Hey everybody, welcome to Spotlight Vancouver, Washington.
I'm your host, Doug Vareenest, a licensed realtor in Washington and Oregon.
And today on the show, I'm super excited.
Have my first guest, Andy Costello, commercial real estate broker and owner and operator
of Venture Commercial Real Estate.
Super happy to have you on the show, Andy.
Welcome.
Thank you so much, Doug.
I'm honored to be your first guest.
I didn't know that.
I have that honor of being on your show as the first one.
So thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you.
I appreciate you taking the time to chat.
I want to congratulate you because recently you were voted, so voted, through a democratic
process, the top commercial real estate agent in Clark County.
And I believe this is two years in a row.
It is two years in a row.
Yeah, the Vancouver Business Journal's annual, I guess, business recognition program.
So yeah, I'm always surprised, to be honest, because I don't hardly even know that the
process is going on and the votes were coming in.
And then I get emails the last two years that I think look like spam.
You know, like, hey, it doesn't seem real.
And then I go back and do a double take and I'm like, it is real.
And then they send me a decal in the mail.
And yeah, so it's quite an honor.
It feels good to finally have the hard work paying off.
Yeah, well, that is quite the accomplishment.
I'm curious, like, what the process is for being nominated and how does that work?
Like, what do you have to do to become...
To be honest, I have no clue.
To be honest, I don't have a clue.
I think the Vancouver Business Journal puts it out.
I think people can write in names and then there's a voting process.
But to be honest, I don't know because I've never voted for myself.
So I don't even know what that looks like.
I just normally get the notification that I won, but I don't even know that it's happening.
So somebody had to nominate you and then people are secretly voting for you.
Like, you're not campaigning for this award or anything.
I don't even know what's happening, to be honest.
Yes.
You literally get an email in your inbox that says you won commercial real estate agent.
That's incredible.
So the first time I won, I actually think I deleted the email because it was junk.
And a friend Facebook messaged me and said, hey, congratulations.
And I was like, what happened?
And then she screen shot the announcement and my name was spelled wrong.
And so then I emailed them and I said, hey, my name spelled wrong.
But yeah, so I found out from somebody else last year.
And then this year when I got the email, I was like, this is, I think what I got last
year that I deleted because it just seems, I don't know, so surreal.
Yeah.
Well, congratulations.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
You've had a gang buster year, it sounds like, at venture commercial real estate.
So congratulations on that too.
That's quite the accomplishment.
How can you take us on a journey of what led you to commercial real estate and founding
your own brokerage?
What was that like?
Yeah.
So I spent 15 years in local government and in 2017, I was fired by my city council and
was trying to find a job in the career.
And I thought to myself, I was going to be moving a lot.
You know, the average 10 year of a city manager is only two to three years.
And I always wanted to move to the Pacific Northwest and the careers hadn't brought me
here.
And unfortunately at the time I was going through a divorce and my ex husband said to
me, well, if you want to move to the Pacific Northwest so badly, why don't you just do
it?
I said, no job and house is sold and we're getting a divorce.
So what's really stopping me and picked up and moved to Vancouver and didn't know anybody
here.
I didn't really know exactly what I was going to be doing.
I thought about going back to law school, but I didn't want six figures of debt to get
out of school and not really make a whole lot of money and basically start over in another
career.
And I thought really, what's the only thing I know anything about?
And it was real estate.
And I tried to get into commercial real estate.
I called a bunch of commercial firms and nobody called me back and didn't really know what
I didn't know.
And at the time I was like, well, I need to start earning some money and I need to eat.
And I knew it was a very long sale cycle in real estate, even though TV makes residential
seem so easy that you'll just show up and selling sunset, put a sign in the yard and
you know, well, I made 15 grand and didn't really do anything.
And I knew that really wasn't the case.
But I was like, well, I better start doing something.
So I started on the residential side of the business and I just grew my business through
networking and connecting with people like yourself.
And eventually I was connected to my now business partner, Fortune Commercial Real Estate, and
we started working together.
And not long after we started working together, we became 5050 business partners and in, see,
I don't know, fall of 22, I found an office building and I kind of jokedly, I printed
it out and I put it on his desk with a sticky note and I was like, we should buy this building
with a little smiley face.
