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Love the brickwork on this new building in Greenwich Village

One of my earliest childhood memories in my parents store: Guy comes in asking how much something costs... My dad: "$10" Guy: "In the other store its $8" Dad: "Why dont you go there?" Guy: "They're sold out" Dad: "When we're sold out, its $5"

The most time per sqft spent of any project I've ever done. This Historic Brooklyn townhome renovation. And it came out epic! Design by Hans Lorei

One of the reasons NYC plumbing is so expensive is the material NYC vs. Rest of US

Mazel tov! Baby Girl! 💕

All the numbers are in and the books are closed. Here's the breakdown of the $4,222,265 in hard costs to build this 17 unit building in NYC: Demolition - $53,000 Site Logistics - $129,220 Foundation + Superstructure - $1,121,560 Framing - $323,055.00 Roofing - $67,375.00 Waterproofing & Exterior envelope -$137,000 Metals & Masonry - $84,050 Windows - $105,000 Plumbing + Sprinkler $530,260 Mechanical - $214,200 Electric/Low Voltage+ Lighting $262,725 Fire Alarm - $25,560 Elevator - $206,000 Insulation/Fire protection - $40,510 Drywall + Finished Carpentry -$140,330 Flooring + Tiles - $121,000 Kitchen + Appliances - $89,750 Painting - $72,000 Bathroom Fixtures & Accessories - $12,920 Trash Chute+ Compactor - $25,800 Builders Pavement Plan - $24,400 Misc - Mailbox/Signage etc - $14,520 General conditions $319,150 General Requirements $102,880

Who's having Chinese tonight?

Before & After of our project. 38 2-family homes.

Plumber called asking if we have work as it's getting slow for him and a bunch of his jobs got cancelled. We get the proposal, I tell him it's too high. He says, "I need to make up for my other lost work"... Not how it works mate!

Our cost to build: ~$350k/unit Affordable housing project next block: $725k/unit And ours includes paying for land while theirs doesn't. If the government actually cares about building more and affordable housing, they need to radically change how it happens...

Day 366: - Final inspection day - Passed final inspection

Diamonds in the rough still to be found 16 min subway from Times Square...

Construction loan rate history:

Another Brooklyn building trying to sell for below land value...

Found out today that folks install flooring after cabinets. Why?

Found out today that folks install flooring after cabinets. Why?

Mazel tov! Baby Girl! 💕

One of the reasons NYC plumbing is so expensive is the material NYC vs. Rest of US

All the numbers are in and the books are closed. Here's the breakdown of the $4,222,265 in hard costs to build this 17 unit building in NYC: Demolition - $53,000 Site Logistics - $129,220 Foundation + Superstructure - $1,121,560 Framing - $323,055.00 Roofing - $67,375.00 Waterproofing & Exterior envelope -$137,000 Metals & Masonry - $84,050 Windows - $105,000 Plumbing + Sprinkler $530,260 Mechanical - $214,200 Electric/Low Voltage+ Lighting $262,725 Fire Alarm - $25,560 Elevator - $206,000 Insulation/Fire protection - $40,510 Drywall + Finished Carpentry -$140,330 Flooring + Tiles - $121,000 Kitchen + Appliances - $89,750 Painting - $72,000 Bathroom Fixtures & Accessories - $12,920 Trash Chute+ Compactor - $25,800 Builders Pavement Plan - $24,400 Misc - Mailbox/Signage etc - $14,520 General conditions $319,150 General Requirements $102,880

Day 366: - Final inspection day - Passed final inspection

The most time per sqft spent of any project I've ever done. This Historic Brooklyn townhome renovation. And it came out epic! Design by Hans Lorei

Experimenting with painting the blowers in dark colored rooms. Thoughts?

Mazel tov! Baby Girl! 💕

Before & After of our project. 38 2-family homes.

Love the brickwork on this new building in Greenwich Village

Construction loan rate history:

