinion. Maybe not. My opinion is right. No, I’m not board for that. I mean, I’m not excited about it. But then again, it creates opportunity. Oh, always, always creates opportunity. Cuz what we’ve seen over the last several years is this very low interest rate environment. We’ve, uh, we’ve seen some of the bigger players, institutional Wall Street players and big houses that, uh, are in the real estate space.
Um, we see them buying up things left and right, and who knows, you know, how that funding situation’s going to look in two to three years when many of the loans that have been taken on these properties that have been acquired come to maturity. Um, and refinancing is gonna be at, you know, higher rates than what we’re used to in the last few years. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but historically still low, low rates historically we’re very, very low rates. So, um, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m personally not afraid of higher interest rates. Um, I think they’d be good to stop inflation. Uh, I don’t think that it will slow buyers down all that much. Higher rates, uh, the one thing, higher rates, uh, unin unintended consequences of higher rates that I see is, uh, and again, I I’m speaking from residential, uh, people in 30 year loans that are only in, you know, maybe they’re three years into a 30 year loan, they’re thinking, well, I borrowed this money cheap. If I move, uh, I I replaced this house with something else, I’m gonna pay a lot more interest. Uh, that might, uh, stop some sellers, uh, from selling and entering the market, which will exasperate, uh, the, the, the low supply we already have. Um, so I think that can counterbalance, uh, some of the, of the negative, uh, impacts of, of higher interest. But, um, but Ooh, you say recession. I got shivers. <laugh>. Yeah. I
Staci Garcia:
Haven’t even, I haven’t even had anyone buy a house yet. With a mortgage. With
Matthew Maschler:
A mortgage,
Staci Garcia:
Nobody can get an offer accepted if you have a mortgage. So,
Matthew Maschler:
Right. So you have, you know, in the last two years you’ve had a lot of cash buyers or even, um, big deposits. Right. If they put 50% down, so, you know, if, if prices are attacked a little bit, there’ll still be plenty of equity in the home. Uh, if the people are, are, are cash or, or, or 50% mortgages. So, and we’re, we’re seeing something similar in the commercial space. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, because these big institutions are sitting on so much cash, they are coming into transactions, cash, no contingencies whatsoever. They’ll pay over asking price. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and they’ll go hard. They’ll go hard, which is the same as, you know, an escrow deposit becoming non-refundable. They will go hard day one mm-hmm. <affirmative> and close within 30 days. So the guys who are getting shut out are a lot of my clients who are syndicators, uhhuh guys who fund each deal individually. So they’ll identify an opportunity, um, they’ll underwrite it, they’ll put the contract in, and then they’ll go out and raise money once they’re through the due diligence period. Yeah. So
Staci Garcia:
Now I can’t imagine they have anything going on.
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah, it’s tough.
Staci Garcia:
It’s very varies because my clients are the ones that are no contingencies, put all the money down and,
Matthew Maschler:
But, but what kind of highly refundable, what kind of things are, are these your clients? What are they looking for?
Doug Shavel:
A lot of them are doing multifamily. They’re looking for multifamily. The two, two hottest segments of the market right now are industrial and multifamily. How many, so I’m in residential, right?
Matthew Maschler:
So I, you know, single family home or maybe a duplex with two houses with two. How many units are, are, when you say multifamily, how many, how many units are you talking about?
Doug Shavel:
Five or more? Five or more. Five or more units per property. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, is there a lot of that in Boca? There is not a lot available. There are quite a few properties, there’s properties like that. But then, yeah, there are a lot of rental communities here in Boca. They don’t tend, they don’t, do they even, even before this crazy market, do they sell often or are they pretty much in the, in the same hands that they’ve been for a long time?
They kind of stay in the same hands? Yeah, we’ve see, we’ve seen a couple of trades in the last, uh, six months. Uh, there was a property just behind the, uh, whole Foods over here on Glades Uhhuh that traded. Uh, there’s another property on northwest 20th right now that’s, uh, in the market, albeit at a very, very low cap rate. Uhhuh. So what is a cap rate? Cap rate basically is a metric that we use in the commercial sector. Uh, it’s very simple. It’s your net operating income over, over the value of the property. And historically, you know, cap rates have been the five, 6% range and they differ by obviously geographic, uh, location, um, asset class, whether it’s a hotel or a multifamily or retail. Um, but we’ve seen things get, um, compressed in the last year. Um mm-hmm. <affirmative> seeing transactions getting done at the 3% cap rate in some cases.
And, you know, a lot, and I’m speaking just to Florida, um, we are unique, uh, just as we are unique in the residential space. Um, people are coming here in droves for good, better or worse. I think for us realtors, it’s good, uh, for, you know, some people don’t like it. They mm-hmm. Don’t like us. Ex New Yorkers coming here mm-hmm. <laugh>. Um, but, you know, it’s, um, it’s, it drives not only the housing, uh, whether it be single family or multifamily people looking to rent properties, but it has its knock on effects. Um, there’s a demand for industrial. Cuz when you leave your 9,000 square foot house up in Westchester, New York, and you move to Florida, you realize you don’t need a lot of stuff, or you can’t fit many of the things that you had in your 9,000 house into your 4,000 square foot house here in Florida or your apartment.
So now you need to store things. So storage is in demand. Obviously we need retail to support all the people that are moving. Uh, we also need schools and offices for all the companies that are moving down here. One of the interesting things to, to see is how many companies are moving their headquarters into South Florida. I mean, as we all know, Miami’s become a tech hub. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, the mayor down there has done a fantastic job of attracting tech companies to Miami. Um, we see, uh, west Palm has attracted many of the, um, private equity firms and hedge funds. And, um, you know, here in Boca, likewise, we’re seeing lots of demand from companies that are moving their headquarters. And that’s, you know, being driven by two things. The senior guy, the ceo, the chairman, buying a house saying, I, I can live in Florida.
