Speaker 1: For thirty five years, Cindy Stumpo has been a female
Speaker 1: home builder with a passion for design, a mastery of detail,
Speaker 1: and a commitment to her crack. With daughter Samantha Stumpo
Speaker 1: by her side, I don't need my.
Speaker 2: Whole family on a date with me.
Speaker 3: That's a good note.
Speaker 1: It's goddymn weird.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 1: Stumpo Development is the only second generation female construction company
Speaker 1: in the country.
Speaker 4: You're crazy, You're a wacko, You're insane.
Speaker 5: I mean, it just doesn't end together.
Speaker 1: Cindy and Samantha welcome guest to explore the world of construction,
Speaker 1: real estate, development, design and more.
Speaker 4: Unpredictable.
Speaker 5: Every time I think I know what you want, you
Speaker 5: switch it out. But that's what makes sure houses.
Speaker 1: All your They discuss anything that happens between the roof
Speaker 1: and the foundation. Nothing is off limits. You truly do
Speaker 1: care about everybody. She can yell at chicken scream, but
Speaker 1: when you get her alone, she's the best person on
Speaker 1: the planet. Cindy Stumpo is tough as nails.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Ciddy Stumpo Nails on waz News Radio and
Speaker 3: I Am in the studio tonight with Samantha if Ross.
Speaker 3: Would get his head out of his ass.
Speaker 2: What's a regular occurrence?
Speaker 3: I got Jimmy Cumm's information in front of me. I
Speaker 3: want to like, thank God, I know who Gilbert is. Gilbert,
Speaker 3: introduce yourself to everybody. Please explain what in who you are?
Speaker 4: Sure, Gilbert? When you live here in Boston, we have
Speaker 4: a company called Win Companies, which is one of the
Speaker 4: leaders in the country and building and operating affordable housing.
Speaker 3: Would you say you're wanted the lodges out there for
Speaker 3: affordable We are the lodgest Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think we're the largest operator of income restricted housing
Speaker 4: in the country.
Speaker 3: Pretty amazing.
Speaker 4: Huh, Yeah, it's pretty exciting. We're in twenty seven states.
Speaker 4: I get to work with forty five hundred folks who
Speaker 4: share the same passion as I do. And we've been
Speaker 4: in business for fifty three years after my father started
Speaker 4: the company.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's set the record straight, right now. I'm
Speaker 3: at the record straight. People always think, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 3: know Lucky Smurr Bank, he walked into all this, right,
Speaker 3: which it's great, but somebody got to keep it going.
Speaker 3: It's getting old.
Speaker 2: Now, right, and yeah, you're getting old now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't need you to remind me I'm getting
Speaker 3: old now either you told me to speak, so when
Speaker 3: she does speak, it's like a right hook to the chin.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: But the truth is that there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 3: on you, right, and people can say because people are always
Speaker 3: going to talk and you're not going to stop to talk. Right.
Speaker 3: It's just how it is that, oh, you know, Gilbert this,
Speaker 3: and I don't like that type of talk. So when
Speaker 3: I hear talk like that, I'm like, okay, yeah, you
Speaker 3: go full people's shoes, go see how hard it is
Speaker 3: and how easy it is. Not right, But the room
Speaker 3: or on the street is you're doing a great, great
Speaker 3: job out there, and you've got a big project coming out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so tell my audience what you're working on right now.
Speaker 4: Sure. So the biggest project we're working on is a
Speaker 4: three thousand unit development in South Boston. It's over well.
Speaker 3: The actor that just it was on last weekend, he
Speaker 3: just he's from South Boston.
Speaker 4: Was that right? Yeah? So I'd say this is South Boston,
Speaker 4: not the seaport, Real South Boston.
Speaker 6: What they call real Sealthyal, I live in real sealthe well,
Speaker 6: they tell me, I live in the news.
Speaker 3: So don't be doxy yourself one radio, go ahead.
Speaker 4: So this is absolutely the Old Southeast. So this is
Speaker 4: right by Moakley Park off Old Colony Avenue, Carson Beach,
Speaker 4: thirty acres of land that for eighty years has been
Speaker 4: home to the Mary Ellen McCormick housing project used to
Speaker 4: be called Old Harbor, and it hasn't.
Speaker 3: So do you know what that is?
Speaker 2: You know where he's talking about.
Speaker 3: Okay, so those are pretty bad projects first for Irish
Speaker 3: projects back in the day.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So they started off, i would say as veterans
Speaker 4: housing actually after the Second World War, and HUD sort
Speaker 4: of which funded it originally, sort of got out of
Speaker 4: the housing business and started funding new construction but not
Speaker 4: really taking care of their old properties. So really, over
Speaker 4: the last fifty years, it's not gotten any money invested
Speaker 4: into it. We were designated by the Boston Housing Authority
Speaker 4: to redevelop it and we won that seven years ago.
Speaker 4: It's not been easy. We're going to start this year,
Speaker 4: but we were designated seven years ago to demolish all
Speaker 4: those buildings and rebuild them block by block with mixed
Speaker 4: income housing.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's talk about that for a minute, because
Speaker 3: I understand construction. We are the families right now, where
Speaker 3: do they go while you're doing all this?
Speaker 4: Well, that's like the key complication. So our first building,
Speaker 4: there's going to be about sixteen new buildings built there.
Speaker 4: Our first building is on a piece of land that
Speaker 4: doesn't have any housing, so that we can have a
Speaker 4: relocation resource for the folks in the next phase. So
Speaker 4: we're basically going to move one hundred people in from
Speaker 4: the second phase into the first and then tear down
Speaker 4: the third phase and rebuild it and move the people
Speaker 4: that were off side in the third phase into the
Speaker 4: second phase and so on until we're completely full. So
Speaker 4: it's pretty incredible. There are a thousand families that live
Speaker 4: there today at maximum, there's only going to be one
Speaker 4: hundred off side at any one time.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is all going on.
