“I’m around thirty years old, make $250k a year, feel totally stuck, and am not sure what to do next.”

I hear a variation of this several times a month. I usually answer in a few different ways. First, I remind them they’re in a great spot many seek to reach and that it doesn’t make sense for them to be down on themselves -- so, chill for a minute.

If they want to start their own business, I remind them life will make it much harder to do at 35 or 40.

This is Michael Apa.

A mutual friend introduced us a few years ago.

I had no idea I was meeting one of the most fascinating
entrepreneurs in the world.

What's his profession?

He's a dentist.

Here's his incredible story: First, what sparked everything was learning at a very young age what an extraordinary superpower a smile can be.

An insecure kid, he noticed his confidence would
spike whenever someone complimented his smile.

That was it. Creating the perfect smile became his
life's obsession.

This is an exciting year for our real estate fund.

The investment period's close to completion, construction's largely wrapping up, and now we focus on the backbone of our strategy.

It's among our competitive advantages - what I've studied most since day 1 in 2002:

Leasing👇 Much of the industry does strip mall leasing the same way:

Put up a sign, make a nice flyer, send an email blast to brokers, upload the marketing brochure to the listing services -- and wait.

It's a passive approach, and I completely understand why it's like that.

Choosing the right family-owned restaurant can significantly impact your success as a retail property owner.

The restaurant business is a total grind, the failure rate is high, and avoiding mistakes is crucial.

Here’s how I approach making a restaurant deal: 1) Sorry, you need experience.

As much as I love the story of the person who's passionate about their first restaurant, the odds of failure are just too high.

It's a business decision, and I have investors.

I have to know you have an existing location, and that's the first question.

Unless you've done it before, you have no idea how hard it is to get open, how much more it costs than you think, and what an absolute grind it is to run a restaurant.

If you've done it, the odds of success increase dramatically.

It's just too risky for me otherwise.

I rarely post about what at huge hack it is to find great people to invest with because I am a GP myself and know how that may be viewed.

For the record, our fund is closed -- so I hope this is seen as objective as possible:

Some thoughts: Yes, the hunt for a great GP is real, and it's hard.

People with lots of wealth and resources spend lots of time constantly searching for talented folks to invest with.

They look for people with great track records, high ethical standards, and alignment of GP/LP interests.

Some common traits of the most successful people I've been around: They can tell right away if someone's wasting their time.

Lots of people are fighting for their attention, and they know what to filter out.

You will hear back from them quickly if they think it's worth their time, but not at all if they don't.

There's lots of opportunity in the strip mall space.

Among many reasons, the biggest is an extreme fear of vacancy.

The short-term impact of losing tenants is financially devastating if you rely on cashflow, and 90% of strip mall owners are local families, not institutions 👇 You have families that rely on the monthly income, and whose spending habits are based on it.

Losing a tenant means the income is reduced dramatically.

For example, a 4-tenant strip that generates $240k means each of three siblings are getting around $6,500/month.

Perhaps the happiest person I’ve ever met was a 90-year-old man who lived alone.

Dr. Burke was my neighbor, and we’d get to chatting ever so often.

There was a calmness to him. He was content. He’d gotten all he wanted and needed out of life.

And now, he decided to spend most of his final years at sea, taking cruises for months at a time, seeing the world.

He’d been married for 55 years before his wife passed a few years earlier.

They had four children, and eight grandchildren.

He has served as a surgeon in the military.

Something interesting's playing out in the strip mall space.

Tenants continue to signal their aggressive expansion plans to Wall Street, but I don't see how they're going to open up so many stores.

There just isn't enough supply: Starbucks projects to open around 580 new stores in North America this year, and growth projections would suggest over 3,000 new stores by 2030.

Chipotle plans up to 315 new stores in 2024, and up to 350 additional in 2025, aiming to reach ~7,000 stores vs ~3,500 now.

How to Buy Your First Strip Mall: 1. Pick a City to Study

Choose any suburban city close to where you live

Four-year-old's been playing with a friend non-stop all summer.

Wife and I decided to invite the parents over for dinner Friday. I'd met them a couple times briefly. Really nice people, but didn't know much about them at all.

They come over, we start chatting, and it turns out that they operate a small chain of mom-and-pop retail businesses in New York City.

I ask a few questions, and their faces light up as they talk about their business.

They had no idea in that moment that their story is exactly why I fell in love with the strip center

Spent the last two days with 40 other real estate fund managers, many of whom have raised over $500M+ over multiple funds.

Everyone spoke very candidly.

Here are some takeaways: There was lots of talk about recapitalizations (recaps).