And then realizing, okay, if I’m here, I need to have my people here. So he brings his team down. Yep. So it’s a, it’s a very interesting, um, dynamic that we have here in Florida, especially now, uh, when we have great weather, no income tax, and we have a very pro-business climate. It’s, it’s amazing, uh, the, the differences between working in Florida and, and working in New York. You know, in New York everything was impossible. Like you, you would try to do basic things. It’s impossible. And, and, and in Florida, the business climate, it’s so warm and welcoming. And, and, you know, uh, a couple weeks ago, I, I was talking about, um, um, uh, we had Travis on the show, show, we were talking about Boka. And I didn’t wanna become a landlord cuz I knew being a landlord was like, in New York, you couldn’t evict, you couldn’t, you know, and, and when I say evict, I mean, someone didn’t pay their rent.
Right? I mean, it’s not, not being a monster by evicting someone. They, they didn’t pay their rent. And in New York, you just can’t get ’em out. So it took me a long time to realize that, you know, you can actually do business in Florida. You can, you can get, get a, a rental property and, and make investments and, and, and, and be able to do what you need to do. And, and, and so it’s just, you know, for me in being down here 15 years and, and knowing what, what it was like to work in New York and New Jersey, such a great, uh, welcoming, um, climate for business. And that’s why, um, so many of my customers have to have to go to Doug and, and find space. Doug, you have a, currently, you, you have a, a Wells Fargo and Pompano Beach, an old, old bank building for that you listed recently?
No, we, no, no. What we, we do have is, uh, we have some retail space uhhuh that we have currently down in Pompano on Power Line Road. Right. Uh, that we’re looking to place some tenants in. Uh, we have a huge development opportunity in The Bahamas Oh yeah. That we’ve been working on for a while. Uh, this is, uh, 164 acres on an island that has a international airport, which is seven miles away from the site. The site is previously government approved for, uh, a boutique hotel, 200, um, ocean Front lots, as well as a 60 slip deep water mar. And it sits right in the Berry Islands, which as I understand, is a hotbed for fishing uhhuh <affirmative>. Wow. And then, yeah, we, um, so anyone out there wants to develop a, a Bohemian Island Paradise Resort with Doug Chavelle. Please. Uh, how do they get ahold of you?
How do they get ahold of me? 7 8 6 7 6 3 3 0 5 oh. Or you can email me at doug signature commercial re.com. Signature commercial.com. And that is also the website for the Signature Division. Um, are, you’re a team leader of the, of the commercial division? I’m the Managing director. Managing Director. Yeah. That is awesome. That is awesome. So, um, so when Doug and I met, uh, we were both selling, uh, properties in the Oaks and, uh, recently we were talking about how, uh, how the property values have increased, um, everywhere, you know, so it’s, it’s not surprisingly that that, that any one development, uh, um, has increased. Um, but we’d, um, you know, it was maybe, I don’t know, five, 10 years ago, uh, we, we sold these properties in, in, in the Oaks and that they’ve, they’ve tripled and quadrupled in value, uh, since then. And it’s been, uh, absolutely amazing to watch to watch these increases.
Um, that’s why I’m not recessionary, I’m still go, go, go. Oh, no, I, I, I think, you know, we’ve got some elements here in Florida that are gonna counteract what was might be, you know, seen in the rest of the country. Uhhuh. And, you know, I think the biggest one is just the, the demand supply imbalance with respect to housing. We have a huge shortage of housing. We still have, believe it or not, maybe not in this Tri-county area, but throughout the rest of the state, we have plenty of land. And we’re starting to see people develop in places where previously you wouldn’t have expected. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, you know, I’ve had some investors telling me, oh, I’ve bought property in Okeechobee. I go, what? Okeechobee what’s there? And, um, taking a drive up there myself to just go explore. I was dumbfounded. It’s middle of nowhere.
However, some interesting things have occurred that led me to believe that these investors were onto something. Yeah. After checking in at the Chamber of Commerce to ask a little bit about what goes on here in Okeechobee and so forth, they said, take a drive down to the lake. So I drove down to the lake and what did I encounter on the way into the lake was fascinating. A brand new super Walmart. Oh wow. A brand new Home Depot and a brand new Publix center. And I thought to myself, wow, something’s going on here. If these three major companies, huge retailers, major, have set up shop here, they see something mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it’s interesting. We we’re gonna see development occur, um, in other parts of the state. Somewhere in the middle, somewhere in the middle where people never used to stop. I, I personally love the Space Coast mm-hmm.
<affirmative> trying to work on some deals in the Space Coast. Sure. You know what a lot of people don’t understand and recognize is that the Space Coast has a number of corporate headquarters mostly related to the aviation sector. And, uh, obviously we have, um, you know, the, the, uh, Cape Canaveral there and we’ve got, um, green Origin and, uh, you know, others. Um, so they, those companies all need housing mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and there’s not a lot of housing there. You know what I, when you said, you know, all those big stores in, in Okeechobee, you know, one of the things that I, um, that I think about is, you know, people that are driving, um, east West, uh, through the state of Florida, uh, to get from the East coast to the West coast, there’s, there’s not as, not that many, um, EastWest, um, options.