Speaker 4: This is all going on.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then you you're able to put them in other
Speaker 3: units that you guys have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we manage, you know, tens of thousands of
Speaker 4: units in Massachusetts, so we have plenty of places to
Speaker 4: put them. But generally what happens is the rule of
Speaker 4: thumb on these other developments is you get relocated to
Speaker 4: either a Boston Housing Authority site or you get a
Speaker 4: voucher and you move to another town. Only about half
Speaker 4: the folks actually moved back to the development. They choose
Speaker 4: to just continue living where they're living.
Speaker 3: Oh, mister Crouchie's walked into the door. That's very good.
Speaker 3: Take it late, okay, yeah, okay, this is what happens.
Speaker 6: Yes, taught me what to do a broke the like
Speaker 6: be late and then you make the sale be late.
Speaker 4: So you're the main entrance.
Speaker 3: Nice jacket, Carucci.
Speaker 7: Queen Bee, that's Queen Bee.
Speaker 3: You know how I got that name?
Speaker 4: He'll tell you earned it.
Speaker 3: How do I get the name Queen Bee? Talking to
Speaker 3: his mic? You need to talk to the mic.
Speaker 7: It was on a job site maybe, I don't know,
Speaker 7: twenty five years. You see all these men buzzing around her,
Speaker 7: and they look like little bees.
Speaker 4: I can see that.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, And I was Queen Bee?
Speaker 7: Then, Am I wrong?
Speaker 3: No, that's what happens. Still happens all day every day
Speaker 3: to the party. I'm a little crazy out there. I'm
Speaker 3: a little crazy. Okay, So we'll go back to this.
Speaker 3: How many who's hitting me a thing? I think I am?
Speaker 3: How many units or how many thousands of square feet
Speaker 3: does win properties. Okay, you're settled down there, you're making
Speaker 3: a lot of noise. Somebody's like blowing out my head
Speaker 3: from here. It must be you, okay, Oh yeah, blame
Speaker 3: me for everything. No, Mike, I'm blaming Mike. Okay. Throughout
Speaker 3: the country. Yeah, if we had to go buy square
Speaker 3: footage or we go buy units.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So by units, we we operate about one hundred
Speaker 4: and ten thousand units in twenty seven states.
Speaker 3: One hundred and ten thousand units yep and homy states.
Speaker 4: In twenty seven states, District of Columbia and now Puerto
Speaker 4: Rico as well.
Speaker 3: Actually all affoodable on that way.
Speaker 4: My wife's people here, yes, Marisol's people. So I would
Speaker 4: say eighty percent of what we do is somehow income restricted,
Speaker 4: and the about twenty thousand units are middle and market
Speaker 4: rate housing.
Speaker 3: Okay. And then what about commercial property?
Speaker 4: A couple of million square feet of commercial property.
Speaker 3: No big deal. I just want you to know, a
Speaker 3: couple million square feet, a.
Speaker 4: Couple million, which is generally speaking, it is under you know,
Speaker 4: it's ground full or retail of of market rate or
Speaker 4: affordable housing. And then we have one million square foot
Speaker 4: building in of all places, Rochester, New York, that we
Speaker 4: bought and have redeveloped into housing, office and retail.
Speaker 7: It's a campus, wasn't it before?
Speaker 4: It was a campus. It was a community college campus.
Speaker 4: And it was the largest department store between New York
Speaker 4: and Chicago. And when Rochester no longer had Kodak and
Speaker 4: other you know, large businesses, it shot down and we
Speaker 4: bought a million square feet for five million dollars and
Speaker 4: started to rebuild it over the last decade.
Speaker 3: You're having a panic attack over there was.
Speaker 7: Did you run out of coke?
Speaker 3: Did you get out a giant coch Do you want
Speaker 3: me to go to break? Do you want me to
Speaker 3: go for a break? Okay? Hold that thought, We're going
Speaker 3: to break? He ran the clock.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: You were in the clock. What do you think this
Speaker 3: is Monday night football? You were in the clock in
Speaker 3: that case? Okay, all right, okay, And you're listening to
Speaker 3: Sidney Stumpo on Toughest Nails with Samantha Stumpbo Go ahead.
Speaker 4: Gilbert when and Michael.
Speaker 3: Carucci and Samantha stem Okay, Sydney name twice yep, it
Speaker 3: will be right back.
Speaker 5: Sponsored by Floor and Decor, National Lumber and Village Bank.
Speaker 6: Show one scream.
Speaker 3: And welcome to Sidney stump On Toughest Nails on w
Speaker 3: b Z News. And I'm Cindy and I'm here with
Speaker 3: Samantha and Michael Gilbert. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 2: We just go an like a law firm.
Speaker 3: We could do that and Gilbert hold on, no, we
Speaker 3: need an Irish person. It would be Stumpo court Caruci
Speaker 3: and win and win those two Maiteans in one room. Okay,
Speaker 3: but okay, so it's a million square footage of commercial.
Speaker 3: Here's my question if I go into the questions that
Speaker 3: I like to ask my own questions, is there ever
Speaker 3: a time that you just want to say, you know what,
Speaker 3: we own enough property, I'm going to go live my
Speaker 3: life and go enjoy it. Or what is it you
Speaker 3: want to just keep developing, building that generational well for
Speaker 3: your kids, because you know what happens by the third generation?
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I heard it could go a little sideways.
Speaker 7: No, not what the winds kids got?
Speaker 3: How old your kids?
Speaker 4: I got a twelve year old and a nine year old.
Speaker 3: Well, we don't know how they're going to turn out yet, Okay, I.
Speaker 7: Know all the grandkids. Yeah, and they're all like, oh
Speaker 7: my god, speaking Mandarin this language. Oh god.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they're brilliant kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm not worried about the third generation. It's
Speaker 4: a good question. I my wife asked me it all
Speaker 4: all the time. Why am I working so hard? Why
Speaker 4: do I care to grow the company? I don't have
Speaker 4: any specific goals, like I want to get to a
Speaker 4: certain unit count or a certain number of properties.
