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Speaker 1: Those pretty you know, they put out a list of

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a bunch of the federal assets they were going to

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sell off, maybe all three weeks ago they put that

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out and then the kind of that website went down

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and there were four hundred some properties on it. Now

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there's talk maybe there's eight hundred that they're gonna, you know,

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bail out of. But uh, I think it's a good thing.

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It takes underused public property, puts it into the private

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sector and figure out, you know, what can you do

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with this.

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Speaker 2: Then you were listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network,

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where you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere

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else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial

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Survivalnetwork dot com and get your free newsletter in gift.

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever.

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Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial

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Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, you've probably

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been hearing about Doge. You've been hearing about the government

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on loading all of these unneeded, unused properties. Even with

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the government workers going back to the office being forced

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back there, there's still tens of millions of square feet

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of office space that the government is disposing of or

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that it's leasing and that the owners will be disposing

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of it. And person you're about to hear from David Cordrey. David,

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you specialize in buying properties with problems. Is this the

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kind of problem you're looking for? So that's exactly what

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we're looking for. Thanks for having me today.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's going to be an exciting time when

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they when they kind of make all these cuts and

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reposition a bunch of assets.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So all right, So how do you identify ones that

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are good as opposed to others that should just be leveled?

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Speaker 1: Well, the you know, the really really big assets are

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true because if you've got hundreds of thousands of square

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feet in a tower or a huge complex, that's that's

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hard to find an immediate use for. The biggest risk

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on any investment is time. So I'm looking for more

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of the smaller assets. If it's under one hundred thousand

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square feet and it's something that has decent bones to

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start with, that's a piece of property that you can

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you can probably convert it to something relatively quickly in

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the grand schemity without doing a big redevelopment where you

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got to go, you know, build hotels or create a

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downtown center or any of that kind of stuff that's find.

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Speaker 3: A huge purpose. How do you figure out how to

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repurpose them?

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Speaker 1: Most of our strategy is how do we get it

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to a usable sized footprint that any kind of local

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business would want to use. If you look at some

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of these, especially on the government side, we've done a

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lot of this on office where you see old call

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centers that are called fifty to one hundred thousand square

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feet and that those things are gone, it's been replaced

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by AI or it's all overseas. So those footprints, we

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can pretty easily carve those up into five thousand, fifteen

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thousand square foot suites. And then we're we're focused on

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just local businesses. Everywhere you go, there's a local business

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that's doing you know, they're the ones that are doing

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your electrical work, they're doing your plumbing work, hvac like

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that stuff's hard to replace.

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Speaker 4: It's hard to.

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Speaker 1: Get talent that can do it, but they all need

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the spot that they got to operate out of.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess with the danger comes opportunity.

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Speaker 4: As the Chinese like to say, right exactly, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Those putting you know, they put out a list of

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a bunch of the federal assets they were going to

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sell off, maybe all three weeks ago they put that

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out and then the kind of that website went down

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and there were four hundred some properties on it. Now

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there's talk maybe there's eight hundred that they're going to

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you know, bail out of. But I think it's a

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good thing. It takes underused public property, puts it into

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the private sector and figure out, you know, what can

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you do with this then?

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Speaker 3: So one man's garbage is another man's goal.

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Speaker 4: Is that it? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Right, necessarily that's been the business strategy for the past

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fifteen years on stuff I've been working on.

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Speaker 3: You know, this could be like the best thing that

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happened since the RTC and they sold off all those

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properties for a song and wound up being hugely profitable.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, going on, when you're looking at

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what properties are you looking at that you want to

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you know, what's your ideal situation that you're looking at here?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I mean for me, I focus on the southeast, so

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I don't travel too far from home. I live in

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Atlanta and you know, between Atlanta and Charlotte, there's plenty

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of opportunity. So I'm looking for one assets that are

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in that Southeast quarter that those would be great. And

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then I like seeing stuff that has flexible zoning and

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a lot of parking. So if you get real tight

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in a city center and you've got a big vertical building,

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that's you know, you've got a lot of other stakeholders

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in there process that you're going to have to work through,

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and me, that's going to take time and that's probably

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the right deal for some people, just not for me.

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Speaker 4: I'm looking for.

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Speaker 1: More, fewer like institutional stateholders on it around my asset,

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and something I can move on pretty quickly. So it's

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typically a lower rise building. It's typically a little more suburban,

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more industrial type feel. That kind of stuff that I

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can find find different users for relatively quickly.

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Speaker 3: Gotcha, So what's your time frame for taking these buildings

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and making them profitable or selling them?

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Speaker 1: If for most of it takes about eighteen months, that's

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our kind of our our go in and work with

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the municipality and say, hey, we've got one hundred thousand

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square feet of vacant space, and I think we can

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we can divide this building up and then least it.

