1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,960 This is the real estate shop where each episode will bring you a top industry expert to share their 2 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:10,480 current programs or projects that are making an impact in our communities today. Be sure to check 3 00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:15,760 us out on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Welcome to the real estate shop. Today we have the privilege 4 00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:20,320 of having Milk Pratt, executive vice president of the Michaels Development Company, stop by to 5 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:26,240 chop it up with us. Milk, won't you uh if you can uh just let the audience know a little bit 6 00:00:26,240 --> 00:00:32,960 about your background and how you came and joined uh Michael's organization. Sure thanks for 7 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:36,960 thanks for having me on the show guys really appreciate the opportunity to talk about the 8 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:42,640 work that we do here at Michaels, the folks that I work with and a little bit about myself. I've 9 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:49,840 been at Michaels uh going to 19 years. I've got a background in public housing. I was in government 10 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:56,080 for a few years as regional administrator, worked on the tax credit equity side and at Michaels 11 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:00,240 um I've done a lot of different things at the company but right now I'm executive vice president 12 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:07,520 of focus primarily on uh developing, securing opportunities in the affordable space and our 13 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:12,800 attainable housing platform that we intend to grow significantly over the next couple years. 14 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:19,280 I also because of my public housing background do a lot of repositioning and dispositions of 15 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:26,320 our older PHA assets, our older hope six transactions like that. So um I've got a diverse background 16 00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:31,200 at Michaels and worked on all sides of these deals in government. I work at National Equity Fund, 17 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:37,040 Nepalo Housing back in the late 90s. So uh I've got a very diverse background and and seen these 18 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:42,560 deals on all three sides from the government side, investment side, and of course the private sector. 19 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:48,480 Excellent. Milk, can you discuss the distinction between the Michaels organization and the Michaels 20 00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:53,440 development company? A lot of people don't know the breadth of the organization, founder, the number 21 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:58,960 of vertically integrated entities within the organization. Yeah it's always confusing for 22 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:04,960 some folks. The Michaels organization is the parent company that owns and operates all of our 23 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:11,440 smaller, not smaller but all of our individual divisions. So we've got three primary divisions, 24 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:16,880 we've got a construction group, we've got a large, and this is where most of our employees lie, 25 00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:21,440 a large property management operation, and then of course our development business. 26 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:27,440 Our property management group is the largest in total. We have about 3,000 employees, 27 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:32,560 but most of them are folks out in the field doing the hard work of property management, 28 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:37,040 taking care of our people, taking care of our residents because without our residents we simply 29 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:42,000 don't have a business. Then we have a construction company of course that operates in a handful of 30 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:48,960 markets and they obviously only work exclusively for our development business. Then we've done 31 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:55,360 some things in the last two years to reorganize and merge our development shops. Previously we 32 00:02:55,360 --> 00:03:01,760 had two separate development businesses. One was affordable and then one was everything other than 33 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:08,080 affordable. So at this point we've merged them all together under Mick Flanagan, mixed the president 34 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:14,240 of Michael's development and that's our merged development business and that covers everything 35 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:20,960 from luxury, student, attainable, affordable, and military housing development. We like to think 36 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:25,920 of ourselves as a solution-oriented developer. We're one of the only developers in the country 37 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:33,280 that can do everything from luxury housing all the way down to affordable housing. So our founder 38 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:40,400 Mike Levitt created this organization back in 1972 so we just celebrated our 50th anniversary 39 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:46,560 and Mike was really a visionary in his industry. He was one of the pioneers in terms of affordable 40 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:52,640 housing. We're one of the first companies to have social service division that Mike spearheaded 41 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:59,920 back in the early 80s. Mike's had a long history of developing families and supporting families. 42 00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:04,640 We've got a very large scholarship program that every year that Mike and Pat Levitt support. 