And it was kind of like tongue in cheek, but he came back to the office and he's like,
welcome over there and drive by.
And then he calls me, he's like, right up an offer, we should buy that building.
So we didn't really have this grand visions of, you know, it was really not a plan thing.
And so then when we decided to buy the building, it was like, well, maybe we should open our
own office.
Like, should we put somebody else's name on the sign?
And that's kind of one thing became another.
And fortunately, he had on the brokerage and been before, so he kind of knew what he was
doing.
And it's been a lot of learning along the way.
And, you know, I've always kind of had my own way of wanting to run more of a relationship
based business and in an industry where the stats say that less than 30% of people in
the industry are women or maybe it's 30 to 35%.
I don't feel like that's an accurate number.
Maybe in other markets, certainly not in the Portland metro area.
So you know, as a woman in an industry, pretty male dominated, which is similarly similar
to my last industry too, less than 13% of women were city managers.
You know, it's not unique to me, but I just I wanted to build a different type of environment
that would help people feel welcome.
It was kind of a tough journey to break into commercial.
And I want to demystify it a little bit for people that are interested in, you know, starting
on the commercial side or, you know, getting out of the residential side of the business.
Residentials can be a great business.
But you know, it's not for everybody.
And so I just wanted to find a different way of doing things.
And so I think that's kind of what we're building here and more of a culture of collaboration
and helping each other, you know, figure out how to succeed.
Where were you coming from before?
Where were you living previously?
And you said you were in politics.
Was that?
Well, I was a local government.
So I worked for elected officials that then appointed a city manager.
So kind of like, you know, somebody, a CEO to then run local organizations.
So my I moved up here from Central California.
But before that, I lived in Arizona for 12 years.
I was in Sedona and Gilbert.
And before that, I was back East outside of Philadelphia.
And yeah, it was a great career until it wasn't.
And you know, national politics is pretty vitriolic.
But at the end of the day, you know, politics is really local.
You know, more people care about what's happening in their backyard than what's happening in
the national landscape.
And, you know, just it's something that I don't necessarily see that getting resolved
in our lifetimes, to be honest.
I think we've been down this path for a while now.
On this of what side of the national aisle you're on, you know, just finding some peace
and you know, with your neighbors, it's tough.
So yeah, so it was it was good.
And that's how when people ask me, how did I know I wanted to come to the Northwest?
It's like, well, I've lived a lot of places.
I've been fortunate enough that I've been to all 50 states.
So you know, when you travel enough, you know where you want to be.
And so it was, you know, I'm hopefully in a place where barring something totally unforeseen.
I know I'm hurting myself.
I'm in a big, big group where I love living here.
And I love what the community has to offer.
I love how giving the community is.
And you know, I feel like it's a small town, right?
I mean, we're like one degree of separation.
And I feel like as I'm building my network in Portland too, I mean, even on Portland's
a, you know, maybe a second tier metro city or a second tier size city, you know, it's
kind of the same thing over there.
It's not too hard to find who you need to know.
Yeah.
Had you always, I mean, going from politics to entrepreneurship, it sounds like it's
a big leap or a different leap.
Had you had some entrepreneurial background or did you just kind of jump in?
It's a great story because it really sounds like things just kind of happened and fell
in place.
And I find that when you, you know, have the right mindset and you put yourself in the
right situations and you're open to things and they happen, but had you owned a business
before?
No, I've owned some residential rentals.
So I knew like about the market and knew about investing like from that perspective.
You know, unfortunately, I think our school system really teaches us how to become employees.
And I didn't really understand that, you know, and my parents were employees.
So that's how I was raised.
I was not raised around entrepreneurship.
And you know, I think when I talked to people that went to college for business and, you
know, things like that, I'm like, well, did you learn about entrepreneurship?
And most of the time they tell me, no, they were taught like big business, you know, also
to still go to college, you have a business degree to go become an employee at corporate
America.
And so I think our school system really does do a disservice and, you know, unless you're
fortunate enough to grow up with self-employed parents or family members that you're close
to to see what that journey is like.
I really wasn't exposed to it.
But I think, you know, if you're a hard worker, I know being self-employed, people think,
well, you know, you can dictate your own schedule and you can make a lot of money and you don't
have to work really hard.