Matthew Maschler:
So Okeechobee is right there on 70. And, uh, you know, if, if you are Walmart right, and you’re distributing, um, you can distribute, you know, the route, right? If it’s go, if you’re going east west, it’s, it’s a good stop on your route to stop at this one and then continue, continue along. So maybe that’s part of, of, uh, the distribution plans. Um, and then you, you know, you can, you know, certainly people are working for a little bit less there than in the major population centers. So, um, I’ve, I’ve, I, I don’t like to go down the alligator alley when I go to like Tampa or, or, or St. Petersburg. So I, I’ll take, um, 60 or 70 or 80 and, and go through. Um, I, I haven’t checked out that area of Okeechobee. Um, but I want to, and then the other thing is, that was Space Coast.
Space Coast, um, very exciting area. It is, I believe Titusville Melbourne. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think Cape Canaveral. I’m not a member of that realtors association yet. So, uh, if, if I, any, uh, any anybody out there, uh, that is a realtor is those areas or wanna work those areas, uh, you know, let me know. I’d love to open up a, a Space Coast Division, join that board and join that MLS because, uh, trying to expand through the entire state of Florida. So, um, is there still minor League baseball up in the Space Coast? Who plays up there? I don’t know. There must be. I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be. Yeah. Um, I used to be more of a fan of, uh, minor league baseball. I, I think the Space Coast has a, has a few teams. Um, I’m gonna look it up while we, uh, while we’re live on the podcast. I usually don’t like to do that, but that means Stacy’s gonna have to say something.
Staci Garcia:
All right. Well, I don’t really know the area at all. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Except when I was driving back from ucf, you kind of pass that way and then head down. Cause I went towards 95 instead of turnpike. But I’ve driven up to Lake Placid a lot. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you drive around the lake and, um, you pass, is it Bell Glade? I think it’s Bell Glade. You go West Pass West Lake, and then you end up hitting Ley going north, and it’s a beautiful ride. There’s a whole lot of nothing <laugh>, which I love. So, um, I think that the, that whole area is completely undiscovered. Yeah. I don’t even wanna tell anyone about it, but when you’re up there, it’s so quaint and adorable, you know, and small that, um, there is like one Publix, one Win Dixie, one Walmart, you know, in, in the Lake Plat area, and one breakfast place that everybody goes after church and everyone walks and it’s totally cute and everyone knows everyone else. So
Matthew Maschler:
It’s a real hometown feel.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah. And so, I, I don’t blame people for wanting to build up their, so there’s a ton of lots. And, uh, Sarah has one of the listings up there. Yeah. That’s super awesome.
Matthew Maschler:
We should do a road trip.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah. And there’s, uh, and the lake’s awesome. Everybody, uh, enjoys everybody’s all about the water and all of the neighbors, because I’ve been up there a lot. All of the neighbors leave their houses unlocked. They all, instead of walking around the front of the houses, they never see the front of their houses. They’re all in the backyard, you know, saying, you’re gonna bring the burgers, uh, we’ll use my grill, you know, whatever, I’ll bring the beer. Right. So, um, they just are walking in between their houses to hang out with their friends. They don’t, they don’t actually, uh, use the roads, you know? So, and, and I think it’s a very hometown feel to get in right now. Properties. I was just looking for a lakefront property and I was looking up, uh, Sarah’s and a couple others, they’re starting to go up in price.
I’m sure that the commercial, uh, will do the same, you know, because, uh, people will, people are trying to get away from all the chaos and all of the crowding. So the Miami people are moving to Boca. Boca, people are moving to Port St. Lucie, eventually Port St. Lucie people will move to the center somewhere, you know. So if you wanna skip a, a notch, you know, and go right to the middle of the state, I, I know a lot of people are doing that. Plus we had Steven that was, uh, moving to the Palm Coast, St. Augustine. That’s a great area. It is. It’s so, um, there’s a lot of different, it’s a different lifestyle, music and, um, and, uh, nightlife and, uh, waterways and bike riding and air. He has Airbnbs, so he’s banking up there. Um,
Matthew Maschler:
No, I think, I think what we’ll we’re seeing is, I think it was, what, in the seventies, uh, sixties and seventies, people from the Northeast, in the middle of the country who moved to Florida get retirement age, moving to the kings points and the century villages of the world. I think today they’re looking at these other options, right. Um, where you, you’re not living right on top of somebody else and it’s not as congested, and you can have that atmosphere that you just described. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
All right. So, uh, we’re gonna take a little tangent onto Spring training. And, and I realize there was something in Space Coast that, that, uh, tri triggered my, triggered me. Um, so a lot. So you have Florida and Arizona for spring training where we are the, uh, citrus League. Grapefruit League. No, one Grapefruit League, I think it is. Yeah. But now I’m thinking Arizona. It wouldn’t be the CI anyway, Florida and Arizona, but a lot of the Florida teams are on the West Coast. So on the East Coast, you had two teams up on the Space Coast, you had the Ashers and the Nationals, and then the Mets in Port St. Lucie, and then the Marlins and Cardinals in Jupiter. So the Marlins and Cardinals were far from everyone having to go to the West Coast all the time. The Astros and Nationals being on the Space Coast, they were a little bit closer to, you know, go to the other side of Florida to get to, to play against the Phillies or the Braves or the Yankees.
But what they ended up doing was they, they wanted one, one or two of those teams wanted to leave for the West Coast, which would’ve killed the East Coast. There wouldn’t have been enough teams, and all the teams would’ve had to move to the West. So West Palm Beach built a new stadium. I haven’t been there yet, but it’s been, been a few years now, three or four years now. And, and the Astros and the Nationals, one was in Cocoa, uh, and one was Osceola County, somewhere they came down to West Palm Beach. So now you have the Mets and Port St. Lucie, Marlins and, and, uh, Cardinals in Jupiter, Astros, and Nationals and West Palm Beach. So now you have these five teams relatively close. They could play each other for spring training and then minor league. Uh, so the Space Coast was left with no teams.