Speaker 3: It's the leading in the country for affordable housing.
Speaker 4: We are.
Speaker 3: Let's just let's just play that in our brain a
Speaker 3: couple of times. Okay, yes, but I can anybody catch
Speaker 3: up to you at this time?
Speaker 4: We're not going to let them. How about that?
Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, I think the natural.
Speaker 7: You know, but I think I think what has not
Speaker 7: been stated enough is the impact of companies like when
Speaker 7: in companies in Boston in general, that has been on
Speaker 7: the forefront. So affordable housing started in the in the
Speaker 7: nineteen thirties, and the first two projects coincidentally was one
Speaker 7: of Win's current biggest undertaking at the time is the
Speaker 7: Mary McCormick Housing project, So that that was one of
Speaker 7: the first in nineteen thirty nine, along with Langston Terras
Speaker 7: out of DC. It came it came about in the
Speaker 7: nineteen thirty seven nineteen thirty eight where they had under
Speaker 7: FDI the New Deal where they started the US Housing Act,
Speaker 7: and then some of the thresholds, and then in nineteen
Speaker 7: sixty five HUD was created. And then and Gilbert correct
Speaker 7: me if I'm wrong. And then in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 7: Section eight was created, and the big.
Speaker 3: Were talking about Massachusetts or throughout the country.
Speaker 7: Well, we have to talk about throughout the country because
Speaker 7: it sort of started the what we now know is
Speaker 7: affordable housing.
Speaker 3: But who started?
Speaker 7: And then in nineteen eighty six started that New York
Speaker 7: and New York and Massachusetts were the first two states. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but nineteen eighty six the Low Income Tax Credit came about,
Speaker 7: which really revolutionary whatever, maybe not using the right word.
Speaker 7: And then of course in the nineties the WHOPE program
Speaker 7: and the HUD program started, and so those were sort
Speaker 7: of the thresholds of what we know I don't know
Speaker 7: is national affordable housing. And I think a good topic
Speaker 7: is how companies like like WIN in particular, and what
Speaker 7: your dad did early on, because Win was it nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy one exactly seventy one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, how did dad start in nineteen seventy one
Speaker 3: who was how old.
Speaker 7: He was afraid of failure?
Speaker 4: That yeah, Mike. Mike's one of my father's best friends.
Speaker 4: Knows them as well as anyone, and that's exactly right.
Speaker 4: So he started in this business because it was public
Speaker 4: private partnership. He didn't have to show up with a
Speaker 4: wad of cash and a big bank account, which he
Speaker 4: didn't have at the time. So he could actually build
Speaker 4: housing in partnership with the government who would supply the capitol.
Speaker 4: So that's really how it got off the ground. That's
Speaker 4: that's why he did the first project, why he was
Speaker 4: able to do the second.
Speaker 3: They could have chose somebody else too.
Speaker 7: They wasn't a mature industry back then, and they took a.
Speaker 4: Chance on him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there was another out the win out there
Speaker 3: that could have been at the wind, but they chose
Speaker 3: out the win.
Speaker 7: Well, some of the there was the x cognitives of
Speaker 7: the work. It was the Ron Druka who your dad
Speaker 7: worked for a dollar a year. He paid him bertruck
Speaker 7: his father a dollar a year.
Speaker 5: What was that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was it was almost it was like going
Speaker 4: to the best real estate school you could go to.
Speaker 4: You would pay to play, right, So yeah, he said Bert,
Speaker 4: pay me whatever you think I'm worth and and make
Speaker 4: me successful so I can start my own company.
Speaker 3: He said, you're worth a dollar.
Speaker 7: But you know what, you know what Bert did that
Speaker 7: it was really admirable. Is that your dad stayed on
Speaker 7: an extra year. I think you said to Bert, I'll
Speaker 7: give you five, and your father stayed for six. But
Speaker 7: when Arthur exited, what happened probably doesn't happen a lot now.
Speaker 7: Bert made a call to his bankers and he said,
Speaker 7: author's going out on his own. I want you to
Speaker 7: help him. Wasn't envious, wasn't competitive, and I think that's
Speaker 7: incredibly ration.
Speaker 3: Those were the days, my friend men, We men were men.
Speaker 3: It's just like the guy's Julius Cohen, Danny Rottenberg and
Speaker 3: that whole group.
Speaker 7: Julian Cohen was very good friends with Atha.
Speaker 4: That's a great name too.
Speaker 7: They could have bought the Boston Celtics for five million
Speaker 7: dollar remember that.
Speaker 4: If you told you that, it's only five billionaire. So
Speaker 4: it might have been a good about.
Speaker 7: Julian plan and Altha could have bought the Celtics for
Speaker 7: five million dollars.
Speaker 3: I bought land from them, and it was actually a
Speaker 3: funny little funny story is that Cohen said, and Danny
Speaker 3: Rottenberg goes, why do you want this piece of land?
Speaker 3: I said, I like diamond and the roughs. He goes,
Speaker 3: but you can't do anything with it. I go, don't
Speaker 3: you worry about it. I will do something with it.