The origin story of our real estate development firm: (And how NOT to become a real estate developer) My partner (CB) & I gritted our teeth in the travel industry for almost a decade. Arguably one of the least passive businesses to be in… There's always constant emergencies, 3-4am conference calls with Asia & Australia multiple times a week…it's crazy. I was good but CB was really good, beyond ridiculously good! And people were happy to pay and we were happy to be getting paid. With some money saved up, CB found the place to park the money, to the holy grail of passive income…real estate. A friend of a friend is a real estate developer, he’s been around the block with a bunch of projects, including ‘08. Fast talking, forever networking his huge rolodex and pitching his even bigger ideas. How about 300 units in NJ with a great basis on the land? Sure, LFG!!! Welcome to “LP Land”, where you put the money up and someone else does the work and everyone makes lots of money…. Well, well, not so fast… “About those 300 units” says the city board…”we don't think that's appropriate for our town”... Sure, the town is lacking housing and here's an unkempt acre of land that's mostly used as a free for all dumping ground and nocturnal businesses… But what about parking? And traffic? And the fire lanes for the fire trucks? And the sewer? And the school? And the setbacks? The horror! 38 Duplex homes with 2 parking spots each, front, back and side setbacks are the only thing that this town wants. DONE! (You know your land basis was good when you can drop 75% of the units and it still pencils) Honeymoon phase ends fast. It still makes sense to go ahead but this wasn't the original deal and maybe the talking was too fast, the ideas a little dreamy and the rolodex not that deep…time to keep an eye on what's going on… …and wake up from the passive income dream before it even started… The deal is alive but looking gray. Mr Developer reckons some savings on the construction side might make those numbers dance again. And he has just the guy to do it… A GC with decades of experience in the town, owns all his own machines and “knows all the inspectors and trades”, he’ll get it done on the cheap. If you've ever been on a rollercoaster ride or thought about getting on one, this is what's going on…is this going to be a blast or are we all going to die? Machines are on site, excavator shovels in the ground, no time for golden shovels or pictures…the real magic is happening! And then silence! “Yo, ping me when you can” - “ill call you right back” “Hey Mr Developer, it's been a min, checking in” - “there's just a couple hiccups, update soon” “Hey, please call me back” - “trying to fix things with the city” “Just wanted to follow up” - “GC is the problem here, ttyl” “WTF is going on???” REDACTED FOR LANGUAGE REDACTED FOR LANGUAGE “Dear Mr Developer, I would like to set a meeting to discuss the status of the project” “VIA Fedex & email to Mr Developer, CC: Legal This correspondence shall serve as notice of default under our contract. Further communication shall be via legal counsel only” But at the same time, do you know what isn't silent? The sound of the earth swallowing the money in the deal faster than the US government can print it. “BORING LEGAL DETAILS” “BORING LEGAL DETAILS” Legal & other professionals advise that the best path forward is to cut the losses and not throw good money after bad. Never was an option, never will be an option, there has to be a way forward. “BORING LEGAL DETAILS” “BORING LEGAL DETAILS” “SETTLEMENT BUYOUT AGREEMENT” - Take over as developer of the project. How hard could it be? Welcome to “GP Land” - you are now a Developer! (Also LP so at least the incentives are aligned that all the money you lose is yours and you also guarantee the loan) Time to put on the Developer hat, go visit the site, talk to the GC and get this thing back on track. How hard can it be? Ghost towns with old buildings are scary. Partially built, vacant construction sites with just a couple weird noises are scarier. There's basically nobody on site when there's supposed to be 50-100 workers every day. Where in the world is Mr GC? A quick lesson in “construction worker gossip retrieval” later, we find out that he's actually in Miami taking delivery of his new boat. Finally get him on the phone and he doesn't see any issue, “Ill be back any day now and everything is in order and going as scheduled” While we were supposed to have been raising the white flag, he was raising a red rag to a bull… Immediately we request all documentation with regards to the project including and most importantly, schedules of values, work completed and all payments. Mr GC now thinks his Mr QC and writes back with the gist of, “we must ascertain the parameters of contract with regard to communication with third parties” Translation: He doesn't want to talk to us because he's hiding something. We try to get something from him on the phone but it spirals quickly into “wrestling with the pig, getting dirty and he's loving it” “Any day” turns into over a week (boat delay?) but we finally get a meeting time set up onsite. Finally, we are going to get this project back on track. How hard could it be? We come with a gift but also ready for war and we say a prayer as we pull up to the site. Of course Mr GC rolls up fashionably late…in his Bentley Continental… "Oy Gevald" Looks like he’s already treated himself to a gift on our dime and prayers aint gonna work with someone whos biggest concern is the shade of his Miami tan, so war it must be. The meeting went exactly how you would expect, every excuse that had ever been uttered by mankind was extended. And then some. Sometimes you have to retreat before attacking. The project was not moving and the most important thing to find out was where we were in the maze. “Always follow the money”. That would tell us everything there was to know. Except Mr GC “was between bookkeepers”, was “switching out some subs”, had a fire and something about his dog eating the rest of the records. “Financials were not available” Except there's always a way and if you want it bad enough you find it. With lots of carrots and lots of sticks, we finally managed to get some semblance of financials. They were clearly incomplete to begin with and obfuscated on top of that. One of my neuroses is that numbers have to match, exactly. Not close enough or rounding. It has to be to the cent or it's wrong. Numbers don't lie, so if they dont balance, you're lying. (Side note: Title companies hate me cos they usually make big mistakes on closing statements and then they “fix them” and they're still off by a few cents and I