None. Yeah. So it used to, so we gotta work, we’ve gotta work on that, Matt. We gotta Well, no, we gotta buy a team and move it, move there. No, no, that was the problem. It was, it was too isolated up there. That’s why they, it’s gonna change. We have to move, we have to move a team down to Boca. Okay. We, well, not with these prices, but a couple years ago, get, you know, go out to, we go out West unincorporated Palm Beach County, which is all developed now, all the, all the areas. I would’ve said this would’ve been perfect. Like, um, locks Road off 4 41 Uhhuh, which all houses now, like that would’ve been perfect for a ballpark move some of these teams down here.
Staci Garcia:
I love it if they filled in the locks. Locks, is it Locks Road where they filled in the canal that goes along, where if they, if they dredged it, <laugh>, it was all full of cars and bodies. <laugh>
Matthew Maschler:
<laugh>. Yeah. So Locks Road is the border of Palm Beach and Broward County.
Staci Garcia:
I’ve lived here so long that like when people disappear or
Matthew Maschler:
That’s where you gotta look. Yeah. I mean, that’s the first
Staci Garcia:
Place everybody used to do an insurance job. Junk their car out off the side of the road there.
Matthew Maschler:
Have you driven there in the last 10 years?
Staci Garcia:
Yeah, I was coming back from Parkland mm-hmm. <affirmative>, when I was checking out Steve’s mom’s house. And that’s how we came back. Uhhuh <affirmative>,
Matthew Maschler:
If you go 4 41 to, to, uh, to the Everglades, it’s all developed
Staci Garcia:
Now. Yeah. That’s where I, Wawa is,
Matthew Maschler:
That’s where, right, right. But that’s on 4 41. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you keep driving, driving, driving, yeah. Driving West. It used to be, you know, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere. And then when you get to the Everglades, you can go on those air airport tours, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the air airport tours are still there, but there’s houses the entire way now. It’s crazy. It is. It’s, it’s a remarkable, the, the development that’s gone on, and, you know, development is a key, um, the state, we have a huge influx of people. We have a housing shortage. Yeah. So we need developers. We need people to build either single family or build multifamily for those who wanna rent or even condos up in places where they don’t have condos. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So who’s your, who’s your ideal client? Who, if, if someone’s listening right now, who, who should call you?
What are, what, what are they looking for? Well, those who want to sell their property, whether it be land or a retail plaza or a hotel or multi-family property or, um, industrial property, those would be our ideal clients. And then obviously buyers who are looking for those things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we cover the whole state. We also, you know, work with others outside the state. Uh, commercial real estate is really a national game, Uhhuh, it’s not so much a regional game. Um, so yeah. Anybody who’s fits into one of those two categories. Now, the other thing we do, uh, which is part and parcel to moving to Florida and having real estate as an investment, is we are so business brokers. So you, you are a business broker? We’re business brokers. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you know, right now we’re selling a, uh, flooring contracting business that works with, um, many regional and national GCs and developers. Um, the individuals are retiring, so they’re looking to move on fantastic business. Uh, if you believe as I do, and I think both of you do that, we’re gonna continue to see development in this state. Well, guess what? Every building, every house needs a floor. Yep. <laugh>. Yep. There’s no way, no two ways around it. We’re not walking around on, uh, on soil like, you know, they do in some other countries. <laugh>,
Staci Garcia:
Where are they? Where are they located?
Matthew Maschler:
Uh, they’re in Palm Beach County.
Staci Garcia:
Okay. You should introduce ’em to the place where Brick had their, um, last meeting. It was a flooring place. Did I go? No, I don’t think I went. No. But it was a nice flooring showroom off of Broken Sound, um, Boulevard or over there. And, um, they had taken over a bunch of other companies, or they had expanded. Yeah.
Matthew Maschler:
I think I know who you tried to think. I’m trying to think of his name right now.
Staci Garcia:
<laugh>, I don’t know his name either. I have his card at home, but really nice people. A family business. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they also do mold remediation and a couple other things. But, um, we had our meeting in their showroom, so that’s
Matthew Maschler:
Nice. Did you pick out, did you pick out any new flooring?
Staci Garcia:
I did actually, <laugh>, but, um, you know, it’s funny cuz you know, there wasn’t much time, but everyone’s standing there holding like a panel <laugh>, you know what I mean? We were all, everyone that was there is, was, uh, flipping or investor or, you know, so in the real estate genre, uh, industry basically. So there was, um, they do a lot of, uh, flooring for large commercial, um, rental properties. Right. You know? Okay. So it’s big business.
Matthew Maschler:
That’s good. That’s good. That is, that is amazing. You know, when I talk about, uh, residential, uh, real estate being up and, and I talk about all the factors for residential real estate being up, you know, one of the reasons I say that the, the, the price increases for houses is all the things that you need to make a house. The cost has gone up, the flooring, the walls, the nails, the wood, uh, so you, you know, building a house, uh, the materials involved and then also the labor involved has gone up. So obviously the, the value of the house went up just because the value of the materials. That, and, and, and the labor to put the make, turn the materials into a house has gone up. So, uh, a lot of people are free listening to me. I’m not trying to sell insurance right now, but look at your insurance policies because you may not have enough insurance.
