Building What Tenants Actually Want

Hey, I think you're gonna enjoy this episode of Building the Business. An incredible guest. His name is Wills Francis, and he is the owner of former colleagues. And in this episode, we dive into a lot of different things about how the multi-tenant world works, what it's like to build a business that intersects two different interests and passions. For Wills, it's growing up in a family that had a lot to do with real estate, with his dad. He's gonna get into it, but his dad, Being a part of the real estate world and construction side of things, and his mom and the interior design side. And then Will's in his corporate life, getting into branding, figuring out marketing and brand identity, and then mixing those two worlds together over time to create former colleagues, diving into things like, hey, how do you separate yourself in a world where if you live in a major city like I do, you just see apartment complexes going up left and right? How do you actually stand out? How do you attract the actual tenants that you want? What do you think about when it comes to what matters to these big entities that are that are making these complexes when it comes to looking at tenant occup occupancy in terms of lifetime value. So really fun episode. I learned a ton in this one. If you like getting into more business tactics, this is a great episode. Please stick around. He will dives into all of it in depth. I I had a blast with this one. So hope you enjoy it. And just want to let you know too, as a reminder, we have launched our website and go over to buildingthebusiness.co and Check everything out. go check out every episode. Follow us along on iTunes, on Spotify, and on YouTube. So hope you enjoy this episode with Wills Francis of former colleagues. Hey, welcome back to Building the Business. I'm incredibly excited. I have Wills Francis here. Wills, thanks for popping on the show.

Will, thank you for having me. I've I've watched the show, I've listened to the show, I've, you know, kind of cheered you on from the sidelines and getting this out there, but I'm I'm really thrilled to to be on this end of the the microphone. So thanks for having me.

Dude, the the pleasure is all mine. I've I've been so excited for this one for a long time. We have a mutual friend. Shout out to Aaron Abedeal if he ends up watching this one. We've been connected and he was like, Man, you gotta meet my friend Wills sometime and just life, you know, haven't been able to connect in person or even virtually up to this point. And so I'm I'm just super pumped. I I've been following former colleagues for a while, which we'll we'll get into. And yeah, it's just we're almost name brothers. We're so close. But I am I'm really excited. Wills, I I guess for people who are curious, just we'll we'll do a real quick do you want to describe what former colleagues does and who who they help?

Yeah, yeah. So we're a tenant strategy and execution firm. And we work with multifamily and mixed use development groups on how they design the assets that they're building. Typically we're working directly with the developer owner on how to design and position their multifamily and mixed use assets in light of the individual markets in which they're located. And we can kind of get into a little bit more of that, what that means. But we're kind of sit at this in-between space of Early development consulting, where we're helping developers kind of think through how their units should be designed, how their building should be designed in light of the specific needs and preferences of their target market, as well as how that kind of tenant first understanding gets translated all the way through not just the construction side, but also how the property is branded, positioned in the market, launched, and then kind of marketed through a lease up time period. And so that's kind of in in broad strokes what we do is kind of this intersection of early development consulting on on the asset side and then into brand and execution and actual go to market.

Man, I'm I'm excited to dive into sort of how you how you found that niche and kind of where you how how you kind of niched into that. But I've been leading with this question. We'll we'll get back into former colleagues in a sec. Do you just cause we're talking to mostly it's gonna be business owners watching this, I'm I'm always curious, Wills, do you feel like you were the type that was kind of like born an entrepreneur? Do you feel like it was something that sort of developed over time? Was it like I had no idea that I ever wanted to run a business and that just sort of happened? Like which which camp do you feel like you fall into?

