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Your Commercial Real Estate Insider guide. From profiles of the biggest dealmakers to skyline-shaping transactions, we bring you the deals, breakdowns and war stories that move the market — for insiders, by insiders. From bad-boy guarantees to CMBS tranche warfare to syndicator sins, we cover it all.
Each week, The Promote Podcast explores three of the most interesting and consequential stories in CRE, taking you well beyond the headlines and into the heart of the action. Hosted by the award-winning “Bard of CRE,” Hiten Samtani, founder of ten31 media and author of The Promote newsletter, along with no-BS institutional insider Will Krasne. Also check out our 3x/week newsletter for industry insiders at https://www.thepromote.com/
Hiten Samtani (00:03)
Sometimes you gotta say, "what the fuck? Make your move."
That's a line from the great film Risky Business. And that's precisely what we're talking about here. Risky Business. I was gonna be out wine tasting over Thanksgiving and co-host Krasne, he couldn't bear the thought of being away from the mic. So he asked me if he could host a Mailbag Pod solo. Now, Will is brilliant and handsome, but he's also dangerous. These are qualities that make him a great co-host. But if you were to fly solo, would he successfully land the plane?
Or would he take out the whole operation? You be the judge.
Will Krasne (00:41)
Let's see if this ever sees the light of day, letting me in on my own. Scary, scary stuff. This could be pretty weird and unhinged, but that's okay. We're gonna try it, see what happens.
Those who know me know that one of my most deeply held beliefs is that I don't trust the mail and I think it doesn't work. How does it get there? It seems so haphazard. How do they get it sorted at all of these various facilities? I just don't trust it. Welcome to the Promote Podcast. I'm Will Krasne, here without my better half, Hiten Samtani. Much to the chagrin of all our listeners, it's me solo this week and we will be doing a mailbag. We want to thank you guys so much for all of your support. It's been...
A true pleasure getting to do this podcast over the past nine or so months, and we look forward to it continuing to grow with big things coming. Thank you, the listeners. It's truly a pleasure. We are doing a mailbag, and fortunately, these were sent in electronically and not through actual mail, so we did indeed receive them in a timely fashion. We asked for questions with the most unhinged getting priority, and some of you truly understood the assignment. Let's get into it. The first question.
Anything about Stefan Soloviev? He enthralls me. That's from Gossipy71 Airs. He enthralls me too. What a guy. Tough relationship with his dad. His dad, legendarily tough-nosed New York real estate guy driving around in a chauffeured black car, putting together big office deals, suing people for trying to buy the jam building out from under him. What a guy. He died though without a great estate plan and the taxes were apparently astronomical.
What I thought was interesting though is when you think about what do you want to sell off, you've got a legacy aging office building in Nine West. Not super highly occupied because he was very particular about who would go in there, but you just lost a couple of big tenants over to Hudson Yards, like KKR moved over there. And the building was old. And then you owned all of this multi, ended up being part of the sale to the Go Partners guys. And apparently that was just really like pay the estate taxes. So then you're paying Kat Gaines tax to then pay the estate tax, which doesn't seem supervision, but.
What I really like about Stefan is he's the largest landowner in Wichita. He's got a huge amount of farmland across the country. He's like a grain trader. He's got cheaper by the dozen amount of kids. Also pretty handsome, dashing, very charming person. So really excited to see what he continues to do over the next coming decades. I might go try to find his North Fork winery because he owns a total handout there. It's just funny to see what the next gen looks like in lot of these cases. You've got
some of these old families and they're trying to live up to what dad did. And Stefan seems to be like, I'm gonna do exactly the opposite of what my dad did in every way possible. Glad he's forging his own path and give him a ton of credit. All right, the next question. If you were tasked with creating a million dollar listing for commercial real estate, who would you cast as the main characters? Feel free to cast whoever you see fit. Outstanding question, Will Cooper. This is exactly what we're looking for. Okay, so I've got a couple ideas. I think you wanna make it
Folks who have some reason to overlap, I don't think you'd want to keep it necessarily all guys who do the same thing, but people who are like flying in the same circles. Honestly, the first name that comes to mind for me is Azebe Rosen.
Hiten Samtani (04:02)
the did he just say? Abai? I want to tear my eyes out. But we'll forgive our boy, he's not active in the coastal elite markets where Aby Rosenhold sway.
Will Krasne (04:10)
He's got everything, nebulous amounts of money. He's on Instagram all the time. Doesn't seem to actually be doing any real estate, but owns a lot of stuff. Definitely gonna bring the drama. His business partner is in the news a lot for marital stuff and financial stuff, which again, I think is very befitting, like million dollar listing. So, Abe Rosen, think, know, first ballot, he's gotta be on there. I think we need somebody from the West Coast. I think the mayor, Rick Caruso. Well, it's not the mayor, but the man who would be mayor. It would be a great addition.