That’s true. If, if you’ve, you know, you know, if, if, if you got insurance and you value your house at 300,000 and to replace your house would be 600,000, uh, to, you know, because you know of materials, um, or to find a replacement house, uh, you know, a lot of people might be underinsured in this market, so people are complaining that their, uh, insurance went up. Well, that would make sense if the, if the value of what is being insured went up. Uh, and that’s dangerous for people on fixed incomes. Very dangerous. Very dangerous. But it’s interesting, you, you mentioned that because, you know, two, three years ago, working with developers, their metric would be, I don’t wanna pay more than 20 to 30,000 a door for the land, for the dirt. Okay. Now we’re seeing transactions, builders coming in and buying dirt at over a hundred thousand dollars a door. And you couple that with what you just described as the rising cost of all the raw materials and labor. It gets to be very expensive. We’ve just, uh, sold some property in Delray that’s going to have five town homes on it. Um, and that worked out to almost 300,000 a door. Wow. With just the dirt. How, how, how, what was the size of the parcel? Uh, less than a quarter acre. A quarter of an acre. And, and they’re gonna put three town homes. Five. Five town homes. Five. Wow. Squeeze ’em in there. Wow.
Staci Garcia:
And how many stories is that?
Matthew Maschler:
It’ll be, it’ll probably be three story
Staci Garcia:
With parking underneath two girl garage. Yeah.
Matthew Maschler:
<laugh>. It’s, it’s, it’s amazing. I’m
Staci Garcia:
Information gathering. So
Matthew Maschler:
Like if I, if someone came to, I’m a residential real estate agent. I don’t, I don’t know, commercial. So if someone came to me, they had that quarter of an acre and they wanted to sell it, I’d put a for sale sign in the lawn, put it in the mls. Is that, is that all that needs to be done or as a commercial agent? Is there more to it? There’s a lot more to it. A lot more to it. Yeah. I, I would, you know, say that one of the first things you’d do before you even put that for sale sign in the ground, is get an understanding of what is the zoning? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what can be done here? How many units can I put on here? Can I put units on here? Um, or does it have to be commercial? Um, so you need to check all those boxes first and then, uh, you can go from there and, you know, it’s easier to sell something that is, as we say, entitled mm-hmm.
<affirmative>. Um, and it’s got zoning approval. And if it’s got plans approved, that’s even better. That’s the ideal situation. If something’s fully approved by the local authority, then someone can come in, it’s called shovel ready. They can come in and just start building because these, these permitting processes take a while. So you think it’s better for the seller to figure out what should be there? Um, not to say, Hey, buyer, you can do whatever you want. You figure it out. Yeah. I think it’s, I think it’s better. It, it targets the, you know, your audience. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you’re going to get the right person in instead of wasting a lot of time with people who are, okay, I might buy, let me do some research and da da da, da. Because I’d imagine if I had a piece of land, I’d imagine that let the buyers figure out what they would do with it.
I don’t know what I wanna do with it, but let this buyer may want to put a big house on it. This buyer may wanna put five townhouses on it. This one might wanna put, you know, bigger, less town this bigger, more town less. Well. So what I would do in that scenario is say, okay, what is the maximum that we can do here? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if I can do 400 homes here, this is how I would lay it out. And yeah. It is up to the buyer to determine what he ultimately wants to build. But you’re giving him a form a, a blueprint. Right. To follow. Um,
Staci Garcia:
Would would you give the, would you give a buyer options to get more buyers? Like would you broaden it? Like, let’s say, let’s say I’m pretending to be the person that was selling the property to, uh, who’s building Lotus Palm gl. Okay. So I’m, I have this property and I wanna get a potential GL maybe, or maybe I wanna get a private builder to build mega mansions. And only 10 of them, like a, whatever Matt used to have, what was that one called?
Matthew Maschler:
Don? Congrats.
Staci Garcia:
Yes. So, um, how much, which one would be better? Should I plan for one unplanned for the other? So I can potentially sell to both, not both at the same time, but sell to them and find out, you know,
Matthew Maschler:
Well, we have to look at the land’s highest and best use. Right. That’s where I would aim. Cemetery. Cemetery is the highest and best use <laugh> put a lot of bodies in <laugh>. Three three townhouses or 3000 people. Can we, can we stack ’em? If you,
Staci Garcia:
You can stack ’em. Stack ’em, stack
Matthew Maschler:
’em. Does it get stacked by the family or Let’s, let’s not make jokes. Oh no,
Staci Garcia:
Sorry, sorry. Yeah,
Matthew Maschler:
You, but I always think cemetery is highest and best use for a nice piece of lamp.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah, you would. It’s very quiet and nice air conditioned. Um, is it air conditioned? Uhhuh. <affirmative>.
Matthew Maschler:
Okay. Oh, the mausoleum. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah. Uh, okay. So aside from cemetery, but you know, you’re saying sellers should do all their homework, find out all the zoning, be able to prepare it. Is there something that, that’s called when you
Matthew Maschler:
It’s site you could say site plan approved. A site plan fully, fully approved? Um, yeah. If you’re just selling raw land, it makes it, uh, a little bit more challenging cuz someone’s gotta come in and do a lot of work. Right. A lot of due diligence. It’s, it’s not only time, it’s money. Right. You’ve gotta, you know, get, uh, architects involved. You have to get land use attorneys involved. Uh, you’ve gotta get, you know, H V A C mechanical drawings done. You’ve got a lot of things. And if someone can, who has that already done right, it makes it much more attractive. There are a lot of investors who don’t, especially in niche market, where you have a lot of choice. Choice, um, when it comes to land mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You’d rather go to the one that’s gonna be the easiest.
Staci Garcia:
I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s a smart, smart idea. So I always wonder though about stuff like that cuz especially maybe not so much in Broward in, uh, Palm Beach County, but in Broward you see them demolishing on old section of wherever something was and starting over. And of course a lot of people want townhouses and, um, affordable housing for regular people like police and fire and so forth. And some people want less, um, quantity and more quality and bigger houses, less people, less traffic on the road, that sort of thing. So I always wonder how did they market that land to get what they’re getting, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, um, like who decided what they were. But maybe it’s, maybe it’s the, the municipality.