Speaker 3: Only do I do something with it. I ended up with,
Speaker 3: I bought you a little over two acres. End up
Speaker 3: subdivide them, which they said it would never happen. Subdivide
Speaker 3: them and no, this is old historical chestnhel And Danny
Speaker 3: Rottenberg calls me back in the office. The young lady goes,
Speaker 3: what did you know that I didn't know? I go,
Speaker 3: you playing commercial and I play in residential. And he
Speaker 3: got up and he game with this big hug. He goes,
Speaker 3: I'm glad you did well on that deal, Sindy. So
Speaker 3: there's a difference that a lot of those guys helped
Speaker 3: each other right, like they took Stephen right under his
Speaker 3: bell too and brought him right up right. They were
Speaker 3: good guys. It was a different generation of men that
Speaker 3: will never happen again. Well, I think the new ones
Speaker 3: in just see the jealous of each other. I want
Speaker 3: you to eat lobster. Right, I want to eat steak,
Speaker 3: but you know what I mean, Like you eat steak,
Speaker 3: but I eat lobster. Now, if you really care, I want
Speaker 3: you to eat lobster with me. And the world's changing,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately men aren't the same as they were. And
Speaker 3: I keep saying that, like my dad's generation is probably
Speaker 3: the best generation and the last generation. He's eighty four
Speaker 3: of what I call wheal men, and then my generation
Speaker 3: and half men. And then for me down as no men.
Speaker 4: You are talking to a man right now.
Speaker 3: Okay, we got one hair in the studio. Okay, personally,
Speaker 3: the generations have changed, right, it's changed. You're still at
Speaker 3: that age that it's like that thirty what do you
Speaker 3: say me?
Speaker 2: Thirty seven?
Speaker 3: There's seven and down?
Speaker 4: How old you forty six?
Speaker 3: That's a difference. So it's that you're the last of
Speaker 3: the last, and then it's just ca.
Speaker 7: Is that bringing that comes in.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Michael. Look what I'm seeing out there is.
Speaker 7: That generationally speaking, You're probably right.
Speaker 3: Well, I will tell you what I'm saying now is sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
Speaker 3: nine year old kids, it's turning and they want to
Speaker 3: get into the trades. They don't want to go to
Speaker 3: college if they're not college material. Right, there's a shift
Speaker 3: going on, and I think they're going to be better
Speaker 3: than the generation of my daughter, my son that's thirty
Speaker 3: seven and thirty one.
Speaker 4: You and I didn't talk about this ahead of time.
Speaker 4: It's amazing. I feel the exact same way this generation alpha.
Speaker 4: I figure it is going to save society. I think
Speaker 4: they're backlashing.
Speaker 3: You won't be just okay, and you'll see it, yeah,
Speaker 3: but maybe I won't, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 3: by the time they get leveled up to where they're going,
Speaker 3: you will see that being in your forties, right, so,
Speaker 3: and you'll have them to come out and still be
Speaker 3: building and working and developing and do what you're doing.
Speaker 3: It's this, it's this, I don't know, it's that twenty
Speaker 3: gap eight to thirty to thirty seven. What is it, Sammy?
Speaker 7: Is it like dating sam too?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, I have a lot of friends that are like,
Speaker 6: go from like twenty two to like twenty eight, and
Speaker 6: they all want to hustle. And then I have other
Speaker 6: friends that go from my twenty eight to thirty five,
Speaker 6: lost in space and they want to love what they do.
Speaker 6: If I ever came home and told you that, I
Speaker 6: think you would have told me to what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Never heard of that? Like I would have been afraid to.
Speaker 3: Tell you that, Yeah, you love what you do. Just
Speaker 3: go to work. Yeah, just go to work and you
Speaker 3: love what you do.
Speaker 6: Okay, But they also like can't get out of their
Speaker 6: own way, like everything is like the end of the world.
Speaker 3: So that's what I'm saying, Like there's just a generation
Speaker 3: that I grew up with, Like you grew up with
Speaker 3: your dad, and he made a big impression on you.
Speaker 3: And that's why you say I'm a real man, Cindy,
Speaker 3: because you're around a real man.
Speaker 7: Talk about when you stole the car.
Speaker 3: We're all going to do stupid things when we.
Speaker 4: Can kill the car. The car you steal a car
Speaker 4: from your own parents, because.
Speaker 3: That's what we do.
Speaker 2: If okay, I stole keys and through and through parties.
Speaker 3: Yeah she did that too. I mean, I'm all going
Speaker 3: to do stupid things. All that thought. Welcome to Yeah,
Speaker 3: all that thought, I'm gonna break. It's a city stampo
Speaker 3: and you listen to Top of Nails on w b
Speaker 3: C News and will be right back.
Speaker 5: Sponsored by Pellow Windows of Boston.
Speaker 8: Next day, Molding and Kennedy Carpet.
Speaker 3: And welcome back to Cidy Stumbo toough his nails on
Speaker 3: WBZ News. And I'm Cindy Stumpo and I'm with Samantha Stumpo.
Speaker 7: And Michael Carucci and s Gilbert When.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're talking about upbringings. So maybe that's why
Speaker 3: you are the man you are because you had author
Speaker 3: Now would you do you stole a car?
Speaker 4: How was this a segment? I borrowed a car? How
Speaker 4: it happened to have gotten a bit of a fender bender?
Speaker 4: And that's now family lore. I was licensed license still
Speaker 4: emitting at the time.
Speaker 7: I want to ask some relevant questions.
Speaker 4: Also looking question you just gave me. Yes, I was fifteen,
Speaker 4: Like it was.
Speaker 7: A Porsche, right, was it as you stole the porsh borrowed?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you cracked it up.
Speaker 4: A little bit. That tree got in the wast Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Cracked a lot of cars up, she said, everything but
Speaker 3: ash trays. I don't think they put ash trays and
Speaker 3: cars anymore. We've all done stupid things.
Speaker 4: You stupid. I was there for me.
Speaker 3: That was one of the biggest stupid things. I was
Speaker 3: the stupidest.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought that was the stupidest.
Speaker 7: I really apologize a life.
Speaker 3: That's the stupidest thing. You brought up grouching. Okay, so
Speaker 3: now you are the CEO of Win Companies. Yes, and
Speaker 3: you became the CEO.
Speaker 4: Win about six years ago.
Speaker 3: And when you got out I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Geez, it was more like eight years ago.