But I think that it's really more about like, you just have more time, flexibility and control
over what you're doing instead of going to an office from 8 to 5, you know, Monday through
Friday, you know, maybe if you're a night owl, you can, you know, maybe out o'clock
in at 10 and, you know, work into the evenings kind of thing or, you know, I'm going to work
on the weekends so that I can take Wednesday off to, you know, take my kids to the doctor
or something like that.
So it's not working less.
It's just, you know, having time flexibility.
And, you know, I was always a hard worker in government.
I mean, you know, working 60 hour weeks, you don't get bonuses.
You hardly even get a thank you for what you're doing.
And basically it's nonprofit work.
You know, you have good health insurance and good benefits for the exchange of not being
compensated what you would be in the private sector.
But, you know, it comes with a lot of stress.
So I think if you know that you're a good employee and you're always giving more to your
employer than you're really giving back, I kind of was like, well, geez, if I was a hard
worker over there working for somebody else and working for the man, you know, I don't
have any problem doing that for myself.
And so I feel like, you know, if you know that you can do that, now there's some employees
that are like, hey, I'm just happy to go and clock in and do my 40 and go home.
But there's nothing wrong with that.
But, you know, if you're motivated to, you know, that type A personality that can do
more and wants to do better and improve things, which has always been my personality, it's
not been too big of a jump.
I mean, my biggest regret is that I didn't become self-employed sooner.
I'll be honest.
But, you know, you don't have any exposure to it.
I don't know that you know that, right?
I mean, again, our school system, your parents, you know, your environment, like, that's just,
we don't really know any other way.
It's like, go to school, get a job.
Go to school, get a job.
It's not go to school, learn a skill, learn a trade, learn how to think critically or
anything like that to then solve a problem to create a business.
And so I think, you know, if you look at it from the root of that, it's like, well, how
do you know any different unless you're put in that situation or, you know, take the leap
of faith and believe in yourself to go do it.
So yeah, I think just my biggest regret is that I didn't do it sooner.
I mean, I didn't start in East Sub-Avoid 12, you know, 36, 37, you know, but then you
look at people like, you know, Colonel Sanders, who started like Kentucky Fried Chicken, I
think he was in his 60s, you know?
So he's like 60 something.
60-something.
And I think even the Henry Ford was probably in his 40s when he started Ford Motor Company.
So I mean, it's like, okay.
JK Rowling?
Really?
Okay.
And I think it was like a 40-something, you know, when she wrote the Harry Potter series.
So, you know, it's never too late.
I could agree more about the public school system and how it's a mindset like that they
teach to be a good employee rather than like solve a problem.
Like the goal is always a job and the job's kind of this ambiguous thing where it's not
framed and like you're solving a problem from somebody or you're providing value.
And, you know, so I do think that framework isn't given to most people.
And I think that's fascinating that you bring that up because I really do.
And I'm a product of the public school system and just, yeah, owning your own business and
having that mentality, it's been a big shift for myself as well, being self-employed and
learning what that means.
And it's a big mindset shift.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, even when you think about some of the simple math problems you
might have learned to do math, we're always like these esoteric things that you're like,
well, how fast am I going to get somewhere?
You're traveling A to B, driving this speed or something like that.
It's like, well, why aren't we giving students math problems to like figure out other skills
or other interests?
Right?
You know, and I think it's a bigger problem we're not going to solve today.
But, you know, I think that that's where parents can step in and expose their kids to other
things other than going to school and getting a job.
Because even now jobs aren't safe, right?
You don't get your retirement plan at the end with your gold watch, right?
There is no guarantee that you're going to work somewhere for 40 years and retire with
a nice retirement and retiree health insurance.
You know, there's no loyalty from the employer side either.
So yeah, it's an interesting thing.
And that's why I love talking to other business owners because I also want to know just like
you're doing, it's like, well, what's your story?
How did you get into this?
Right.
Yeah.
And everyone has a unique story.
I know that you're involved in the entrepreneurial community for women and supporting women entrepreneurs
in the Vancouver area.
Can you tell the audience more about that and sort of what you do in that realm?
Because you do a lot for the community.