43 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:10,160 We've got many long-term employees at the organization as well which is part of the culture. 44 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:16,080 As I said I've been here about 19 years but Mark Morgan and John O'Donnell have each been here over 45 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:22,240 30 years. Mark's a COO and John's the president of the Michael's organization but we've also got 46 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:28,000 plenty of site managers and property managers and everybody in between that's been here for 15, 47 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:33,200 20 years and in this kind of a business it's unusual to have people who aren't owners in the 48 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:40,160 company want to be at a company for their entire careers 20, 30 years. I was at a ceremony a few 49 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:46,000 years ago. We celebrated someone that had 35 years of service at the Michael's organization so that's 50 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:52,160 something that we pride ourselves on as a number of long-term employees. Well I really speak to 51 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:57,920 the culture that's been built. What geography does the Michael's organization, Michael's development 52 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:04,000 cover? Yeah well you know every time I say a number it changes in a couple weeks but I'm 53 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:10,480 going to give you the 30 second elevator pit. So we've got about 75,000 units across the country. 54 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:19,840 We've got about 570 individual communities and we're in 39 states and we are continuing to grow. 55 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:26,000 Over the last few years we've acquired a large military portfolio that's expanded our business. 56 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:33,040 We acquired the old Harmony House development business. We're not the business but the properties 57 00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:40,000 that they owned and operated and that increased our footprint up to 39. And you're in the Caribbean 58 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:47,040 from what I remember too right? We are in the Caribbean. We operate four communities in the 59 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:53,360 Virgin Islands and we're currently actively developing a project in Puerto Rico with the 60 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:56,720 Puerto Rico Housing Authority. Can you talk a little bit about how you 61 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:04,800 were able to foster that relationship? Sure it's interesting but we've been in the Virgin Islands 62 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:13,760 for probably 30 plus years. I did one development down there a few years ago. Sugar Estates that 63 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:18,320 we're proud of. It's a senior development. It's one of the few senior new construction developments 64 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:24,560 over in St. Thomas at the foothill of a beautiful mountain. It's got beautiful vistas but we developed 65 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:29,520 that business down there primarily through relationships. We were already working down there 66 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:37,360 for like I said 30 years and then Sugar Estates was an RFP from the Virgin Islands Housing Authority. 67 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:42,240 And so we've done good work down there. It's been challenging obviously with the number of 68 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:46,400 hurricanes that have occurred down there but nonetheless for now we're staying the course 69 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:51,680 and we've expanded into Puerto Rico where we've probably been working there for the last four 70 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:59,200 or five years since I guess Hurricane Maria came through. So we are excited about that new project. 71 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:04,800 It's called Los Alamos and got a lot of work to be done there. Our Mid-Atlantic team Rosa 72 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:10,800 Estrada is heading up that workforce and we're excited about the prospects there and we haven't 73 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:16,480 closed yet but we expect to close sometime within the next 10 to 12 months. Excellent. We get a lot 74 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:21,120 of questions about how do you get into affordable housing and niche industry. Can you discuss your 75 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:26,640 foray into the industry coming out of college? You know I've answered this question before for 76 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:31,600 other folks and it's always sort of a comical story I tell but I started out wanting to be a 77 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:38,320 school teacher and somehow gotten an urban planning public administration and I went on my first job 78 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:44,160 interview or wasn't even a job interview it was an internship interview and because I worked at the 79 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:50,640 library I could read the code of federal registers to CFR and so I went on the interview and I happened 80 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:56,480 to be sitting at his you know my soon-to-be boss's desk and he had to see a far his desk and he said 81 00:07:56,480 --> 00:08:01,040 Milton uh you know tell me about yourself I told him about myself and then I said I can read the 82 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,440 CFR right there and he said can you and he asked me to pull out a section of it and read it and 83 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:10,640 interpret it and because I work at Westchester and I work spent a lot of time in a government 84 00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:16,720 document section I could read the CFR so that that's what landed me the job as an intern with the 85 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:23,200 city with the borough of Norristown and I was involved with their housing and community development 86 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:27,680 office and then I left there went to Philadelphia Housing Authority and then I just kept growing 87 00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:36,000 from there. What role did you um did you play at Michaels and helping to scale the organization? 