make them update it again) Time to crunch those numbers. But I love this stuff and maybe in another life I would be a forensic accountant if I only wanted mild brain damage. I basically spend the next 3 days and nights going through it, cleaning it all up and adding back whatever I could from other sources. Get close enough that I can fill some gaps and get a clear picture. Guess what? The cent column is off. As is the ten cent column. And the dollar, ten dollar and hundred dollar. And the thousand, ten thousand and hundred thousand. Over five hundred thousand dollars was “spent” on work that had not been completed. Can't be, right? Now i'm not sure if this is stage one of grief or if my numbers are wrong. I check, double check, triple check. The numbers aren't lying, I'm trying to lie to myself. But maybe maybe there's something missing due to the incomplete numbers received. Call for another meeting and this time it's made apparent that there's no monkey business or else. We drop the spreadsheet in front of him and the moment he starts with his first excuse we knew the numbers were right. The gist of it was that material and labor had increased since signing the contract and anyways, there was a bank inspector who was signing off on the reqs so it couldn't be wrong… Mr Developer had thought it a good idea to have the bank pay the GC directly. (If anyone is still reading and you want to learn one thing, never ever “streamline” the payments with banks distributing money to the GC) It was obvious that we could no longer work together, the question was how to proceed with a) this outstanding money and b) the rest of the project? On the first issue, we came to find out that Mr Bentley GC had no assets in his name and going after him was just going to burn more money, time and effort. On continuing the project, Legal & other professionals advise that the best path forward is to cut the losses and not throw good money after bad. This advice affter saying “I told you so” (Side note: Lawyers should not be able to charge for asking about you and your family are doing and saying “I told you so”) Never was an option, never will be an option, there has to be a way forward. “SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT” - Replace the GC of the project. How hard could it be? Taking a step back for a min, this is now all taking place during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Misery loves company so it should have felt good that many others felt the world was ending as well. But we weren't going to go down without a fight and turning over every last stone, literally and figuratively. The issue is that no GC wants to take on a partially built project without being released from the liability. Which can be achieved by putting up a huge bond, or demolishing everything that was done. Neither was an option. Welcome to “GC Land” - you are now a Builder (Also GP/LP so not only are the incentives aligned that all the money you lose is yours, you guarantee the loan and take on all the insurance risk of the project) Now there was nobody else to blame, everything was on us to get it done. We needed to get the workers back on site. If anyone thought the land was toxic before we started, it now felt like Chernobyl, nobody wanted to even go near it or be associated with it. Not the trades, nor the city officials. A little more “construction worker gossip retrieval” and we start to hear that nobody is showing up because, you guessed it, they were not being paid. Seems strange since Mr Bentley GC was req’ing ahead to pay “his guys” for additional labor and material. But physically building the houses was going to be a reach too far even for us optimists. This was not something that we could will into existence by ourselves. Time to start another ledger of work done and not paid. A larger project has dozens of subs and ~everyone had something outstanding. As did the city. Meanwhile, everyone is busy trying to do jobs that they are being paid for. One by one we had to sit with each sub, level with them, find out the numbers, hear their grievances and explain that now they can work directly for us and we will make them whole. We just need to work together. By the time we finished all the rounds, it looked something like the other ledger. Almost five hundred thousand dollars of work done without being paid. Now we had a very clear picture. A picture worth a million dollars. The subs were not going to work for pictures or IOUs or anything else, if we couldn't get them money, they weren't showing up. And there was no money. Thus started the no trust dance. We agreed that the subs would come for a day and we would pay them immediately for their work and a small part of the arrears. First it was one day at a time. And if we didn't pay, they wouldn't show up the next day. Slowly we started making some headway and one day turned to two and then to three. As they were getting paid and work was getting done, slowly life started to return to the project. It was slow, deathly slow but it was moving and that's what we needed. Lots of different backend finance stuff needed to happen but they kept getting paid for work done and making up the arrears. The city officials were shocked that it actually came back to life and started to work with us (until they didnt - story for another time) Once a bunch of houses were finished and everyone was getting paid, others onsite started to believe that it was indeed possible. The music started back up. The busy noises of the construction site returned and things started to move again at a more reasonable pace. We had brought the project back from the dead but it still needed lots of TLC. And of course there are the usual struggles of a project, like electric switchgear being backordered for months, or lumber prices skyrocketing making the lumber package for the house multiple times higher. But where there's a will, there's a way. All 38 houses were completed and sold. There's no teacher like experience so it would be a waste after the fact to not continue on this path. But please, please, do not try this at home. Here's the before and after: (Note: This is the TL;DR version. The full story with all the details would be a book or perhaps a few)

Going on the stand tomorrow for the first time. Any tips or things I should know?

NYC requirements to allow for a single stair building: - Max 6 floors (can add mezzanine) - Max 2000 sqf floor plate Here's our building (+floorplan) which is practically ~the biggest single stair building possible.

Plumbing/sprinkler quote for our upcoming project: 1) $1,733,800 2) $988,000 3) $823,000 4) $710,000

Cool or ridiculous?