Speaker 7: But five years it related. So let's talk about baptism
Speaker 7: by fire.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So my first job at a school was at
Speaker 4: Related Companies in New York, and I don't think there's
Speaker 4: a better company to learn from. They were doing Steve
Speaker 4: Columbus Circle at the time.
Speaker 3: So you went and learned through another company, not with
Speaker 3: your dad.
Speaker 4: My first three years in the business was with Related.
Speaker 3: It was three So that was the best move, not
Speaker 3: coming writing with your dad.
Speaker 4: I felt I needed my own expertise and in relationships.
Speaker 4: And to this day, Mike mentioned how New York and
Speaker 4: Massachusetts oft have led the way historically with the affordable housing. Correct,
Speaker 4: So many of my contacts are from those years in
Speaker 4: New York, and so I have the Boston and the
Speaker 4: New York contacts which have been very helpful.
Speaker 3: I always say that Chad needs to go work for
Speaker 3: somebody else, right, Sammy, absolutely so, and go not work
Speaker 3: with me. And that's the only way this is going
Speaker 3: to work. And I've been saying it for years.
Speaker 4: Only if you can be like an overbearing parent. But
Speaker 4: I don't think that that would be true.
Speaker 3: If you I'm shot to go work, right. I want
Speaker 3: him to go work with my buddy Anthony Rossi, because
Speaker 3: if he works with Rossi, I mean even you'll be
Speaker 3: begging to come back to me.
Speaker 2: You didn't want me to work for you. I begged
Speaker 2: my way and pushed.
Speaker 3: Yes, but you work for us, work for Krucci. She
Speaker 3: did learning from the melody that's true, that they're really dumb,
Speaker 3: and that was done right. And they wouldn't hire her.
Speaker 3: She graduated because she was a threat.
Speaker 7: She was perceived threat.
Speaker 3: She was perceived to be a threat. So because she
Speaker 3: was my daughter, you know, a pretty woman. When they go,
Speaker 3: when he walks in, when she walks back in and goes,
Speaker 3: we should get yeah when she walks no, when she goes,
Speaker 3: big mistake, big mistake?
Speaker 7: Would you spend an obscene amount of.
Speaker 3: Ye when he says that, But she first got turned
Speaker 3: away from the fancy store with the fancy ladies.
Speaker 7: That thought, we all know money.
Speaker 3: So Samantha got got the pushback. Actually, you just did
Speaker 3: an AI, Mike, just an AI the day on YEA,
Speaker 3: what happens? Would you give it? A command that said what.
Speaker 7: Who the most prominent Boston luxury real estate brocus using AI?
Speaker 3: And what came up?
Speaker 7: Sam? Myself?
Speaker 3: And I think you came up for us?
Speaker 7: Sam one? Sam was second. It's interesting, you know, because
Speaker 7: everyone's doing Google searches.
Speaker 6: You know, what did Kennedy work for Daron Kennedy?
Speaker 2: They didn't, They wouldn't hire me. But now she says it.
Speaker 4: Yeah a minute, So how did Sam do for you?
Speaker 4: She did great?
Speaker 7: Yeah, we had one deal with the two point.
Speaker 4: S won't take.
Speaker 2: He told me to write it up right first.
Speaker 7: You ended up trading it at like two four. Because
Speaker 7: your first offer is almost always your best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the lesson learn though.
Speaker 6: I was sitting at open house for free, which nobody
Speaker 6: does now, sat there for free just because I wanted
Speaker 6: to meet people in Belmont, and this woman kept coming
Speaker 6: back with their family and I was like, they want,
Speaker 6: they want to offer this, and the owner said, don't
Speaker 6: write it up, and I was like, I'm so confused.
Speaker 7: It was early in the development, which was a mistake.
Speaker 7: That was a valuable lesson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, figure stuff out. She just but again it's the
Speaker 3: type of kid that you are. I always say, if
Speaker 3: you have that burning desire, you will be successful. If
Speaker 3: you don't have the burning desire, the tenacity forget about it.
Speaker 7: But your challenge isn't different now though, Gilbert, you you're
Speaker 7: in a mature industry. The Ballooon is sort of off
Speaker 7: the road in the affordable housing space. It's a mammoth company.
Speaker 7: Will you are three three thirty five hundred employees for
Speaker 7: five yes, And so you know, when you're running an
Speaker 7: operation that size, it's inevitable that you lose some nimble nimbleness.
Speaker 7: And so what do you find, uh, your biggest you know,
Speaker 7: Cindy asked a very good question like how big is big?
Speaker 6: Is?
Speaker 7: When do you stop? And but what are your biggest
Speaker 7: challenges now? And at the size and the space event
Speaker 7: night now would win.
Speaker 4: So the biggest challenge, and I don't think that this
Speaker 4: would be any different in the construction business, is finding
Speaker 4: folks that show up to work. Ye, not alone, you
Speaker 4: could work and you can work from home. And but
Speaker 4: but the folks that have to actually be there for
Speaker 4: you exactly. So we we're in the property management. We
Speaker 4: have one hundred thousand units, so we may.
Speaker 7: Have the largest manager of military housing in the country.
Speaker 7: Did you know that?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: I know that either.
Speaker 4: And these are folks that can't do their job remotely, right,
Speaker 4: So how do you motivate people to show up, have
Speaker 4: good customer service, work with their hands, or work you know,
Speaker 4: in an office all day and they can't take day off.
Speaker 4: You can't go onto a management office and know the
Speaker 4: property manager decided to work from home today. That doesn't work.
Speaker 4: So how do we get the right people to show
Speaker 4: up every day and keep our culture? That's our challenge?