88 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:43,040 When I came to Michaels 19 years ago I'm trying to think how many units we probably had 35,000 89 00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:49,920 units I'm just guessing so I spent a lot of time when I first got here primarily focused on 90 00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:54,400 growing our public housing business so I did a number of public housing transactions around 91 00:08:54,400 --> 00:09:00,640 the country New Orleans Sarasota I'm redeveloping our finished out our Tampa project down there 92 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:05,200 there's a few projects here in Philadelphia so I helped to grow our public housing hope six 93 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:11,920 business for a number of years and our naturally occur well and our uh tax credit business as well. 94 00:09:12,880 --> 00:09:17,120 Excellent so we are kind of already alluded to this just from here some of your answers 95 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:22,080 but a common theme that comes across our guess is the importance of relationships, 96 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:27,600 networkings and outside activities. Can you speak to the importance of how this played for you and 97 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:33,920 the importance of it? Yeah um I always tell folks I've I've got a lot of relationships 98 00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:39,280 all throughout the country throughout the industry and and I always remind myself that sometimes I'm 99 00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:44,720 going to work with someone one time and I may not see him again for seven, eight, nine, ten years 100 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:49,040 and then lo and behold they've moved around or I've moved around and we're working together again 101 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:54,720 in a different capacity so you know maintaining good relationships and showing respect to one 102 00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:59,360 another is something that I really believe is tough sometimes because these are these are 103 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:05,280 challenging deals to get done um you know sometime you're in the heat of battle but at the end of the 104 00:10:05,280 --> 00:10:10,560 day you always got to you know remain calm and try to represent your organization as best you 105 00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:16,400 possibly can and so developing those relationships is something I think is critical. Also we at 106 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:22,480 Michaels want to be an industry leader and a thought leader so Bob Greer who was the president 107 00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:28,480 of Michaels Development when I first got here Bob was always out talking to folks in the industry 108 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:34,880 about our organization and representing the industry with many with many trade associations 109 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:41,680 so so we've continued that legacy of Bob's so I'm I'm active with national housing and redevelopment 110 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:47,920 associations I've also been on the active member of NARA which is a public housing 111 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:53,200 trade association we have others in the organization that are involved with national 112 00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:58,560 multi-housing council as well as affordable housing tax credit coalition so we we want to be 113 00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:04,160 not just a good developer a family-owned business a place where you have good culture 114 00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:09,680 and good people but we also want to be a good representative in the industry at every level. 115 00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:16,880 I don't know if you have a program in-house mill where you you know you've got a criteria for 116 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:23,440 less experienced developers to to take a deal to Michaels and you do a joint venture but do you 117 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:29,920 have any any such program or a criteria that a emerging developer can can reference if they 118 00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:35,040 want to work with Michaels. Yeah that's a great question we don't have a program it's sort of 119 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:38,960 you know it's not like it's written down and this is the box you got to fit into because all these 120 00:11:38,960 --> 00:11:44,640 deals are different all of them are challenging. I will say that when we get approached or sometimes 121 00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:50,480 we approach emerging developers or smaller developers the first thing we want to understand is 122 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:55,280 what their local relationships are like I mean we're local in a lot of places because we have 123 00:11:55,280 --> 00:12:01,920 people all over the country but many times people still see us as a developer from New Jersey on 124 00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:08,880 the Camden Riverfront but the reality is when we partner with smaller developers we want them 125 00:12:08,880 --> 00:12:13,200 to bring something to the table just like we typically bring our guarantee and our capital 126 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:18,080 to the table we want them to bring their local relationships their knowledge in the market 127 00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:26,480 sometimes they've taken a deal and they've taken it from you know conception or inception all the 128 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:32,080 way to a place where they can no longer get the transaction to go for it without having a capital 129 