Speaker 1: What's actually happened in general Florida A thousand people moving
to Florida every day, net migration and very business friendly,
but also number one back to office. So just math wise,
if you're buying fifty sixty seventy cents in the dollar
compared her to what the peak was.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Eventually, as people more and more people go back to
the office and the business trends are trending positive.
Speaker 2: And I'm seeing that in the leasing Velocity.
Speaker 4: You are listening to Carrie.
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Speaker 4: And welcome you are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network.
I'm your host, Carrie Lutz got a really interesting guest
for you right now. Like me, he's a recovering attorney,
former New Yorker now a Floridian and a real interesting,
all around interesting person. His name is Mosha Poppik and
Company hy Am he real estate management and well welcha,
let's talk about you. You came to Florida at the
height of the foreclosure epidemic and you saw value when
everyone else was fleeing the space. And fast forward now
what is it fifteen years? Tell us what's happened.
Speaker 1: So, just in general to that point, I think anyone
who wants to have outsize returns or make a difference,
they're going to have to take decisions, leader decisions if
they want to be an entrepreneur that are beyond the
regular bell curve right there, the logic or what everyone's
telling you. So right, So if I were to apply
the first real estate deal that I did, everyone thought
I was nuts during the time. So we fast forward
out the We have three divisions in seven states.
Speaker 2: We have multifamily apartments that we own and manage. We
have office.
Speaker 1: Buildings, and we have assisted living and about over is
over about over a billion dollars of assets we manage
and own long term. So commercial real estate is in
the dumps right now. Do you think you're going to
be able to do the same thing with commercial real
estate that you did with the residential But way back
fifteen years ago, so I'm hoping we're still in the
I guess second inning, third inning like that.
Speaker 2: We don't have it fully.
Speaker 1: Played out, but I have taken financial bet this past
eight months. You're seeing the front page of the Roll
Street Journal to your point right, office buildings, everything looks terrible.
Speaker 2: But what was the reason?
Speaker 1: It was something abstract COVID, everyone's working remote, But what's
actually happening? And I've taken the bet here in South Florida.
What's actually happened in general Florida? A thousand people moving
to Florida every day, net migration and very business friendly,
but also number one back to office. So just math wise,
if you're buying fifty sixty seventy cents in the dollar
compared her to what the peak was, right, Eventually, as people,
more and more people go back to the office and
the business trends are trending positive. And I'm seeing that
in the leasing velocity on the commercial real estate. I'm
seeing that through reality on the ground. Uh, you know,
we're able to buy deals at you know of eleven
percent yield right cap rates twelve Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, and you're and you're and you're in a
good market. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, our corporate offices in isn't and we have
over a million square feet just in that just in
that counting.
Speaker 4: Interesting. Interesting. So you see the return back to the office. Uh,
but maybe hybrid, maybe not as much as many people
working in a spaces was before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think real estate in general is
very localized. So I think that you took San Francisco
and New York City, Uh, maybe less.
Speaker 2: Maybe the employees are pushing.
Speaker 1: Back in reality, Uh, there's a there's more leasing that
I've done the past twelve months of companies moving down
and expansions here in South Florence. You have to take
each market and study we're we're where are we because
it's moving fast, the transition from COVID and that remote work,
hybrid work coming back to office.
Speaker 2: But what are we seeing?
Speaker 1: We're seeing that you know, major Fortune five hundred companies
are demanding that the employees come back five days a week.
You know, So there is because I think the actual
number in South Florida think it's about ninety one percent
compared to twenty nineteen are back in office.
Speaker 4: So what percent was that? I'm sorry, ninety one.
Speaker 2: In South Florida, which is odd, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like I said, you have to have a
contrarian view if you want to reap the upsides. So right,
you can't expect if you don't take calculated risk, you
can't expect to get outside returns.
Speaker 2: It just goes onalon.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what about the malls. I know they're doing
well here in South Florida for the most part of that.
There's a few that are ready to close their doors.
But around the country it looks like the time of
the mall has passed. Can you repurpose them? What would
be your vision for them?
Speaker 2: What have I seen? It's interesting.
Speaker 1: State of Florida last year they passed them they called
the Local Act, which is basically able to take commercial
zoning and circumvent local city.
Speaker 2: Zoning and build more residential.
Speaker 1: So if I would have a big swath land in
kind of a city, maybe I'd cut off a big
chunk of it knocked out. Let's say there's a Sears
or something that's you know, that's out of business, maybe
knock it down. Maybe it's always maybe some need for supermarkets,
food right or food, dunkin Donuts, things like that, out parcels.