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. It’s, it’s gonna come down to the zoning and, you know, looking at what the highest and best use is for the land. Right. Um, you know, take for example, uh, what it’s what Sunrise and Federal mm-hmm. <affirmative> down in, uh, Fort Lauderdale where the Sears, yeah. Okay. That’s a huge lot. What’s the best use of that? It’s certainly wasn’t as the Sears <laugh>. Right.
Staci Garcia:
Did the Sears go under room?
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. Um, but yeah, know they’re gonna be building multifamily there. Right.
Staci Garcia:
They’ll be putting up and the railroad tracks is right there.
Matthew Maschler:
Several hundred units. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and railroad tracks are good and bad. Um, if you, you know, if you look up in New Jersey, I’ve watched, uh, Bloomfield, New Jersey. Not the prettiest place in the world, but they did a lot of transit oriented, uh, building there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So they built, um, um, parking lots right next to the train station. So if one has to commute, now, this is all pre pandemic, right. Because who’s, who wants to commute these days on a train? Um, I certainly wouldn’t want to do that Right. Trek into the city to go sit in an office with some of my best friends. <laugh> wearing a mask. Um, but, uh, you know, that’s a, a great use of space that otherwise probably would’ve been ignored.
Staci Garcia:
Right. Well, I imagine that they’re doing that here in downtown Boca mm-hmm. <affirmative> near
Matthew Maschler:
Library. Oh. With the Bright Line Station coming in? Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, there’s, uh, a site, uh, that’s um, right down here on fourth Street. Um, it’s a bun, it’s a condo building of offices. Right. And, um, someone’s bought it. They’re gonna develop it into multifamily and it’s gonna be Right, right, right. Couple blocks away from the Bright Line Station. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think you’ll see more of that. And what’s interesting is that a lot of the land around that Bright Line Station is on the other side of Dixie. There is industrial. Right. And to see whether the city’s going to allow for that to become
Staci Garcia:
Residential. Residential residential,
Matthew Maschler:
Residential, residential.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah. I wonder, I was thinking, remember you said, Hey, what should we do with Baja? Was it Baja Cantina? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You said, Hey, that’s a good spot. Nothing’s going on with that. Should we do something?
Matthew Maschler:
Is it for sale or for lease?
Staci Garcia:
I don’t know. I haven’t driven by it recently, but that whole area right there is gonna have a revival.
Matthew Maschler:
But, and if it is for sale, how come? Investments Limited hasn’t bought it yet?
Staci Garcia:
I
Matthew Maschler:
Don’t know. Is there anything that Doug, do you know, investments Limited, of course. Is there anything they won’t buy <laugh>. Um, they won’t buy something that’s expensive. That’s true. They won’t buy. So, and they won’t sell something that’s, you know, cheap. I don’t think they sell anything. No. Trying to get to sell
Staci Garcia:
Something. Hey Jim, if you wanna come on the podcast,
Matthew Maschler:
When know, when I see Jim says, do you have anything to sell me? Anything <laugh>, anything I need, I need to buy something.
Staci Garcia:
There’s, there’s nothing. If there’s anything for sale, you know, there’s your buyer.
Matthew Maschler:
And, and it’s amazing. I once had and got into a little conflict with them. I try to buy something and that they were trying to buy. And, uh, and I was totally in the wrong. Um, it was listed for sale signs listed on LoopNet. And uh, and I went to, um, to go see it and I liked it and I made an offer. And, uh, the listing agent said, okay, this is great. It’s great offer. There’s only one problem. I said, what’s that? He said, uh, it’s under contract with somebody else. Uh, I’m like, well then why did you show it to me and make me write an offer? Right. Why don’t you tell me when I was here, when I was at, when I saw you, the when at the showing, why don’t you tell me why am I wasting my time? They said, well, it needs a judicial approval.
So if you could add a term to your contract that says, you know, subject to judicial approval and will ask the judge to approve yours and not the other buyer. I said, all right, that’s fine. I got nothing to lose. So I made that addendum in the contract and uh, it went before the judge and the other buyer, which was Investments Limited, said, uh, your Honor, we have a contract. And the judge said, yes, you do. And then you were like, well, who’s this other guy? Well, why is he there? The judge said, I don’t know. And I’m not signing his contracts. I’m not signing his contract. And the seller was like, but we’re gonna get more money, uh, from him. And the judge looked at the seller and said, you signed a contract <laugh>. That’s what context means. Executed. So, um, so I, I wrote him an apology letter cause I had no idea.
I didn’t wanna go to court over this. I had no idea. Um, so, uh, so I wrote him, I wrote an apology email. I’m like saying, listen, I, I had no, so I’m, I’m sorry. I did not mean to step on anything. And then there was another property I wanted to buy for, for myself to set up a, an office space for myself. Uh, cuz I got rid of mine when, when, when Covid started. Cause nobody was coming in. Um, and I couldn’t, um, and they wouldn’t sell it to me. Um, and I don’t know why. And it was for sale for a long time. And now I see it’s for Rent by Investment. It’s limited. It was for sale by someone else. Now it’s for Rent by investment. It’s limited. But you raised just two things I wanted to comment on here. You raised a very interesting point about commercial real estate and one that those out there who are thinking about buying commercial real estate.