Yeah, it's it's it's a great question. One I think about a lot actually. Both my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad is a local builder developer here in my hometown of Virginia Beach, and he started his firm at the age of like thirty and and grew it, you know, to now and has all the scars to prove it. and my my mom is a commercial interior designer, which is a funny kind of combinations of the kind of paved a lot of the way for me to kind of pursue the work that I'm in. But my both my parents growing up were very encouraging that, you know, if you have an ambition or something that you're trying to to solve, that the best avenue to kind of go about that is is through the entrepreneurial journey. I won't say that we were like, and I have a younger brother, I say we I won't say that we were like pushed in that direction. I, you know, I think we saw the good, the bad, and the ugly of entrepreneurship, you know, like I remember my parents being up late and like, you know, a lot of stress around, you know, the the 2008 housing crisis, like and all these things that, you know, you kind of internalize as a as a kid, kind of growing up in that environment. But I also saw, you know, this level of resourcefulness, this level of kind of ambition to build something for yourself that was really attractive to me. And like I I wouldn't say that I was the type of, you know, kid growing up that was, you know, always doing the lemonade stand or that type of thing. but I did know that like the way that I described describe it was like there was always kind of this itch that I wanted to scratch and in kind of the of building my own business, kind of exploring my own interests in a way that that I kind of wanted to pursue them and at the pace that I wanted to pursue them. And and so, you know I think would I have been happy working at a great company and kind of doing that route? Sure. But as things kind of progress, and maybe we could get into some of the backstory here, but like it just felt like I this was something I had to either try and if it failed miserably, then that would be okay. But it would it it ha ended up happening to be something I I gave a shot, gave a shot at. You know, I kind of come from the perspective that I think they're built just because like and we talked we've talked about this in the past, like just the process and the journey is such like a a personal one, you know. And I think back on the, you know, four or five years that we've been in business, like just the the personal trials, growth, you know, high highs, low, lows, like it's it's very much a a thing that I, you know, a process that I feel like I've gone through rather than just like Woke up and, you know, have this thriving business. You know, everything's good. Yeah. So yeah, some combination of that.

Man, if only were that way if only it were that easy, just wake up and hey, this is what I'm gonna do. It's gonna be great. No, I I I and I'm the same way. So it's really interesting. Sometimes I I I meet with people and they're like, I was Eliminate Stan kid. I was flipping sneakers on eBay at like seven and I'm like, Man, that wasn't me. So it's always I just find it's really interesting. Some people are more like immediately geared that wired that way. And sometimes like it sounds like you and I are similar, where it took time for me to like kind of get my head around like, okay, I think I could do this. Yeah, so it's just I always find it's really interesting where people kind of start from. I will from or Will's from for you, I guess. So when you when you're thinking of starting former colleagues, did you know that you wanted to get into the sort of well just say tenant real estate kind of space? Or was there had you been wanting to play around or or had you been doing other stuff on like the I know it's a lot of branding side of stuff ahead of that? Like how I guess you're curious walk through kind of when you first opened, were you doing the same thing you're doing now? Did it look different?

Not exactly. So great question. So when we first started out, we were doing a lot of kind of traditional corporate brand work. So that's that's really a lot of my background, at least kind of the first portion of my career was working in kind of a a design brand agency and and doing a lot of kind of brand strategy work for corporate brands. So like this was a lot of, you know. developing comprehensive brand identity, go to market strategies for, you know, national, sometimes international brands. And that was that was kind of my foundational kind of exposure to the brand world. That's where I kind of cut my teeth. And and another portion of that work, which kind of comes to bear later, was was actually running these fairly robust market research studies as part of like the brain strategy work. So, you know, early in my career, a lot of my kind of time and energy was focused on really understanding like who who is the kind of target customer that we're trying to understand and like trying to connect with? What are some of the what are like how do they make decisions around XYZ product or service? You know, what how do we segment out the different user groups that kind of represent our our our market? And and that was really like really driving not just kind of like the strategic side of my brain and how like these these projects come together, but it also kind of illuminated for me that like there's a way to kind of get the types of information and and insight of who you're trying to connect with that isn't always utilized. so we can kind of come back come back to that. So early career, I was in like this kind of brand, brand strategy design focused world. I actually moved back here to my hometown and got involved in my family's real estate development firm. Cool. And and so I was actually running like multifamily construction projects. So got a lot of great exposure to running a construction job, all of the feasibility, the entitlements, the financing, like all of the like kind of technical layer of how these projects get done. And and then when I kind of went back on my own to start former colleagues, we were initially doing a lot of that kind of corporate brand work. So that's how our mutual friend Aaron Updilly. we've we've worked with his group, which is a a a tech consultancy called Evolution. Shout out Evolution, great Chicago tech implementation partner. But so you know that was really like the first iteration of former colleagues was was oriented around corporate brand communications, corporate brand identity. And and that was kind of how we kind of How I personally kind of came back into this this kind of brand centric world, which was, which was the focus for the first handful of years that we kind of were getting our, you know, feet under us as a firm. And but then, you know, over the the last handful of years is what we've really focused in on the tenant strategy for the real estate development side. And we can kind of talk about that shift, but it was more than anything an effort to kind of marry these disciplines and marry these, these kind of confluence of different strategies and and and domains in a way that I think we're doing this type of work in a way that a lot of folks aren't. and it gets me real excited just because like we said before, like entrepreneurship being this adventure and kind of, you know, choose your own adventure. And that's kind of my, you know, how I internalized and interpreted that is like combining this this real estate background, this brand background into what we're doing now.

