My dad’s an incredibly gifted mechanical engineer - and he’s always been obsessed with studying the reliability of different cars.

Wife and I thinking about getting an SUV, and I asked his opinion on Land Rovers:

10 years ago this kid casually sent me his resume via Craigslist.

He'd just finished school, with no experience or real estate knowledge.

I needed someone to cut checks and show space, so I called him in for an interview.

This is James Martin, and here's what happened next:
He arrived at our office early, and for some reason brought a novel to read while he waited in the lobby.

I thought it was a tad out of the ordinary, but the interview was good enough that I gave him his first test:

Join me for a full day property tour.

He took me up on it.

My friend Zarna was practicing law in New York City.

She was 28, a new mom, and working not-stop.

She had to make a change, but leaving the workplace could make it impossible to return.

What happened next is perhaps the most incredible entrepreneurial story I've ever heard: Zarna could't stand the long days at the law firm and to miss countless memories with her children.

She also knew that the longer she stayed in her role, the harder it would be to make a change. Besides, she wanted to run a business one day.

So, she just went for it, and quit.

The leap I witnessed in AI this week has me shaken.

If you've followed me, you know I don't really make statements like this.

I've been hearing how AI will change everything for years, but there's been little beyond promises. Nothing that can be used now.

That just changed: Since 2006, I've been buying ugly neighborhood strip malls and updating them. I've purchased 45 of them so far, and remodeled dozens.

Here's an example of one from a few years ago.

Lots of people wish the strip mall they always drive by would be upgraded.

Let’s actually do it - together.

Just bought this one, - why not crowdsource the redesign 🙏

Just screen shot, tell ChatGPT 4o what you want changed, and add the photo as an attachment.

My prompts: Prompt 1

I had a conversation tonight that threw me off.

Our family's raising two young kids in New York City, and of course I'm aware of the issues around crime that have been in the spotlight the last several years.

But I had hope it wasn't as bad as people said.

I was wrong. The person I spoke to tonight is right in the middle of what's going on, and the situation he described isn't pretty.

Basically, there are around 2,500 people that are committing real crimes here constantly, and there's really no way to stop them.

“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.