00:12:32,080 --> 00:12:37,920 partner with a balance sheet so it's not a hard and fast formula it's one where we want to do 130 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:43,440 business with good people with good firms that have similar cultural values and that even though 131 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:48,560 they may be developing a market rate deal or affordable deal doesn't matter we want to make 132 00:12:48,560 --> 00:12:54,080 sure they have the same type of cultural values as ours and they are interested in doing good 133 00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:59,680 quality projects so I hope I answered that question that was good so we've had a couple 134 00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:04,080 interesting years in the industry between getting through the pandemic and the increased interest 135 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:10,000 rates and fluctuation in construction costs how did Michael's weather that storm and what is the 136 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:16,240 strategy for 2024? Great question again well let me start with getting through the pandemic 137 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:23,920 we had you know a few challenging years obviously since the pandemic hit in early 2020 but I'll 138 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:29,680 start by saying that the way we got through it and most importantly they were the people that were 139 00:13:29,680 --> 00:13:36,240 on the ground in our communities our site managers our maintenance techs our orderlies or folks that 140 00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:40,640 go out every single day they couldn't work from their all they couldn't work from their homes 141 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:47,040 they had to be on duty our essential workers out there those people are the heroes when I think 142 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:52,160 about the pandemic because they still had to fix toilets they still had to do recertifications 143 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:58,000 they still had to go in for emergency calls on Christmas Eve so hats off to all of our 144 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:03,440 property management staff that helped us weather the storm during the pandemic with increased 145 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:09,200 interest rates and fluctuation in construction obviously you know we we face the same challenges 146 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:15,040 that every developer has but we've tried to grow responsibly we try to continue to do 147 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:21,360 quality projects there's no simple solution you know we've done everything from buying lumber early 148 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:27,760 to closing on deals early to obviously having to put some of our own developer feedback 149 00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:33,040 in some of some of our projects in order to get them done one of the other challenges that we're 150 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:38,560 facing is we're looking at doing less public housing work they're they're more challenging in some 151 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:45,040 cases they're more difficult so we're trying to focus more on our attainable program we think the 152 00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:50,880 future a big part of our future is attainable housing I spend more of my time now talking to 153 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:56,400 healthcare systems and school districts about helping them solve their recruitment and retention 154 00:14:56,400 --> 00:15:03,360 problem by creating workforce housing on land that they already own or hospitals that they are no 155 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:09,840 longer utilizing and we think that that's going to be a big part of our business as we go forward 156 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:15,600 one of the other strategies for 2024 is also to continue to hire good people there's a lot of you 157 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:21,440 know folks in the marketplace but we pride ourselves on hiring good people who do good work for us 158 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:27,040 and again want to be a part of our culture and that's whether it's a site manager or maintenance man 159 00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:33,440 all the way up to one of our new vice presidents of development just wondering a part of your 2024 160 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:40,080 strategies also student housing as you've seen you know pretty substantial growth in the number 161 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:44,320 of projects that are coming out online around universities I don't know how michael's viewing 162 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:50,960 that and also have you seen a shift away from affordable housing and and lie tech deals our 163 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:56,480 our student housing business has grown tremendously uh net williams who's one of our executive vice 164 00:15:56,480 --> 00:16:03,280 presidents has grown that business both on campus and off campus we've done a number of large high 165 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:09,760 profile deals out in california and dart mith and several other universities lsu and so we're 166 00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:16,800 going to continue that business for 24 and as I said we think our attainable business is probably 167 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:22,960 probably going to be the one area that grows the most but we'll maintain a presence in the 168 00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:30,880 student housing business as well in terms of our shift from affordable straight lie tech we are 169 00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:35,680 still doing affordable housing projects and straight lie tech deals all across the country 170 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:42,720 we closed a deal earlier this year a few months ago in saddle river new jersey we're closing deals 171 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:49,200 uh throughout the country but the reality is uh we we know that affordable