I really want to bring that up because you work with the rotary, you're involved with
Habitat for Humanity, you're really out there giving back to the community.
So yeah, tell me a little bit more about what you're doing and what you're kind of seeing
out there, especially for women entrepreneurs in Vancouver.
Yeah.
And then my new project is I'm on the inaugural board of launching the Women Council of Realtors
Vancouver Network and helping women connect in the real estate side of the business.
I think women are the fastest growing segment of business owners in the country.
Unfortunately there's more opportunity.
And I think unfortunately because they're forced to work outside of the home because
we can't really live on one income in this country anymore.
And that's not a political thing.
That's just reality.
It's really expensive.
And so women are trying to find their way into not only the workforce but into entrepreneurship.
And I think again, it's like we don't know what we don't know.
So is there a way we can learn from each other?
And I don't necessarily have time during the day to figure out what's the best payroll
system.
So if I can talk to another business owner that's like, hey, I'm really happy with what
I'm using, well, hey, then let me run a trial and see if that's something that's worth looking
into.
And so I think that we have an opportunity to learn a lot from each other.
Unfortunately women want to do business with other women.
We want to learn from each other.
And women are generally better connectors than men.
I think the fact is women like to hang out and all that.
Again, it's just I think humanity and how we interact.
And so I think they're open to sharing and helping each other.
And so I kind of lean into that and lean into the clients.
I found it easier to do business with other women because they want to do business with
me.
So I don't feel like I have to push the boulder up the hill as much.
And so it's fun to watch them and see.
I'm in a woman business owners that have kids.
I mean, I don't have children and I don't know how women run households and do all the
things that a mom really does because like, well, especially when kids are younger, they're
relying probably more on mom than on dad.
And it just is like, well, I don't know how you have time in the day to run a business.
Sometimes like all I can do is just wake up and put my pants on one foot at a time, right?
Yeah.
I mean, my wife owns and runs a business.
So I can definitely relate to how many hats she wears and what she has to do with having
two daughters and running the business.
And I mean, it's amazing to me as well.
It's incredible what people are capable of.
I mean, men and women, but the roles that women have to play, especially with family,
but it's a sounding.
So I definitely agree.
And I think that's wonderful that you're supporting women entrepreneurs in the community.
We need more of that.
We need more entrepreneurship all around, I think, but especially for populations that
might be underserved or could use some community and some support.
Just switching gears, I wanted to kind of talk about like commercial real estate.
And for one, what is commercial real estate?
For those out there who may be unfamiliar, I think people think of like skyscrapers and
stuff, but there's quite a number of other aspects to it.
What is commercial real estate?
Well, if you look at commercial real estate from maybe a lender's perspective, it would
be anything that's considered five units or more on a multifamily property or anything
that's not a single family home or like something that could be used as a primary residence.
So, you know, a condo, town home, single family detached house, that's residential real estate.
And commercial real estate would really be anything considered not that.
So even if it's residential development land, commercial development land, you know, industrial
buildings, office buildings, retail strip malls, you know, anything basically that's
not a piece of property that you would live in as a primary residence or residential investment
property, basically somewhere where somebody's not living is how I would kind of broadly
define it.
So it covers a lot of things.
And then it also covers leasing.
So tenant and landlord leasing for folks that are purchasing property.
Yeah, I wanted to touch on the leasing because I've been doing some research on leasing and
learning more about that process.
And we know we were just talking about entrepreneurs and getting started and running businesses.
I was amazed and I just didn't know this how important the lease is to a business's success.
And if you have a bad lease, how that can completely torpedo a business.
Can you provide a little more detail on that because I was astounded at just going through
how complicated some of these, how a commercial lease can be.
And you know, it's really an art to negotiating and coming up with these leases and making
sure that everything is spelled out very specifically, especially for a small business.
Can you speak a little more on to that?
Yeah, I was actually just looking now because I have a client right now looking to purchase
a piece of property that has a Starbucks lease and the lease is like this thick.
You know, it's 130 plus pages.
And you know, in that case, it's a very tenant friendly lease because it's Starbucks, right?
They can write their own terms.
But for a small business owner that doesn't have the leverage of a Starbucks or a national
corporation, it is really important that tenants understand what's in the lease.