He's got the hospitality, you could film a lot of episodes at the Grove when they're, you know, at lunch, getting sloshed, throwing wine at each other, go out for retreats to the hotel in Montecito. I realize I'm kind of conflating million dollar listing and housewives with like lunches and throwing wine at each other and stuff, but I think it's all of a piece. So we've got the West Coast covered, we've got the East Coast covered. This one's going to be a little bit under the radar, but I think really good.
have Ray Washburn in there. Dallas restaurateur, he's got some position in the administration, I think now, but he owns the Village in Highland Park. He's been on TikTok recently. I've seen a bunch of the videos talking about how he bought this and the teeth of the Great Recession. And he's like, I called up Harlan Crowe and Jerry Jones and I got, know, meslone at 15 % and I got him negotiated down to 12. Bought the thing and it's doing great. I think Ray would be a great stealth character who maybe like steals the show. He's got personality.
big Texas guy, I think he'd be really good. So those are three. I the cast, when it gets too big is an issue. Honestly, I'm gonna do one more. It's my guy, Gil Deezer. Well, the architecture of the buildings, know, all, of course, being in the real estate business, you know, you see everything around you. It's just amazing, really amazing. It's hard to find a more entertaining guy than Gil. I watched a video of him on Instagram talking about a concrete pour and it was riveting. So imagine when we're going through like
Hiten Samtani (05:47)
caught your eye so far
Will Krasne (06:04)
Bentley residences, all of these other things he's building. He went to a hotel in some random island and was just like ordering whiskey by himself for like two weeks. he's like, hospitality is great. So again, Abe Rosen, New York, lot of flash, really ties it into Europe as well. Rick Caruso, West Coast, probably the most successful out of all these guys. Bray Washburn, under the radar, guy who might steal the show. And then Gilda Eazer, it's just the wild card. Wild card, bitches!
If you had to invest in one New York Penn League town, which would you pick? And it can't be Brooklyn.
Okay, so I played in the New York Penn League. This is asked by Will Roberts, who's one of my former teammates on the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. Also, I think Will Roberts is probably the only guy in Cincinnati area industrial who has thrown a perfect game. So kudos to Will. All right, so for those who don't know, New York Penn League has three divisions. I'll just list the teams real quick so you know where we're pulling from.
Staten Island Yankees, Brooklyn Cyclones, Hudson Valley Renegades, Aberdeen Ironbirds, Auburn Doubledays, Williamsport Crosscutters, Mahoning Valley Scrappers, my guys, Batavia Muck Dogs, Jamestown Jammers, State College Spikes, Vermont Lake Monsters, Connecticut Tigers, Tri-City Valley Cats, that's upstate New York, and then the Lowell Spinners. So honestly, the most successful project is probably the, I think it was the Wang Laboratories building in Lowell, which someone bought for like $500,000 and sold it for $100 million three years later. That's a true story. Look it up.
but that's sort of a one-off. I don't think that's gonna happen now. I think there are a couple of good options here. You could have some really nice industrial in Aberdeen. MCB Real Estate did really well on a big industrial project down there, right on the 83 corridor, close to 95. Williamsport, same thing. You could do a lot worse. State College could probably buy some nice retail there. But my answer is gonna be Hudson Valley. I think you could do, there probably isn't AuBares or something up there, but like some, know, nature.
valley forward experiential hotel for 2k a night. It's a little sexier, even though I think you probably do make the best risk adjustment returns in Aberdeen, but sometimes you got to really go for it. And so I'm going to say Hudson Valley five-star hotel in Will. Thank you so much for the question. All right. So this is a good one. In your opinion, who is the biggest piece of shit in the industry and what are some of the worst things he's done? That's from Perry Sollum. First of all, Perry.
Women can do bad things too, but we'll leave that to the side. So there's a lot to choose from. There's been a lot of really nefarious characters who've stolen money, committed fraud. That's really come out over the last couple of years. We've talked about a bunch of them on the pod, but those are sort of like garden variety. Everyone knows what those guys are. It's not great. And I think people, ⁓ people really understand it. So I think to me, to really be like a giant piece of shit in real estate, you have to harm people.