what what jumps out to me, Wills, and what's really interesting is sometimes someone starts a business and says, All right, we're, you know, what's hot in the market right now. I'm gonna go work on that. I'm gonna go sell that. And I think what's really cool and our our I think our journeys are similar is you you've sort of had experience in certain domains, right? You're you're just family in the in the multi property real estate section. It sounds like your mom in the commercial side too. And then you had the branding side and of sort of seeing like, hey, how do those two worlds come together and where's an opportunity there? You can put yourself in versus, you know, someone who maybe is just starting you know, they're Googling right now, what business should I start? And it might be like pressure washing. I bet branding for commercial, you know, real estate projects probably isn't the thing that's like, that's the first one you should go do. And it's so cool to see where you're like, hey, I've got these backgrounds in both. And I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna marry them and see how they how that works. So I'm just curious, did you for the As you as you pivoted into or you know, sort of transition more into niching down into this segment, did you have a I would just be super curious, like first client that that kind of came about with? Was it was it actually with your parents' company? Was it was it separate? Like how did you I'm always curious, how'd you go get your first client that way? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's awesome. So when I first kind of you know, these things take time to like, you know, formulate in your brain and and the fur like when I first kind of like my interest really, you know, wrapped around this as a concept. I actually went and spoke with a good friend of mine who's actually a senior VP of development at a local development of firm here at J Beach. And it was like a two hour long like Hey, I have this idea. Like, I wanted to kind of explore what would be the most valuable to your group around this idea of like running this really rigorous market study of like who you're actually trying to go after from a tenant base standpoint. What are the you know, understanding what they care about, you know, use that to translate how you're actually building the the building and and marketing and launching the building, all that type of thing. And and this good friend of mine was was so helpful in just helping kind of connect the dots and and got us launched on the first handful of projects and like helped us kind of operationalize it. And I think like to his credit, like one of the awesome things about that relationship was even from the very first days, it wasn't like we were kind of building this thing in isolation, like just in our heads and trying to like go find a you know, a buyer for it. We were building the actual model and kind of delivery process with direct input from in many ways like our target client, right? And so hugely valuable process of just like, you know, trimming the fat around stuff that wasn't going to actually move the needle, getting super clear on like how, you know, I'd I'd a good amount of experience in kind of the multifamily world, but like, you know, there's just all these nuances that you have to kind of make sense of. And and so I think that process was really valuable of like working closely with a group that was trying to figure this out, you know, gave us some leash to kind of figure it out alongside and and provide support and and and create the value there where where it made sense. So but it very much was this kind of shoulder to shoulder, let's build this thing that that that you're having a hard time getting getting from anywhere else and and make sure there's value there from from day one.