And most leases are very land.
Well, and it's also like when you're able, the hours you're able to.
operate and who's paying for the signage.
I mean, there's a lot of details around things that you take for granted or wouldn't think
that can really cost a small business owner quite a bit of money.
You really need somebody who's looking out for your interest when you're drawing up the
lease and signing the lease and going over it.
I was pretty amazed at the level of detail and what's not assumed.
I can't operate on these days or the tenant wants me to work on Sunday.
I mean, there's a lot of details.
So I imagine for a business owner, you're just like, yeah, sign a lease.
The rent's this much.
I can do whatever I want.
It's really not the case.
You really have to pay attention to the lease terms.
That's correct.
Yeah, you really need to make sure.
I mean, I do reviews for my clients and make comments and notes on it, but at the end of
the day, you still need to understand what you are signing before you read it because
there can be a lot of restrictions.
Just like we were talking earlier, school doesn't prepare you for that.
A lot of us go shopping or go to office buildings or our dentist and we don't have any clue
what went on behind the scenes for that business to operate at that location and what's costing
them to be there.
So when you go somewhere and you're like, wow, this is really expensive.
It's like, wow, payroll.
They have their lease.
They have all these expenses with operating their business.
Unlike big business who corporate America can offshore their proceeds and dodge taxes
and do all those things, it's a little harder for small business not to say that they can't
do deductions and of course things like that.
But there's not as many tax abatements and incentives for small businesses as there is
for big business.
You need somebody looking out for you.
I'm curious what the commercial landscape is in Vancouver because I guess when I think
of Vancouver, it's a little bit more sprawl.
It's more of a one-story city for the most part.
What are you seeing in the commercial landscape in Vancouver specifically and how do you see
it moving forward?
What's it going to look like?
Yeah.
So I think the one thing about a commercial that can be a little tough is it really depends
on what asset class you're talking about.
So it's sometimes hard to talk to speak in generics.
Unfortunately, Vancouver is a growing community.
So I think all asset areas, whether that's industrial retail office, our multi-family,
BC apartment complexes going up all over the place is growing in all areas of commercial
real estate.
Some of that has been the benefit of what's happening in downtown Portland.
There's been a huge exodus from comes when it's safer and he has more ability to control
what could happen to his equipment and his gear in Vancouver than he would in Portland.
So I think we have a lot of advantages here.
Housing is still a little bit less expensive than maybe the Portland metro area.
So there's also some opportunity for your employees to relocate here at less of an
expense.
I mean, I'm very, very bullish on the Vancouver commercial real estate market.
I used to think I'm like, I'm going to sit there bullish on the market here.
Oh, which animal is it?
Which animal is it?
And I'm always like, oh, okay.
And so I do think that there's still a lot of opportunity.
I mean, we're seeing infill projects go into small properties just so that they can get
built and developed and so I think that there is a lot of opportunity here.
And even with interest rates staying where they are, as we were talking about with leases,
if you are an owner user of a leasing and you're looking to buy, you know, you don't
really have a whole lot of ability to play the market because if you've signed a five
year lease and your lease is coming up, you now either need to commit to another five
years or you need to make a decision to buy or to find another place to lease.
And both of those come with costs, of course.
And so I think, you know, the market is there's a lot more movement in the market in commercial
real estate because you're just less affected by other market forces because of your business
is forcing you to grow.
You have to do that almost at any cost of what's happening in the market because if
you're growing, you need to do something, right?
You're either going to need to open a second location or move into a larger location or
purchase something.
And so I think that at least for the owner users, you're a little bit more motivated
because you can't just be like, well, I'm just going to stay put for another year and
let's see what's going to happen in the market.
So I think there's still a lot of opportunity.
Obviously, Richfield, I think is still the second fastest growing city in Washington
state.
So, you know, as part of Clark County, there's still a lot happening up there.
And, you know, as the shoe gold waterfront gets built out and that plan starts happening,
I think there's just a lot of activity in the county in general.
And of course, I'm being Hoover.
I think it's a great time to be in the commercial real estate market and benefiting from unfortunately
what's happening in Portland, which has been great for us.
Yeah, I'm also bullish on Vancouver.