In residential, it's a huge responsibility providing homes for people. And you need to take that very seriously. Yes, you have investors. Yes, you have a fiduciary interest to them. Yes, you have to try to make as much money as possible. And there's a push and pull between providing service, providing safe homes. You might say, hey, know, that age-vec unit, it's got a couple more years. We don't need to replace it right now. There's things like that. But especially in New York before the rent laws, people were really aggressive.
with getting folks out. They would turn off the heat, not do repairs, really try to like drive them out so that you could do vacancy decontrol and increase the rent with individual apartment improvements, IAIs. And there one guy who was really the worst, piece of garbage. He's just like a real piece of shit. So, that's my answer.
Hiten Samtani (09:54)
Sorry guys, Will was putting us on some legal minefields here, so I had to cut his mic off. But you can sort of guess who we're talking about.
Will Krasne (10:03)
If returns didn't matter, and I know they don't, but you were given all the money you wanted for any deal, what would it be? That's from Eli Lever. Eli, first of all, congratulations. Your new addition to the family went viral. Well done. If I could do anything, it's gonna be hotel. I think you guys know this about me by now. I'm gonna get back into the hotel business. If you ask me what my goal is, is to become wealthy enough to be a hotel investor myself. So looking back over the past 10, 15 years, the transaction that I'm...
like the most jealous of is definitely LVMH buying Belmond. I love Belmond hotels. I love the fact that there were trains in there. I love Portofino. I love the Amalfi Coast. If I was given all the money, I would probably try to buy Belmond from LVMH. And because I think there's something to like the older kind of glamorous hotels, like you look at the Copacabana Palace, for instance, to me, like there's something about these like older, glamorous hotels, Eden Rock.
Something like that in Calpherot too. Would that be another one? But to me, Belmont. And I had to pick one specific asset. It would have to be Splendid Omare. We did our honeymoon there. It is ludicrous. Everything is done for you. Everything is perfect. Like the sheets are incredible. God, what's the brand of sheet? Home Good brand. Fuck, hold on. Yeah, Laurel Piana bed sheets. It's incredible.
One night we had dinner up at a Splendido. So up, you have to take a little car up there and it's got the view of the harbor. And some guy was smoking next to us and it was like, like, the food was great, it was beautiful, we had a great time. We get back and they're like, was dinner? And we're like, oh, it was great. But there was this guy smoking next to us. It kind of just, it wasn't like once a year, was like chain smoking like 15 constantly. It was like a minor thing, but just in passing mentioned it. Compt the dinner.
The restaurant at Splendid Nomar was closed. They reopened it and made us a dessert for free. And it was ludicrously good. I shudder to think of what they spent on this hotel. It's like 10 keys, 12 maybe. Wouldn't shock me if they spent like 4 million a key. And it's just the most beautiful, the Ava Gardner suite. It's on Instagram all the time overlooking Portofino Harbor. When we stayed there, we were like the youngest people by like 25 years. Well, actually that's not true. I was the youngest man by about 25 years.
And everyone else, it was like me and a lot of, you can imagine the clientele. So I'll just leave it at that, but I would love to own Splendid Amore. So it would never make any financial sense. But again, that's why you asked the question. Great question.
can take a quick break to have more Celsius.
Next question, real estate is full of dumb guys who do well for themselves. Which sector, geography, slash whatever is the easiest for dumb guys to be successful in? It's from Ben Typen. Great, great question. I love it. I love where we're going with this. Okay. So the short answer is that in any given cycle, there's something that is just super zeitgeisty and there's tons of liquidity and institutions have to get in there. Industrial, you know, five, six, seven years ago.
You could talk about data center land now, because you look at these farmers in Ashburn, Virginia, who are like, I sold my land for $600 million to Amazon. You could talk about brokers on the tenant rep side. Honestly, I think that's probably my answer, because you could be a tenant rep and you could have three clients, and it's just the best annuity you could have. Let's just say you've repped Aion Insurance or something. Not Aion, because they have their own buildings and whatnot, but somebody like that. You're their tenant rep and you're just like,
Every 10 years, they're like, hey, let's go find a new building. You're like, all right, let me just call up the three nicest new buildings and be like, hey, who's going to give us the best deal? Sweet. Let me take that ⁓ fee off the top for pinning out every year over 10 years. Just make like two million a year, no sweat. That was a great, great business. You did not have to be smart. You had to probably belong to a lot of golf clubs. Other ones though that I think are ripe for dumb people. Honestly, look, we're all dumb. That's why we got into real estate. We were smart. We'd be doing options.
commodities or something more complicated. Get into real estate to avoid math. I think it's just anything like really relationship driven where you don't have to be smart. You just got to be a little bit commercial. I also want to say like relationships are hard. You can look at some of those guys and be like that guy's an idiot. So dumb. But go try to build these relationships. Go try to be likable. Like just being a person in the world like that is really difficult. And to do it without coming off like a suck up, to do it without being obsequious.