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It takes us takes us a couple of months just

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to get through permitting and say, hey, what are we

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going to do with this thing? And sometimes the cities,

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the municipalities are like what do we what we trying

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to do here? You know, it's a little intriguing on

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their end, but ultimately like if the zone in alignes

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and it can be done, we can. We can do

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the work pretty quickly and then and then find uh,

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find new tenants and local businesses that want to use

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a space.

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Speaker 3: So you're looking at office buildings here, what other is

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there flex space or their warehouses that you can con work.

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Speaker 1: Kind of the the more like known terms of that stuff.

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You're thinking about warehouse and you've got thirty foot clear

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heights and that kind of stuff that's not you know,

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that's that's like its own actual dedicated asset class. We're

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looking for all this stuff that's gray area and in between.

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It's like is it office, is it flex? Is it warehouse?

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It's like, well, depending on what you need, that's what

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we can turn it into whatever you want it to be.

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That's kind of our pitch when we're going to work

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with different tenants that want to occupy the space, but

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we can only come into a cheaper basis because when

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you're buying a disquasi distressed or opportunistic deal to start with,

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and then uh yeah, and then really customizing it to

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what they need, whether there's some office, some warehouse, some

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loading docks, it's really a mix of all that stuff

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that we can put in.

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Speaker 4: Got it.

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Speaker 3: Hey, So what about the concept of the data centers

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and that kind of thing. Is that something you know,

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the AI centers you're looking.

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Speaker 1: At, Yeah, I mean, that's that's there, And there's definitely

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a lot of interest in the in the world for

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that kind of stuff, but the price point is super

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high and time to do it is long, and everyone's

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battling over where they're going to get power supply, and

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and there's so much interest that that kind of shy

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away from that stuff, like I want to go where

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it's not interesting for right now.

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Speaker 3: So that's just the trend, the flavor of the day,

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like Baskin Robbins right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And they're and I mean we need them. Some big,

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big groups are doing some huge data centers and they'll

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probably do phenomenally. Well, but yeah, doesn't that size is

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that it is kind of not on my radar.

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Speaker 3: You got energy constraints there too. Of course you odabat's converting.

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What about converting it to housing?

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Speaker 1: It takes too long, too much, too much zoning and

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permitting approvals to move things. You know, we've done stuff

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in different cities where they're not necessarily interesting, converting all

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of their commercial in office zoning areas and being like, hey,

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we'll just flip this on its head our twenty year

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city planning we did and say, now this is all residential.

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Like they don't they don't necessarily want to do that.

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So it's in some in some cases it can work,

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like in downtown Atlanta, it's like it doesn't really matter

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if one office building is now residential, in the building

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next to it, his officer residential.

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Speaker 4: It's probably okay. But most most you know, most.

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Speaker 1: Cities aren't going to want to just completely flip their

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city planning on its head.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well then again if it's an empty building. But

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you know, cities make mistakes all the time about their future,

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about redevelopment. Just tell us your past. When you say

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you find properties with problems, tell us the property you

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found that had the biggest problem, and I assume the

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biggest upside reward biggest problem.

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Speaker 1: Uh we I purchased a mobile home park maybe twelve years.

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Speaker 4: Ago or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But it basically wasn't even connected to any kind of

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None of the septic tanks worked, it wasn't connected to

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city sewer. It had a septic pond, which you can

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imagine what that that thing actually is. So it was like, Okay,

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we got buy this thing and really I mean bringing

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a ton of new homes and turn around everything that

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was there, build out the infrast like the actual physical infrastructure,

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even use the space I mean that that was it

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had a pump station to like get sew or higher.

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It was like, oh my gosh, that was a handful.

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Speaker 4: But it was good.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was a It ended up being a

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great project. It was a giant a giant pain is like,

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who wants to actually buy this thing? So we're trying,

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we're trying to make sure that they don't get that bad.

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We were buying them because those are those some definitely

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heavy lifts that's got to be done there, but lot

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lots of you know, I started out in apartments too,

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there's lots of apartments that were completely bombed out that

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you're like, what.

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Speaker 4: Are we going to do here? Yeah? No, those are

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always fun, fun projects. All right. Well, hey, appreciate you

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coming on.

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Speaker 3: Tell us how we connect with you, how we find

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you on the web.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn.

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Speaker 1: That's kind. I've got all my information up there. My

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company website is there too, and my phone email.

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Speaker 4: All right up there. Great. Hey, well I've got a

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question for Dave myself.

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Speaker 3: Email kl at Carrie lets dot com and you'll find

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a link to David's leaked in on art site. Financial

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Survival Network dot com. Oh we ask when you go

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there is sign up for our free newsletter, like most

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of seventy five thousand of you FSN people have done already. Dave,

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thanks for coming by. We'll talk to you so.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate it. Carry it's fun.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Let's's Financial Survival Network your

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solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to

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Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more

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