I think I think what's really cool to me is you you said this, you know, you got to build it while testing it with someone. So like test driving it and building it. And I think that's so just in my experience, it's been so helpful to get that real time feedback of is this useful, is it not useful? Otherwise you just sit in your computer or wherever you're at all day and you're like, This is gonna be great. This is gonna be great. And then you you know, you're working with someone and they're like, I that honestly doesn't matter to me at all. And you're like, I spent three weeks on that. That was gonna be the big part. And so it's it's really cool that you had that connection or or friend who, you know, was willing to kind of go back and forth and help you build that together. I which which has me so curious because from here on out in this podcast, I just gotta caveat. I know nothing about building, you know, bigger tenant complexes. I've been always Wills probably knows from my comments on his post. I'm like, wow, I didn't even know that was a like I hadn't even thought of that. And so I'm I'm gonna play kind of guinea pig here as because to me it's it's It's so fascinating. We I I live in Pittsburgh, which is I think like a lot of rust belt towns, you know, certain areas are booming, certain areas are are kind of being moved out of. So it's this really fascinating time where, you know, the neighborhood that I was living in a couple of years ago was just the amount of multi tenant, huge apartment complexes going up. Yeah. Was like crazy. And I just kept thinking like, How are there this many people who are even gonna move in here? you know, and you know, for rent in a city like Pittsburgh, it seemed like super high. I was like, man, this is crazy. And then I I saw what you're doing. I was like, you know, I've never really thought beyond just, do they just find a location and plop it down and and assume everyone's gonna move in? There are enough people. So I I'm I'm curious, Wills, I gotta think of kind of where to start with this, which is for me, I'll just say my sort of belief system was you just find a good neighborhood and then there's demand there and people move in. I've learned a lot from you and your posts that that's probably not the best place to start. So help me break down the myth here of just like, hey, go find any neighborhood. You know, we're I'm guessing these are a lot of eight figure, nine figure investments that these companies are making. What what don't we know who aren't in the field in terms of like, what do we not think about that goes into this?

So I'll I'll say at the beginning that location is supremely valuable. There's no, you know, what's the old adage about real estate? Location, location, location. Right. So so location is hugely valuable and a big part of a big part of the equation. The thing that I think you and I have kind of bantered about this back and forth. The thing that initially kind of that I'm upset and I use this word seriously, like I'm obsessed with this question of How do you create real differentiation? So use the Pittsburgh Pittsburgh example. Say there's, say there's 10 new construction multifamily buildings going up in Pittsburgh, right? Pittsburgh is a is a well-established market. There are, you know, there's good financing to be had, you know, to to build these these buildings. There's a good population base, all that stuff. So like the question in my mind that I'm trying to help developers solve is. Okay, we know the market's there. We know the location is generally good. What is going to allow one developer to create a truly better and higher performing asset than the developer next door? And so it's kind of a complex question because for a lot of these deals, right, the financing generally kind of looks the same, right? You're you're kind of running a model that says, you know. In general, you have to be a minimum of X per square foot. and you can't be charging more than I per square foot, right? So you have like this really kind of clear market of like where you need to build for a tech, like from a modeling standpoint for it to succeed in Pittsburgh. My question then is like, okay, if that's the case, then what actions can a developer take to actually make this building perform better than their competitor? And so A lot of our work is actually getting into, okay, if we're building for this particular market, how much can we understand about how this particular market chooses housing? And what I mean by that is, you know, what features, what unit configurations, what unit layouts, what amenities, what positioning is what combination of all those kind of factors is most resonant with the target? That will allow them to stand above that sea of sameness of all these other, you know, these 10 other apartment buildings that are going up. and so that's really at the core of what we're trying to do here is is understand like if all the dip buildings are kind of following the same model, what levers can we help the developer pull to suddenly create more differentiation and a price premium ultimately in that market? And so for instance, like. Our classic example is a project that we're we're involved on right now where large, you know, nine figure project, when it's all said and done, this is a an asset where they went in thinking that the the target tenant base, the folks that they were really trying to win, were really gonna care about kid focused amenities and like kid focused outdoor kind of playground facilities. Right. They really thought like that was gonna be the thing that would help them set, you know, achieve the premium rents, get more people in there than the competitors, all that stuff. What we found in the in the the research was actually that while this target tenant base did have kids, the kid stuff wasn't actually driving leasing behavior. It was a nice to have, right? They they were kind of into that, great. But it wasn't actually a thing that would make them sign with one asset versus another. But what we did identify was that work from home amenities And a certain degree of kind of customization over their living instance and their their unit configuration and certain levels of customization over those features were a a factor that was motivating them to sign a lease. And so this is a great example of like, okay, so if we know that kid focused things are not actually driving them to sign a lease and we know that these other features are, we can actually help you reallocate your capex, your capital expenditures from these things that aren't moving the needle to the things that are. And so that's like a good example of how we're trying to help these development groups find these little opportunities for differentiation by understanding exactly what's motivating their tenant base and acting accordingly versus just using what I would say is the conventional logic of, hey, let's just put them up if you know, if we're within that, you know, rent per square foot band and we have, you know, generally the same amenities as the other developments in town, and we generally are the same kind of you know, you know, l level of fit and finish, all that type of thing will be okay. But I think that what we're seeing out in the market is that it's not enough anymore. And you're trying you you really need these opportunities to find ways to make your product stand above the rest. And and our bet is that actually understanding the tenant base and using that intelligence to make better development decisions is how you do that.