housing deals are getting 172 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:54,800 tougher and tougher to do the state agencies are pushing you to do smaller deals in many instances 173 00:16:55,360 --> 00:17:02,400 and the developer fee caps are making it more difficult to earn earn earn a living so um we're 174 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:07,280 going to continue to you know pound the sand and get those deals done but at the same time we know 175 00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:12,080 we've got to grow our our attainable housing business focused on health care in school districts 176 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:18,000 as a solution for them to their recruitment and retention challenges excellent so you kind of 177 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:22,880 lose this a little bit milk but workforce housing is a term that's thrown around a lot these days 178 00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:28,640 you know another term is middle income that covers typically 61 percent AMI to 120 percent 179 00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:34,240 uh you've used the term attainable housing a couple times and for what I've read the AMIs 180 00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:40,000 in these deals can go as high as 250 percent can you get more information on attainable housing 181 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,800 and any deals that you may have in your pipeline that fits this category yeah you certainly can 182 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:52,880 we we like to call it attainable housing here at michael's we have uh made a commitment to 183 00:17:52,880 --> 00:18:00,320 housing families from 80 to 120 percent those are the those are the core income criteria income 184 00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:06,320 guidelines but you're right some projects that we're working on might go up beyond 80 beyond 185 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:12,320 120 rather uh project we're doing in steamboat springs uh some pre-development right now I 186 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:18,480 think the AMIs there are going to go north of 200 percent AMI and then it's going to go as low as 187 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:25,200 about 80 percent AMI we're also doing a project with disney down in Orlando and that'll be between 188 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:32,240 that 80 and 120 percent AMI as well as another project with the uh in Atlanta with the Atlanta 189 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:38,960 housing uh program Atlanta housing authority where we're redeveloping the Atlantic Civic Center 190 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:45,520 and that's going to have a combination of market rate affordable and attainable housing 191 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:51,120 communities contained all within that footprint and in these deals we think are are getting done 192 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:57,600 because more and more people see the need for housing for people between 80 and 120 these are 193 00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:04,720 teachers firemen police officers they all need a quality uh place to live and we're here to provide 194 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:10,240 that solution for communities and employers across the country and melvin this is attainable housing 195 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:16,240 strategy and that's is that primarily for lease or is also a for sale component 100 percent for 196 00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:22,720 for i'm sorry 100 percent for lease we don't do any home ownership projects to speak of uh we we 197 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:28,240 certainly have done one or two of those in the past but our primary focus going forward will always be 198 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:33,600 on the rental housing business at every sector gotcha and what does the capital stack and exit 199 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:38,240 strategy look like for the attainable housing initiative and are there any long-term AMI 200 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:44,320 covenants that come come along with that great great question um first yeah the capital stack 201 00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:50,320 varies from project to project from community to community because oftentimes of local laws 202 00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:57,600 and local regulations and programs that exist i'll say that of the four or five attainable housing 203 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:03,600 projects we're working on each one of them is like a snowflake it's getting developed differently 204 00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:08,880 in florida for instance we are developing our projects down there primarily through the live 205 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:14,400 vocal act where we're going to get the benefit of real estate tax exemption for units between 80 and 206 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:20,880 120 when we're doing something directly with an employer oftentimes the employer will make land 207 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:26,560 or a building available at low cost or nominal cost that doesn't seem like a subsidy but obviously 208 00:20:26,560 --> 00:20:30,160 that means that we don't have to buy land which means that you can drive down your development 209 00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:36,880 costs so low cost land at real estate tax exemption are the two things that help drive those deals to 210 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:43,600 get in financed so the capital stack doesn't look like a tax credit project it looks more like a 211 00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:51,200 conventional market rate deal with private equity and of course gp capital um generally speaking on 212 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:57,120 those projects we have a long-term development and whole position we don't intend to sell those 213 00:20:57,120 --> 00:21:02,400 off in a few years to an intentional to a institutional investor we primarily intend to 214 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:09,360 