And that is unlike residential, we truly don’t use the mls and therefore we don’t have all the rules and regulations that the MLS imposes. So it’s oftentimes you’ll find if you go to LoopNet, which is a public marketing site for CoStar, for example, there’s no obligation on the part of the listing agent to even put down on LoopNet that’s under contract or it’s been sold. So what you see is people just leaving it there to drive traffic. Right. To drive leads. Yeah. Um, so one has to be careful. I have so many people say, oh, I found this on LoopNet, could you find out about for me? And I tell’em, um, it’s probably gone. Yeah, it’s like Zillow. Oh yeah. It’s probably exactly. It’s exactly like Zillow. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It’s probably gone. But Matthew, I sent you an email over the weekend, I think it was over the weekend about something you’ve done.
Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. That is not for public information. Oh, <laugh>. I’m excited to learn. Cause Yeah, we’ll, we’ll take, we’ll take, we’ll take that offline. <laugh>. Some areas of my business are a little bit press shy. <laugh>. Ah, okay. All right. So, but, uh, yeah, no. So it’s, uh, you know, I tell people when I, uh, talk to our residential agents at Signature, and I’m sure you both have seen the presentation. I call it the Wild West. Um, guess what? I never know how much I’m gonna get paid on a deal. Right? I have to, unless you ask what the co broke is. And oftentimes the answer is there is no co broke mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So who’s gonna pay me? So you
Staci Garcia:
Have to ask your, do you have to make a deal with your buyer?
Matthew Maschler:
You have to make a deal with your buyer. You have to like wholesale, you have to lump it into the price or cut a deal and get a commission agreement in place. Um, they
Staci Garcia:
Have buyer brokers with you commercial.
Matthew Maschler:
Yes and no. Um, yeah, the challenge with the buyer broker agreement is if you put in there a number, um, yeah.
Staci Garcia:
Am I not related to every property?
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. Um, yeah. Like I’m doing a transaction right now, um, with one of the major brokerages. My client is buying 20 units, um, down in, um, Florida, Dale by the Sea on North Ocean, who’s going to be converting it to a hotel. And, uh, the conversation with, uh, the listing agent was something like this, what’s my co broke? Oh, well, we’re only getting 3% total, so we can only give you 25 basis points, if anything. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uhhuh, <affirmative>. Uh, so you need to get it from your buyer. And what’s it, what the challenge that that presents is unlike the residential space where buyer and seller have needs, buyer needs a place to live, seller needs a place to, you know, to needs to sell, to go someplace else in a commercial space. There’s really no emotional or, you know, no need driven other, you know, it’s all economics. So now the economics, if I’m working on a deal with a client and his economics work and the razor thin margin,
Staci Garcia:
You are the guy that gets cut out first.
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. And I say, look, I need you to pay me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, guess what happens? The deal doesn’t happen probably if it doesn’t happen. Right. So I’ve gotta say, okay, pay me what you can.
Staci Garcia:
Wow.
Matthew Maschler:
And then, you know what you do. Yeah. What you’re doing though is it’s, you know, relationship mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because, you know, hopefully that person, uh, if they have a three to five year hold period, which many folks do have, uh, will come back to me to be the listing agent. Right. So I can make it up there. That’s nice. But yeah, it’s, you, you get beat up all the, all the time and it’s the wild West. There’s no place where you can find out what’s closed without going to public records. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it’s just a totally different animal.
Staci Garcia:
Interesting. I don’t know much about commercial either, but it fascinates me. And sometimes I do look it up on the MLS when some people put some commercial stuff in. Um, or I, I get business brokers that send out, um, unnamed restaurant for sale, that kind of stuff like
Matthew Maschler:
That. And you gotta sign the nda. Yeah. You, not only do you have to sign the nda, you have to have a client to sign the NDA and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, then you can start to do some analysis. But if we don’t know, we don’t have a client yet. Right. Can we, you know, I, I want, I’m, I’m looking at this, at this deal, like I got, I got the advertisement right and I’m intrigued and I wanna reach out to them and tell me about your client. I don’t have a client. I want to find you a client, you know, so I wanna sign that NDA and learn more about it. So no, I, I won’t disclose it to the client, but if it, if it, if I don’t think it’ll work for the client, I’m not gonna bother ’em. So, so sometimes it’s a Yeah, it’s a catch.
Yeah. It’s a catch 22 and Yeah. Sometimes the, the listing agent will say, oh, I’m not gonna send it to you. I’m not gonna provide that information to you cuz you know, you know what I like, you don’t have a client. What I like about the MLS is that all the information’s there, I mean, yeah, there’s some realtors that play games and, and, and keep a pocket listing, but in general, you’re going to the market and you’re telling the world that this is for sale. There’s so many businesses or commercial spaces that I would love to look at, but they do the deal. They don’t tell the world. They don’t put a sign up. They don’t, and there’s no way for me to know. And then you see something sold. So like for instance, my temple on Yama Road, bene Israel, the, the church next door sold, but nobody ever even knocked on their door and said, Hey, we’re thinking of selling.
Right. So, you know, not that they would’ve bought the whole thing and, and expanded, doubled the space, but they might have considered it. Right. And, and, and these, those things don’t trade that often. Right. So now that now there’s no, and there’s no way to grow. So like there, there’s a lot of, I see buildings all the time on Bo on Boca Town Boulevard or Dixie Highway, and I’m like, that would be a great space. And then they sell. And I’m like, well I didn’t know that that’s sold. I didn’t even know it was available. Now the other thing that’s interesting is the counter side of that is take Roger’s circle for example mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I’ve got a lot of clients looking for industrial space. Perfect location would be Roger’s Circle. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they go, well Doug, there’s tons of spaces over there. I see all the signs and I have to educate him. I said, no, there’s nothing available. All those signs are just left up there permanently really to a tra phone calls. You have the same thing with the office spaces. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you drive up and down and any place where there’s lot of office, you’ll see signs.