This is where instead of selling a property, new investors come in to buy out existing investors, allowing the property to retain its existing ownership structure.

This is happening more and more in the industry.

We accept that top athletes grind like absolute crazy and put in grueling hours of intense training in order to compete at the highest level. Yet, many people don't like the idea that the same holds true in the business world. They don't think it should take an all-out constant effort of pushing oneself in order to find big success. People think there are shortcuts and workarounds, but it's not the case. The guy that runs real estate at the largest commercial real estate landlord in America joined the firm in a relatively junior position,

One of the most irrational and naive beliefs in America is the blanket "anti-California" sentiment.

I spent almost my entire life out there, and you know what: many of my friends aren't super liberal.

In fact, many actually vote republican.

Those endless encampments you Picture?

Many of those images are from a couple areas of San Francisco that are shown over and over, and get lots of lots of clicks.

Much of San Francisco has little do to with those areas you keep seeing.

And the San Francisco suburbs have nothing to do with the city.

Lots of folks who've found success in the corporate world dream of going off on their own and starting their own shop one day.

Many of them would be great at it and find huge success, but almost nobody actually ever does it.

The problem is that the difference between their current job and going off on their own becomes incredibly drastic as the years go on.

Taking the leap means guaranteed stress and humility at heights never before experienced. It comes with much fear, and many failures along the way.

City Officials: this is a very important message.

Retail's changed a whole lot. Your well-meaning restrictions from twenty years ago are now standing in your way and the community's way.

Here's what's happened, and how your thinking should shift.

The new retail reality: First of all, it's important to understand that new strip centers in your communities will likely not be built for the next twenty years, minimum.

What you see is what you got.

I saw this happen in the Bay Area, and now it's happening nationally.

Yesterday I took an uber to the yankee game with my son. I saw a group of 3 people in their early 20s looking for a cab, and offered them to join us since we were all going to the same place. As the ride started, an honest conversation began. One was a waiter, one a student, and another an event planning assistant at a local college. They asked me what I did, and the conversation turned to how the new generation looks at its future, and its prospects of gaining financial independence. They were frustrated that

Mickey Drexler is an American retail icon

-President of The Gap at age 39
-Takes it from 450 stores to 4,000
-Steve Jobs got him to Design the Apple Store
-Started Old Navy
-Ran J. Crew

Perhaps the most brilliant retail mind ever.

We sat down for an unfiltered conversation: Mickey on Making it in America Without Connections

I want to start by saying that Mickey Drexler came from nothing.

He grew up in the Bronx with no money or connections, and his father made $15k/year.

Mickey made it work in the 1960s, but I asked him if the same thing holds true now.

What's someone supposed to do in today’s world if they’re smart, ambitious, but don’t come from wealth and don’t have a great network?

Mickey dove right in.

I quickly realized that Mickey likes to answer questions by telling stories to drive home his messages.

He told me that while we was running The Gap, he had a chance to tour a high school in Harlem.

While walking through the hallway that day, a teenager approached him out of nowhere and asked who he was and what he was doing there.

He could sense her confidence and energy right away.

He could tell within seconds of speaking with her that she was a natural leader.

That she was curious. She just had it.

So, Mickey hired her to work at The Gap that summer.

This was just one example of the countless times he would unexpectedly come across somebody in day-to-day life and get a feel for that person’s talent right away.

That was the lesson. Many great leaders have an uncanny ability to spot talent instantly, and are always on the lookout to recruit the next standout.

You don’t always need a formal interview or a fancy degree to get in front of the right people and make an impression quickly.

You just need to create interactions with as many people as you can, as you never know who that person is that you just approached.

If you have it – they will see it.

So, what ever happened to that 16-year-old girl from Harlem that Mickey hired for that summer job all those years ago?

Yandy Smith is now known to millions around the world as the star of Love & Hip Hop, and has had a storied career as an entrepreneur, singer, and actress.

Mickey's instincts were correct.

A few real estate skills that print money: Finding phone numbers others can’t

If you're having a hard time getting a hold of them, your competition is too.

Take that extra time to dive into the search engines, to research that LLC, and even use social media to find common friends.

Doesn't work?

FedEx a letter.

Ugly building, no credit tenants:

The properties I love the most

Bought: $1.7M
Sold: $4.27M

Here's how it happened: Find the deal

A broker that specialized in this market for decades knew this was the type of property we looked for.

He sent us a bunch of deals that didn't work, but we kept in touch every single month.

"I have an ugly one for you!"

Want some real estate hard truths?

Here are six, off the top of my head: Real estate is really hard, even for those at the top of the game.