Speaker 3: Okay? And the average contract was fifty years old, so
Speaker 3: I hope you know that right. So if you take
Speaker 3: the average contractor thank you for my donkeys. My donkeys, yeah,
Speaker 3: Boston donkeys, thank you. With that being said, if the
Speaker 3: average contract is fifty we're going to go through fifteen
Speaker 3: years of not a lot of labor coming up. But
Speaker 3: after that, but I've been shouting this since twenty ten,
Speaker 3: since my TV shorting GTV. We come on this eight
Speaker 3: nine ten crisis, and this is twenty eleven when I
Speaker 3: said it. We're going to have a skill gap problem
Speaker 3: and we're gonna have a housing shortage. And I was
Speaker 3: on Bloomberg Radio. Remember Bloomberg came here and they wanted
Speaker 3: They did their couple shows and same you're with me.
Speaker 3: I was talking right over their heads. They're like, City,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? We're gonna have a skill
Speaker 3: gap problem. I said, Okay, listen, break this down. I'll
Speaker 3: dumb it down. I'll say whatever you you know, but
Speaker 3: this is where we're going. We're gonna have a skill
Speaker 3: get problem, and then we're gonna have a housing problem.
Speaker 3: Like why we're gonna have a housing problem? I said,
Speaker 3: We'll take the four years. We're in twenty eleventh, a
Speaker 3: time we weren't even in twelve yet. How many states? Again,
Speaker 3: we're a little secluded here in Massachusetts, we're little protected
Speaker 3: a lot. When you see excavator stop and buildings stop
Speaker 3: going up, that means you lost three to four years
Speaker 3: of building. How is that not going to catch up
Speaker 3: on us? Right, simmy, right over the heads again. Then
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Radio calls me a year ago, would you like
Speaker 3: to pick up that conversation from what we had we
Speaker 3: we founded, Well, that's nicely that you found it. It's
Speaker 3: on the internet. But they didn't see it coming. And
Speaker 3: here's a little Cindy stumpo building ultra high end residential.
Speaker 3: What do you mean you didn't see it coming.
Speaker 4: You're the canary in the coal mine.
Speaker 3: If it's that mpath thing, I just want to get
Speaker 3: rid of it. It's a Christen a blessing, it really is.
Speaker 7: I want to be born by.
Speaker 3: Shamini, not a cancer. You're just tell me what your
Speaker 3: birth says. Uh Taurus, Okay, you're the bull bulls Okay.
Speaker 4: One of the other issues is that these folks are
Speaker 4: changing jobs so often. So it's one thing not to
Speaker 4: have gone to trade school. It's another thing to not
Speaker 4: to have, you know, become a property manager, let's say,
Speaker 4: or a maintenance professional, and then you decide three years
Speaker 4: later you want to do something else, and two years
Speaker 4: later you want to do something else. You don't have
Speaker 4: the veterans in the industry that we used to have
Speaker 4: that would do the same job and get great at it,
Speaker 4: have an expertise for thirty forty years.
Speaker 3: But that's generational employees. But here's a generational problem.
Speaker 7: You got better retention than at the top level you
Speaker 7: get phenomenal.
Speaker 3: But he's talking and going forward, rank, drank and file.
Speaker 7: Whi's the numbers game. You have forty five employees.
Speaker 3: Here's how a person thinks that. I see, I'm going
Speaker 3: to give this two three years. If that fails, Sammy,
Speaker 3: you've been hearing me say that at public speaking events
Speaker 3: fast twelve thirteen years. If I don't make it there,
Speaker 3: I'll try this at two three. Isn't that fails, I'll
Speaker 3: try something else. Why don't you stick with one thing
Speaker 3: and become a master and a maven of it instead
Speaker 3: of I'm gonna give it two three years. Well then
Speaker 3: what because they want to try something.
Speaker 2: Else, they want overnight success.
Speaker 3: Well, that's not how life works. Sorry.
Speaker 7: It's a sprint, not a Maraica exactly.
Speaker 3: Unless you're lucky enough to come up with some really
Speaker 3: great thing, a pet rock that sold for millions and
Speaker 3: links and millions of dollars, go out and work hard.
Speaker 3: It does pay off. It does. It takes your life away.
Speaker 3: You don't breathe sometimes. Sometimes you're loaning your own thoughts.
Speaker 3: Have you ever got that all the time? And you
Speaker 3: could be in a room full of people and you're
Speaker 3: still loaning your own thoughts. Right, that's kind of what
Speaker 3: we're saying roomful of Yeah, but you say exactly. So
Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking. I was thinking about all the problems
Speaker 3: I have over here. But it's just it is what
Speaker 3: it is. So it's it's gonna get harder and harder
Speaker 3: to build those units. Now, it was gonna be my
Speaker 3: next question. So we'll go to break and then we'll
Speaker 3: come back because I'm gonna that's that question. Is appoint me? Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm sending stomp owing and listening to top of Snails
Speaker 3: on WBZ. We'll be right back.
Speaker 5: Sponsored by new Brook Group, Boston, would Smaller Insurance World
Speaker 5: Auto Body and Tosca Drive Auto Body.
Speaker 1: In Common happen.
Speaker 3: Ultra and welcome back to tap his nails on WBZ.
Speaker 3: And I'm here with.
Speaker 4: Samantha and Michael Gilbert.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's talk about this big development get going
Speaker 3: on in Boston. Right. My question is this, you hire
Speaker 3: a construction company or you self performing.
Speaker 4: We hired We picked a construction company, Lee Kennedy out
Speaker 4: of South Boston.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know the Kennedy. Okay, great, Now where they
Speaker 3: getting the help?
Speaker 4: Oh? Well, it's a it's a it's an all union job,
Speaker 4: so that I think that will help source some people.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't get into that aspect. That's your
Speaker 4: that's your expertise.
Speaker 7: So three thousand units.
Speaker 3: So they give you their number going in. Okay, you're
Speaker 3: gonna build it. What's the timeframe?
Speaker 7: Ten years?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we uh, we're going to go right on
Speaker 4: top of the game. We're going to start this year
Speaker 4: on the first hundred units, and then every eighteen months
Speaker 4: after that we're going to build another couple of hundred
Speaker 4: units until we get to thirty three hundred units. That's
Speaker 4: the plan.