Obviously, a lot of potential here.
I wonder, do you think that Vancouver is going to be a little more vertical?
I look at like Highway 99 and just see a lot of, I almost see Highway 99 as like a mini
Williams in Portland where, you know, a decade ago it was one story and kind of flat and
now it's really built up.
Is Vancouver going vertical?
Yeah, I think that's a really good question.
I think there's a lot of opportunity on Highway 99.
It is an opportunity zone, so it is eligible for some tax credits.
I think really until the used car lots are bought out and that industry is dismantled,
you know, until those basically go away, you know, that's really what I think is stopping
like the redevelopment from happening on Highway 99.
I think, yes, as we start running out of land, we are going to have to go vertical and, you
know, housing is going to keep it somewhat affordable.
It's going to have to shrink or, you know, apartments are going to have to go higher.
Townhouses are going to be three stories to give this poor footage without sprawl.
So yeah, I think from a multi-family housing perspective for sure, you know, and maybe
even from an office perspective when it comes to industrial, you know, obviously warehouses
can't really be two stories.
And so I think, you know, some of those things are going to still need to, you know, a strip
mall isn't necessarily going to be two stories unless it's a mall mall, right?
So as a strip mall, you're still going to need that space for retail.
And so I think it just really depends on, you know, what kind of asset class we're talking
about.
There is still a ton of opportunity in Vancouver for redevelopment projects and for, you know,
the small infill spaces that have been left behind.
Yeah, absolutely.
A lot of opportunity here because we have the land and the ability to build vertically
with those legacy owners kind of cashing out or, yeah, the used car crowd kind of selling
or, yeah, tons of opportunity, which kind of kind of leads to venture.
And you guys have had a big year at a venture commercial real estate.
How was your year and where are you going in 2025?
Yeah, so we did end the year strong.
We've got three brokers on board.
And so that's been really helpful to kind of take on helping with some of my client
overflow.
I think for next year, you know, we have some focus up some more targeted cold calling and
kind of focusing on some more listing assets of certain asset classes and maybe even working
outside of the North West market.
Just because there's more opportunity, one of the benefits of being in come up, I'm not
really tied to the states that I'm licensed in, you know, a lease is a lease.
And so I think there's a lot of opportunity that I have been remiss in going after.
So I'm kind of excited about changing my own business plan and making some targeted growth
in my business.
And then of course, growing the brokerage side and bringing on some additional folks
into the office.
And so yeah, we've got our business.
We did some business planning last week.
Got my marching orders and we're bringing on a new assistant the first of the year.
So looking forward to that, that'll help free up, you know, as I told you, I was running
a little late scanning some seller documents for a client and, you know, kind of freeing
up some of the time of the administrative.
Yeah.
So that'll be great.
But yeah, so I'm excited.
I'm hired a business coach.
And so looking forward to, you know, using that to leverage my business for some really
good growth next year.
I'm sure it's going to be a big year.
I saw that business meeting you had at Scamami Alodge.
I was a little jealous because it looked like a lot of fun and what a great location to
have it.
Yeah.
Andy, I want to just end by thanking you for your service to the community because you
really do a lot to help other entrepreneurs and the community in general.
I really do think you're a pillar of the Vancouver, Washington community and the greater Pacific
Northwest.
And again, congratulations on winning commercial agent of the year twice in a row.
I appreciate that.
Thanks for the compliment.
I wouldn't be here without the help from others.
So if I can get back, I'm always willing to do that because I think, you know, we're
all just trying to make it the best we can in this world.
And if there's a way that I can help somebody or, you know, take an hour of my time, I mean,
I know time is money, but I think, you know, good karma, putting good karma out to the
universe is really important.
So just like, you know, helping you out with your podcast, people used to do that for me
when I had a video series.
So, you know, anyway, I can get back always happy to do that.
So thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
Yeah.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for the people out there.
Where can they find you and get in touch with you?
Yeah.
So I've got my own website, AndyCastello.com.
That's A-N-D-I-C-O-S-T-E-L-L-O.com or at venture-c-r-e.com.
But you can reach out to me on either of those sites.
All right, Andy, all the best to you in 2025.
And thanks again.
Thanks, Dad.
Same to you.
Take care.