You can thread that fine line. That's really, really hard. I'm sort of saying this in jest, but don't underestimate how talented those types of guys are. We're having a good time here, but let's just say that. I would also probably though say like land, it's gotta be land sales. It's a hope and a dream. I live in Delaware now and I've heard of one of these guys who's doing land sales, like 3 % commission, like massive land deals. Cause it's like, ⁓ why not? Because you're, you're dealing with just like non real estate people sellers, the buyers need.
years to close, you do a couple of those that are big, you can have a pretty nice living. And again, we're having fun painting with a broad brush, but I've seen some land brokers who aren't winning any Mensa awards, but you know what? At the end of the day, that money spends just as green as if you made it structuring stuff at Blackstone. All right. So I think this is probably going to end up being our last question. With the news of UTEP allegedly using NIL money as a way to launder money.
Can you opine if you think NIL or condo projects are a better format for washing questionable funds? Okay, great question. Did not know about this. Phenomenal. Not super surprised that it's UTEP. Just given the proximity to the border. I admire the creativity. Anytime there's a new way to launder money, the fact that people figure it out, it's why it's so hard being in law enforcement because you gotta be right all the time. They've only gotta be right once. I think condo projects are a much better deal because one,
There's way less scrutiny. NIL, everyone's kinda thinking about it. It's probably gonna get reformed because it's so nuts. But condos, especially in big markets, like one you can put in a huge amount of equity. You lose 20, $30 million in a project like, no one's gonna notice.
Hiten Samtani (16:28)
Of course, we'll mention a specific new dev here, but without proof, I had to cut his mic again.
Will Krasne (16:34)
think it's just a little more tangible as well in IL. You how are you getting it back? You know, whereas with condos, like, okay, you go in, you get a little vague, like comes back out down the line. So I'd probably have to say condo projects as much as I admire the creativity and the chutzpah.
Hiten Samtani (16:54)
I'm so proud he finally learned how to say that.
Will Krasne (16:57)
of the guys who were laundering money through NIL. That's just tremendous, great stuff. Okay, fine. A bonus question, also from Josh. Could you rank your top five favorite projects that likely only got done as a way for someone to move cash they otherwise would not have been able to? We're probably gonna have to just like keep this Manhattan because that's sort of like the king of this. It's probably gotta be the money coming from Asia to buy hotels back in the day. I think the Baccarat, the North American record price per key Baccarat.
It's probably number one. Like there was economic basis for owning that, but like really it was a way to just sort of think that cash in the United States system, not criminally, just from a logistics perspective. I think that's probably going to be number one for me. I don't want to cast any aspersions on anybody, but I think we can all sort of look up and down 57th street and you can kind of see like none of these really made economic sense. You know, maybe 157 early on. Beyond that, I think all of those are sort of.
an excuse for folks to move cash that they otherwise might not have been able to. And then you look at a project like Equinox Hotel just getting bought for a number that makes absolutely no sense. Every which way but loose. That's a movie, right? Burt Rounds? Did I have that right? Every which way but loose?
Hiten Samtani (18:11)
Sorry, hermano. It's Clint Eastwood, not Burt Reynolds.
Will Krasne (18:16)
and
thank him properly.
That's not even a saying, but we're go with it. That makes no sense either. They have like a ton of office space, there's some retail, like that Starbucks is busy, I know, in Hudson Yards, but I mean, that's gotta be even fully leased, that's gotta be like a one cap, one and a half cap, just ludicrous price. And again, done for probably non-economic reasons. There's like always the currency hedge in exchange too, which can add juice to a deal, but I think those have gotta be it. I didn't even give you five, mostly because I didn't want to. ⁓
name people specifically. But again, great question.
So that's it for the mailbag. Thank you guys so much for writing in. Really appreciate it. Hiten and I really enjoy doing this every week. It's so fun. the community that we've built, or actually that you guys have built around this podcast and around the newsletter are just, it's wonderful to see and it warms my cold dead heart. So thank you guys so much. Brands, if you want to get in front of our growing audience, the tastemakers, deal makers.
They're really thoughtful folks in commercial real estate. Partnerships at thepromote.com. That's partnerships at thepromote.com. And please consider becoming a promoted insider. Hiten's doing amazing stuff there. We've got great insiders. We've got additional stuff you won't find anywhere else. I'm going to be writing again soon, I think. Please check that out. And thank you guys so much. I won't say the way Hiten ends every podcast, because that's just for him. But we will catch you guys next week.
Hiten Samtani (19:52)
Ciao!