Speaker 3: It takes how many years?
Speaker 4: You said it's going to take a couple of decades
Speaker 4: more than ten.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well okay, so let me ask you guys a question.
Speaker 7: You can't fix construction costs.
Speaker 3: No, you can't hide out very expensive construction, very expense
Speaker 3: so long.
Speaker 4: So we uh, we're doing it building by building. You know,
Speaker 4: we we were designated for the entire site, but you
Speaker 4: can only build the project in front of you, So
Speaker 4: we have a fixed price cost on the first building.
Speaker 3: I just want to get something straight right now, if
Speaker 3: we put all of us together, and it's not about politics,
Speaker 3: to make a point, can we build three million housings
Speaker 3: in four years.
Speaker 4: Honestly, it's going to be a little difficult.
Speaker 7: Three million.
Speaker 2: Now in the country that's needed.
Speaker 3: No, I said, if you put us all together, we
Speaker 3: couldn't do it.
Speaker 4: If you had freeland, all the approvals, all the zoning,
Speaker 4: it would still be difficult.
Speaker 7: Okay, thank you, that's perfect world stuff.
Speaker 3: Okay, and let me ask this question. They want affordable housing, right,
Speaker 3: but then they tie our arms, our hands behind usaghood
Speaker 3: licensing and everything else, and to get off the ground.
Speaker 3: Just give you the permits, just let you go.
Speaker 7: Like enough enough, I think, I think, go build.
Speaker 3: Bill, but then tie our hands up.
Speaker 7: I think what's important to bring up is the stigma
Speaker 7: that has been attached to affordable housing. And our wind
Speaker 7: has product differential on that. And the stigma is their
Speaker 7: tenants they don't own, they're not going to take care
Speaker 7: of their homes, their slum lords. And I can tell
Speaker 7: you a couple of stories. Your dad told me a
Speaker 7: story about the South End development where at some point
Speaker 7: they didn't want to put central air conditioning in. Was
Speaker 7: that which was that Mission Maine or Castle Square? Castle
Speaker 7: Square five hundred, yeah, five hundred. It's a joint venture
Speaker 7: with the tenants and would win another brilliant type of
Speaker 7: a concept. And at some point they wanted to say, oh,
Speaker 7: we don't need central air conditioning, and your dad's like,
Speaker 7: they can't live and they without central air conditioning. But
Speaker 7: the product differential, you know, you think affordable housing is
Speaker 7: a dirty Would you think that there's no pride of ownership,
Speaker 7: not titled ownership with the tenants, but prior of ownership
Speaker 7: of their home and being proud of the home that
Speaker 7: they live in. A story I'll never forget about ten
Speaker 7: fifteen years ago and Wind doesn't sell a lot of property,
Speaker 7: but they hired me to do one hundred and one
Speaker 7: hundred and two units in Lowell. I don't know if
Speaker 7: you remember the project. And you had a property manager
Speaker 7: of female older woman that was there like forever, and.
Speaker 3: We had young like Samantha.
Speaker 7: I don't know if you know this story, but your
Speaker 7: father definitely knows the story. I text you would quarterfy
Speaker 7: this morning. You were still sleeping, just so you know,
Speaker 7: well then you were having coffee. So anyway, so we
Speaker 7: have multiple bids on the Lowell project and I'll never
Speaker 7: forget this. I'm with the one of the final bids
Speaker 7: we're standing outside of the management office which was on site,
Speaker 7: and I forget the woman's name, No, but it's a
Speaker 7: compelling story. A cop pulls up with a bunch of
Speaker 7: kids and as they get ready to pull in, the
Speaker 7: music was blaring. As that they get ready to pull
Speaker 7: into the driveway, they turned the music off and they
Speaker 7: put the windows up out of respect that they're pulling
Speaker 7: into their home. Now, that might not mean much, but
Speaker 7: what it spoken volumes was the quality of the tenets
Speaker 7: that were in that development, and those buyers, by the way,
Speaker 7: they noticed that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike, I would say that this is really starts
Speaker 4: back with my father, Arthur Way at the beginning. It's
Speaker 4: like affordable housing should be undifferentiated from market, right. Housing
Speaker 4: shouldn't be able to go buy that building and say
Speaker 4: that must be affordable housing, and then you drive on
Speaker 4: you say that must be market. You have to manage
Speaker 4: it just as well. You have to put money into
Speaker 4: it and you have to care. And that's what I
Speaker 4: think differentiates us. And we don't sell very often, so
Speaker 4: it's our name on these properties for thirty forty fifty years.
Speaker 4: We run it into the grounds. Guess what everyone knows
Speaker 4: that win was the reason that that happened. So I
Speaker 4: know a lot of.
Speaker 6: Your buildings have weightless to get in them, and that's
Speaker 6: not the case for everything else.
Speaker 4: It's exactly right. There's certainly affordable housing, and so were
Speaker 4: we're trying to be the best of its kind in
Speaker 4: any neighborhood.
Speaker 7: Has the industry maturing helped it our heard at Gilbert.
Speaker 4: I think it's actually hurt it in one way, which
Speaker 4: is back when two thousand and eight, two thousand and
Speaker 4: nine happened and folks got out of the market rate business.
Speaker 4: And this has happened during COVID too. They all said, Oh,
Speaker 4: this affordable housing game, I'm going to try to get
Speaker 4: into it. So you had a lot of wall money
Speaker 4: coming in, you had a lot of folks that had
Speaker 4: no idea how to operate all these things. And now
Speaker 4: they they said, oh, this is an easy way to
Speaker 4: make money, except when it isn't and they didn't have
Speaker 4: the tools to fix it. And now there's a lot
Speaker 4: of folks that are in trouble and a lot of
Speaker 4: properties that are suffering because of that.
Speaker 7: Are you picking up any of those after the fact?
Speaker 4: We are, I mean, that's half our business. Is else's problem?