Staci Garcia:
But office streets available. I just had, I had a guy that I’m friends with, uh, who sold a place on Roger’s Circle, um, with a Bay and everything like that. Building, office building. And then he moved over, right, right next to Cheesecake Factory. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> on Glades. So his office looks out over my house. Cause I live across the street. So I went up to, um, in that office building, I went up with my son. We had an appointment, not at his office at another, but I ran into him in there. And, uh, as we were standing there looking out the window at our house, I was like, wow, it would be really, it was weird. I said, it would be really great to have an office here. We could look out the window at our own house and see who’s in the driveway. You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm. See what’s going on at our house, like joking. And, um, then I ran into my friend, he, I said, what do you do in this building? He said, I just bought like a whole floor basically. Right. And, uh, or I rented it or whatever. And he moved his office there. I said, this is an awesome building. Like, I would totally work here just to look out over at my house and Cheesecake Factory’s right next door, perfect location. I could walk to work. And, uh, he said, yeah, it’s awesome here. And I’m thinking he probably got a offer he couldn’t refuse. You know, there was nothing wrong with this office. Right. Obviously. And anyway, had tenants and other people renting it out. So I probably got a really great offer. But, um, I was thinking, you see signs all the time. Office space available, you’re saying they’re not necessarily available. That’s correct. Because if it feels like they keep building more office space everywhere, and we are overwhelmed with offices space, and yet I still see empty offices and signs available.
Matthew Maschler:
There’s, there’s not enough offices in Boca, especially Class a nice offices in Boca. There’s a major shortage. I wanna ask you a Roger Circle question. Uh, a uh, I went to a, uh, a wrestling school that had wrestling shows at a warehouse space on off of Griffin Road in Daniel Beach. And I’ve been to one in Pompano. It’s just, it’s just, it’s an industrial complex. They roll up the doors, they have the ring inside, they do a show. I once looked at space in Roger’s Circle and I wanted to use it for like, event space. Um, it was a big company that went outta business and they had the roll up doors. And I thought I could do like, um, something like the loft on Congress, where, where you, um, rent it out for people. They could do parties, they could do events, they can do, I wasn’t thinking wrestling then.
I’m thinking wrestling now. But I was told by the city that it’s, it’s zoned warehouse and you couldn’t do, um, entertainment there. So every time I’m in a warehouse space, lately it’s been for wrestling. And I, and I, and I, and I see that going on, I think is, does the zoning allow this? So could I do something like that in Roger’s circle, do you think? Well, you and I have had this discussion. Yeah. Because I think I mentioned to you that I have, um, a client who is a wrestling coach, but not your kind of wrestling. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he’s the, uh, what, what would we call the freestyle and Olympic wrestling? Olympic wrestling. He actually is a former Olympic champion, Uhhuh. And uh, he’s I think the coach at American Heritage and he’s looking for more space and he wants to be in Roger’s circle and Right, I see, I see. Playing of CrossFits and other things there.
Staci Garcia:
Red Con wants
Matthew Maschler:
There, red con’s gyms there. Well, here’s, here’s what we’re running into. Mm. Is none of the landlords over there want athletic uses anymore because the parking space, one is the parking and two is noise. Mm. Yeah. And so they’ve both, um, you, there’s two or three landlords over there. They’ve all said no. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not a, not a use that we want. And in this market, landlords can take that approach cuz there’s so much demand, especially for warehouses. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. That they can pick and choose who they’re, you know, gonna have as their tenants.
Staci Garcia:
No, I’m kind of surprised though. Is there any residential around there? No. No. So they don’t care. And the
Matthew Maschler:
Other, the other tenants, the other tenants, the other businesses. But the noise. But it, but see for my wrestling shows it would be at night, you know? Yeah. No, and that’s the same argument the gyms are during the day. Right. And the same argument with the, with this my client is, you know, it’s after school, so Right. It’s gonna be after five o’clock kids, you know, kids gonna be there, but the, you know, the regular tenants won’t. You know, it depends. Interesting. In a weak market, you’ll take anyone. Right. And in the strong market, you know, uh, anyone that’s gonna make waves, there’s no problem. All right. So we’re finishing up here. Uh, thank you for joining us on the Real Estate Finder podcast. I’m Matthew Ashler, real estate broker. Signature realestate finder, uh, dot com. And Doug, your, your information. Again, it’s Doug Shabel. S h a v e l, or as I like to say, shave with an l. Shave with an L or shovel with, or shovel with an A. All right. Um, and it’s 7 8 6 7 6 3 3 0 5 oh. And it’s doug@signaturecommerciale.com. So signature real estate finder. I, I don’t know, resident, I don’t know commercial, but, but Doug surely does. And then you can find any kind of real estate you want in the state of Florida. We have someone for whatever you need. And Stacy, do you wanna say goodbye?
Staci Garcia:
Thanks Doug. You were a great, very
Matthew Maschler:
Information. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Mm-hmm.
Staci Garcia:
<affirmative>. Um, bye. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next week.
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The sky’s dog. Blue. When it’s almost that time, light shows cameras flash when I pass living in the moment, forget about the pass. They saved the best for last Matthew Mania. We about to make a splash. Life is a marathon full of sharp turns, gotta keep pace while the hands on the clock turns high. Sticks. Five star running. I run a show. You tell the boss place electricity, energy vibrate. I’m always on time. Even if I’m make dreams come true.
Speaker 4:
You know,
Speaker 3:
You knows, you know whats you knows. You knows, you knows. Can’t look. We’re not afraid of the big bad wolf. First comes.