And then and then maybe some experience like trampline parks
I've seen so I'm not so much in the mall space,
but I've seen success in that where you're really buying
the mall ten cents twenty cents in the dollar really,
but the costs of the land.
Speaker 2: And I've seen.
Speaker 1: Them turn it around and then you can go to
regional banks, local banks to get that vision finance.
Speaker 2: I've seen that done.
Speaker 4: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, well, there's just so many ghost malls
and you see the pictures of them deteriorating. They have
trees growing through the middle of them. The roofs are collapsing,
and something should be done. That can't all be Amazon,
you know, distribution centers or illegal alien processing centers.
Speaker 2: Right, No, no, be sure some of them are doing that.
Speaker 1: But also I saw that Amazon compared to let's say
twenty twenty one, they are not expanding as fast as
they were.
Speaker 2: They're slowing down. So in general, again in business, the
most important.
Speaker 1: Thing is you have to be level headed to be
able to pivot, and your strategy has to be planned
a B C d EFG. Right, you have to You
can't just have one thing and you have to di
asply because right, nobody expected that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well, you've got to be flexible. And I
just remember, you know, the Chrysler building in Manhattan during
the Great Depression, Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company had the mortgage
on it. They took it back and then yeah, everyone
thought it was doomed. And you know, the next time
they sold it was for hundreds of millions of dollars.
But I don't know what you think. New York City
is a good play, a countercyclical play, or is it doomed.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you I have a lot of family.
Most of my family live in New York. I still
there's this core dynamic and I go back and forth
in my mind about New York. I don't like the
homelessness issue. A lot of friends that I have in
the real estate business are using their hotels for migrants.
That's happening in prime areas because they're getting top dollar
from government. That's top and they're also just locals are
complaining heavy, heavy stench and every block of marijuana. It's uncomfortable.
It's become uncomfortable. But it will always be that four.
It will always be New York. But we just said
at our major import Ken Griffin, right, a huge Hedge Fund.
He said that Florida or South Florida is becoming the
Wall Street of the South.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, more and more and more.
Speaker 1: And I think that, well, you'll still have because the money,
the money is in Manhattan. The money's in New York, right,
so you got to go there and hotels and stuff, right.
Speaker 4: But tax is, quality of life issues, everything you described. Really,
Miami has become the financial capital of the country. It
shifted and population numbers twenty three million here and the
population state static in New York around nineteen and a
half million. And really you could just see Goldman Sachs
sent their most profitable division down to Palm Beach County,
I think on Beach County.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because I mentioned on my podcast Common
Denominator the other day it was interesting that from Manhattan
to the Hampton it's one hundred and eighteen miles right,
and from Homestead Jupiter is also a hundred eighteen miles
with ocean on one side, yeah, and everybody than the other.
And six and a half million people in South Florida
and eight million from the Hamptons to Manhattan in New York.
So I'm very I'm very bullish on the economy in
here in South Florida for the next ten years, all.
Speaker 4: Right, But we have several headwinds here. Well. Once upon
a time Florida was substantially cheaper than New York. Not
so much anymore. And we've got the condo crisis due
to the surf side condo collapse that happened I guess
three almost foty years ago, and that led to an
overreaction by the state government mandating all these reserve funds,
and all of a sudden there is a rush by
every single condo in the certainly in South Florida to
remedy decades of deferred maintenance. And then you got the
insurance crisis taking place, where you know, basically the state
has become the insurer of last resort. They've made some
steps to try to get the market back on its equilibrium,
but we'll see how successful. But you know, condo is
people can't sell them now.
Speaker 2: You know, I see it all it right, all right,
at the condos.
Speaker 1: I do believe interesting about government in general, it's only
when it's an issue, the government.
Speaker 2: Generally, you know, react there they're react.
Speaker 1: Because I saw that right insurance was an issue, so
different laws were passed over the past two years in
the state of Florida to help remedy, re up some
capacity and try to and try to do things. These
two hurricanes, what we just had is probably not gonna help,
not at all. Smart insurance market which is which is
a shame. But I believe that it's still going to
be contained to be worked on. And I also believe
between now and there's just a gut a gut call.
But I don't think because there's so many condos in
South Florida, this spend over this per condo unit of
reserve that under the state law, I don't believe that
it's going to stay in law for so long. I
think it's going to have to be mitigated and changed.
Speaker 4: It should have been phased, Yeah, it should have been phased.