Speaker 3: Okay for every winner, right, every loser, there's a winner.
Speaker 3: Every winner, there's a loser. It's just how it works, right.
Speaker 3: Somebody said to me one time, well, you're the shock
Speaker 3: that comes in. No, no, I'm not the shock. I'm
Speaker 3: the barracoudal. Let's get that straight. You're a problem. I'll
Speaker 3: take it, but we're going to buy it at the
Speaker 3: rate that it's going to be period.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's just a little different here in Massachusetts because you know,
Speaker 3: our land costs a high right, you can go into
Speaker 3: other states where land's not what it is up here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you knew about going to certain cities. Even
Speaker 6: in mass other place people were not going to like
Speaker 6: it's a new thing that every wants to build a Worcester.
Speaker 2: It was not like that before.
Speaker 4: That's a great I wasn't. I was speaking for a long.
Speaker 2: Time, but before everybody else did.
Speaker 3: Correct. You guys have been in Worcester for a long time.
Speaker 4: When it works, it works because of Sam what you
Speaker 4: were just saying, which is why were we in Worcester.
Speaker 4: We were in Worcester because the city was actually fairly
Speaker 4: easy to work with.
Speaker 7: The best thing you pulled out of Worcester was Michael Bryant.
Speaker 3: We have exactly a former city manager that's a pro
Speaker 3: development town, Worcester city town. Whatever they wanted. It's just
Speaker 3: like we go out of the areas and then you
Speaker 3: got Newton Brookline going stump or get out of here
Speaker 3: right like, we don't want you right like. He's like,
Speaker 3: well me, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: But it took everybody else how many years to catch up?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, thirty years, forty years. Don't want to
Speaker 3: touch Worster.
Speaker 4: My favorite story I'd say in my career about that
Speaker 4: is we built really the first market rate housing component
Speaker 4: in downtown Worcester in like thirty years, but we did
Speaker 4: it with the state, so half the units were market
Speaker 4: rate and half the units were affordable. But we did
Speaker 4: such a good job in this old mill building. We
Speaker 4: were getting twenty five hundred and three thousand dollars reds.
Speaker 4: It was that underwriting that the market rate guys came
Speaker 4: in a year later and built three hundred units of
Speaker 4: market rate housing off our underwriting. So they would not
Speaker 4: have built that had we not built our smaller unit.
Speaker 4: And that was the public private partnership.
Speaker 3: What is your state outside of Massachusetts, that's your second
Speaker 3: biggest state of owning affordable.
Speaker 4: So management wise it's California. We manage about fifteen thousand units.
Speaker 3: You just love those Blue states.
Speaker 4: But development ownership wise, it's it's going to be New
Speaker 4: York and New Jersey or the two folks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so blow blue states any Red states.
Speaker 4: But that's not a coincidence city. I mean, these are
Speaker 4: the states that don't just take the federal money in
Speaker 4: build housing. They put in state money and that's what
Speaker 4: makes these things go.
Speaker 3: And the Red states don't hardly ever.
Speaker 4: Really Yeah, I mean they they don't put in hardly
Speaker 4: any of the money to build new Essentially, they're funding
Speaker 4: you know, public housing and things like that, but they're
Speaker 4: not building new construction.
Speaker 7: Yeah, what about the send of YOUA familiar with the
Speaker 7: forty B said, of course, So I got to give
Speaker 7: you it is the carrot, you know, but after I
Speaker 7: get through all.
Speaker 4: But the idea.
Speaker 7: But the idea of Fordy B and the carrot and
Speaker 7: the stick sho Win is not known for the threat
Speaker 7: of forty B. Correct, Yeah, we we we do friendly
Speaker 7: forty friendly fordy B's, which I think we should talk
Speaker 7: about that a little bit because it's so unusual.
Speaker 3: We're just kicking right now, so we might have to
Speaker 3: have a second segment, so we are third or fourth,
Speaker 3: one fourth, so you got twenty seconds real fast.
Speaker 4: One of the things we do to make it a
Speaker 4: friendly forty b is we include a tranch of workforce
Speaker 4: housing middle income housing, so we're not just going in
Speaker 4: with low end market. We're selling the dream and the
Speaker 4: reality of middle income housing. And everybody wants that in
Speaker 4: their neighborhood, so they'll take the affordable. If they don't
Speaker 4: like that, or if they don't like gentrification, they'll take
Speaker 4: the market as long as you have a trance of
Speaker 4: middle income. And I think we do more of that
Speaker 4: than anyone in the state.
Speaker 3: Really amazing. All right, everybody hold that thought. This is
Speaker 3: city Stumble. We're going off the break and you're listening
Speaker 3: to Tempest Nails on WDZ News Radio. Joy and welcome
Speaker 3: back to Tempest Nails on WBZ. Who's ten thirty? Author,
Speaker 3: I love you. I call your father, author, right, I'm
Speaker 3: telling you, Author, I love you through you, through your
Speaker 3: later that way. Now I'm gonna make sure he listens, Okay, Author,
Speaker 3: I love you. Okay, Now, Gilbert Quy, should I have
Speaker 3: real fast? You got now twenty seconds. If you had
Speaker 3: to give some advice starting out in affordable housing a
Speaker 3: young dude, young woman, what would you tell them?
Speaker 4: Understand why you're in this business as opposed to other
Speaker 4: sorts of housing. Make sure it's about the tenants. Make
Speaker 4: sure it's about pride of ownership. And you're going to
Speaker 4: have a lot of public private relationships. So keep your
Speaker 4: word and do a good job and you'll get more opportunities.
Speaker 3: And it is a money making business.
Speaker 4: It's both a money making business and a reputation builder.
Speaker 4: Do both.
Speaker 3: Okay, everybody, have a great, safe weekend. This is City
Speaker 3: Stampboat Up is Nails on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
Speaker 3: and we'll be back next weekend.