hold those long term no i mean it sounds like you've done thousands of deals uh going back 215 00:21:09,360 --> 00:21:13,200 are there any favorite deals that you either completed or currently in your pipeline that you 216 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:20,720 want to talk about um let me think well i for whatever reason when i think of uh of all the 217 00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:25,760 deals i've done i think of a project i did in willaminton delaware it was a fire station 218 00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:32,880 in a senior development i'm i always love doing senior developments because i love seeing a place 219 00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:37,680 where i would want to have my grandmother or my parents that are in their 80s i would want them to 220 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:44,000 live so while i love doing family developments too uh the reality is when i see seniors and i see them 221 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:49,680 at the end of their lives and they have quality housing that we provide that's something that i 222 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:55,680 think uh for me is a personal legacy something that i enjoy so i did the project down in willaminton 223 00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:01,440 was a fire station in 80 units of senior housing in a premier neighborhood full of services and 224 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:06,960 amenities for seniors it's just one of the one of the unique projects i've never done a project 225 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:12,480 with those two uses together so i'm excited i was excited about getting that done i also did 226 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:18,400 another development down in sarasota florida which is near uh wringling college which is a 227 00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:25,360 fine arts college in sarasota we were really sort of the the impetus for other development 228 00:22:25,360 --> 00:22:30,240 happening in that community so that was also a cool deal and then of course the project that's in 229 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:34,880 our pipeline that everybody's talking about is working with disney a premier international 230 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:39,920 company allowing us to help them create workforce housing for their employees 231 00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:47,120 now if i think back to our our conversation today it seems like a large part of it is 232 00:22:47,120 --> 00:22:52,480 based on strategy right and finding unique opportunities whether it's working with employers or 233 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:59,840 local government agencies through rfps what what advice do you give to someone that's that's trying 234 00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:05,120 to craft their their strategy for 2024 and looking into 2025 based off of your experience 235 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:13,040 uh wow that's tough you mean an individual person or you mean a company uh individual leader within 236 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:21,520 a company okay i would say be flexible and explore new opportunities uh we at michael's we intend to 237 00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:27,920 grow to 100 000 units uh john oldonne has set that as a as our goal that's a big number but we've 238 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:35,120 got to grow responsibly so through our acquisition team they're they're helping us grow responsibly by 239 00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:41,280 you know bringing on new units that we are just buying our development teams out there across the 240 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:48,400 country are also working on creating new communities and and it's all about growing responsibly and 241 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,760 having the strategy you can't grow too fast you can't go out there and you know go into a market 242 00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:59,920 that you've got no experience in and i would tell you that growing responsibly is the most important 243 00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:06,560 thing and be diverse in the types of projects that you take on and oftentimes i see smaller 244 00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:11,600 developers i mean small developers but developers take on more deals and they can handle in their 245 00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:17,120 internal pipeline meaning with with their staff and that's that's recipe for a disaster 246 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,960 so milton with all your experience if you're able to do it all again would you do anything 247 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:31,200 differently i would probably spend more time with my family uh we we i i work hard we work hard here 248 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:37,120 at the michael's organization but i always feel like i would love to spend more time with my family 249 00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:43,280 with my my uh my parents my sister my girlfriend my my kids because you know you just never know so 250 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:49,760 i that that would be the thing that i was to uh try to do it all over again i spend more time at 251 00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:55,040 home you know spending time going to baseball games and soccer games and hanging out with my friends 252 00:24:55,040 --> 00:25:02,400 i travel a lot so oftentimes i don't get a chance to go to everything for my kids or or my family so 253 00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:10,560 that would be the thing i would do uh differently excellent but i don't do it uh milt certainly 254 00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:15,680 appreciate your time for stopping by you're certainly a busy man uh glad you can come through 255 00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:19,680 and give us some nuggets i think our audience is certainly going to appreciate it we look 256 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:24,080 forward to seeing you soon sounds good thanks for having me gents absolutely