You should have glad by the buildings is you know
A through S S immediate most of them are C
and B. They could have been phased in over five
years rather than in people getting hit over the hit
you know, one hundred thousand dollars bills in these condos,
they are not motion are not unusual right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, By the way, I see the statisticated developments because
some of these condo buildings are old.
Speaker 2: What are they doing? They know there's this pressure point
with this reserves from millions of dollars. Uh, they're going
making proposals to the boards of these condos.
Speaker 1: Uh. You know, I'll buy out all the condos for
X and name a time. I see that land right,
You've seen that right on the ocean to develop. I've
seen related in other companies down there. Uh do that successfully.
So we'll we'll, we'll, we'll see where this goes. But
you know that there's many, many, many condo owners, as
many condos and kind of owners, and I think that
there is a lot of frustration there. And when you
have a large scale frustration again we saw we saw
with the insurance issue, and I think they can have
a lot of lobbying as well to mitigate this issue.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I know is one of
your pet CAUs is also one of mine, which is
better health, especially through nutrition. And not to get political,
but the RFK junior being elevated by Trump in his
campaign and you have to make America Healthy again campaign.
You know, this is a national disaster here. We have
the worst health of any developed country in the world.
Although pretty much. The rest of the world is racing
to catch up with us here, obesity, all these things,
and it all comes down to what you put in
your mouth under thing.
Speaker 2: So you have what I see.
Speaker 1: I saw is five major companies control the food. So
what do we see once let's just take.
Speaker 2: A step back.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of just feeling good. All us just want
to kind of feel good. But like you said, it's
the food we eat, the what do we drink, and
the air we breathe. Those three if those can be
why should we put chemicals in our body?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Like they shouldn't have chemicals.
Speaker 1: They should be good for us and not cause us
to feel obeace or and then and then basic you
can do it's free exercise. You go for walks every day,
right and then and then sleep. So much of healthcare,
the trillions that we spend healthcare so would be it
would be wiped away.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, Medicaid, medicare, all of those issues. You know
what they are, not for profit neighborhood farms USA. So
we're slow and steady. Uh, in our workforce, thousand communities,
we're uh in the green areas. Instead of having non
edible we're having kind of raised gardens, teaching, uh, teaching
the kids instead of them going out and making.
Speaker 2: Trouble after school. Teaching them.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised they really don't know about what healthy
eating is. So it's an education program to teach, you know, workforce.
Speaker 2: Housing, community about healthy eating.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy because a fruit and vegetable, which basically
you complied to in the ground, is actually more expensive
than processed food.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well it's all economics. And look the worst
chemical of all though, we don't even consider a chemical.
That's sugar. And there's something like two hundred and forty
different names for the sugar that goes into food dextros.
I mean, you look at it. If you can't understand
what it is, it's probably sugar. And if we just
cut out ninety percent of the sugar and a substantial
portion of grains, that alone would have a dramatic effect
on global health.
Speaker 1: Think that, why should it be that there's certain foods?
Think about this way, why should it be that there's
certain foods that were addicted to They say, the hardest
thing to talk about sugar. That's the hardest thing to
wean off to really be sugar. I know, for me,
just my coffee, something simple, just to not have sugar
in my coffee.
Speaker 2: It was like.
Speaker 1: Struggle and right and and then when I got there.
But it's it's it's a it's a process for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You know that experiment they did where they put
they gave rats heroin, cocaine and sugar, and the rats
skipped the heroin and cocaine and they went right for
the sugar and they got addicted to it. It's the
most addictive thing. And you got to eat. You don't
necessarily have to inject stuff in your body that becomes
a need, but you have to eat. And that's the problem.
That's where they got us. And is it a conspiracy
or did it just happened over time. We're not even
getting into seed oils and all the other stuff that's
out there that you know is awful. So I applaud
you for that. Hey, we want to connect with you,
want to find out what you're doing. How do you
do that?
Speaker 2: So we have our podcast I'm a Denominator.
Speaker 1: We've got almost about two hundred episodes, range with many
about mindset about business. That's on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever
you can get your podcasts. But and then I handle Instagram, Facebook,
LinkedIn m poppak Mosha Pope back and you can find
buy me there. All right, Yeah, welcome to any questions
and ideas.
Speaker 4: Great. Well, we'll have a link in the show notes
of this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. And
while you're there, please sign up for your free newsletter.
I you've got a question for Mosha myself, shoot me
an email k L at Kerrie Let's dot com. Mosha.
We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks so much, Thank you, Kerry,
thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,