I man, as you're saying that, it's just really cool to see how it's it's it's always so funny where you you just assume the best amenities are gonna win or you know, or or you know, I just so many of these are I I don't want to say a dime a dozen because, you know, I I know they put a lot of thought into it, but you know usually like this one has a little bit more of a they have a pool versus don't have a pool or you know, the gym's a little nicer versus this one. But you know, going to the but but at the end of the day you're kinda like, you know, it's it's give or take. Whereas that's like, hey, you know, we were betting on families and and what their kids would need versus we we would have totally got that wrong and we need to draw in these other people, which I guess, well, I hadn't I I didn't, you know, not knowing a whole lot about the process. It sounds like if they're the the kind of ideal time is obviously before pr you know production of the building, they're coming in and doing all this. Yeah, I guess when you know that initial sort of I would just be curious your process. So do you start with let's say someone's like, hey, we know we want to You know, we wanna build a building or a a multi tenant space in this neighborhood. I'm super curious. Do they come to you with like, we have an idea of what we want? Is it like, hey, we don't even wanna have an idea yet until you tell us kind of what what the market is looking for? How does how does that process work?

Typically typically we like our clients to be a little bit further down the field than like we just have a plot of land and we don't really know what to do with it. And the reason for that is there's a lot of steps in what's called entitlements and feasibility, which is kind of like an industry term for, you know, from a from a regulatory standpoint, like what actually could we build? And and also like a whole other equation around like generally like just in broad strokes. How much could we be spending on this property to get the right kind of number one density and dollars per square foot where the whole deal kind of starts to pencil together? there's a lot of really, really specialized, really rigorous analysis kind of on the front end of a project that is is super valuable. And like we we certainly don't discredit that at all. But what we like to have is it's at least some kind of early understanding of kind of we use this framework of of variables, constraints, market and then story, which is kind of like these various quadrants that we kind of start to piece together. And so what we're trying to do through like this variables, constraints, market research and story is is understand what can change generally. What is kind of just a a fixed reality of the project, what is the market kind of saying to us, irregardless of of what we do or don't do. And then lastly, the story, which is kind of the brand piece. But the reason that we apply that kind of framework is because, you know, we're trying to understand like what parts of this project could our our research and our process realistically impact and what couldn't it? And the reason that we we kind of use that language is because, you know, we we could go out in the market and say, you know, and and look at, hey, you know. What would you like to build? You know, and everyone could say, we want the penthouse suite and we want, you know, the the the marble entryway and all this like crazy stuff. And that wouldn't really be useful because it it's not mapping to a fixed constraint of the project, which is, hey, we just have to be between this per square this dollar per square foot on construction budget and this dollar per square foot on the final rents. And so we'd like to have like in general, like kind of in broad strokes, how the site and the overall project is going to be laid out. Because Another reason that that's helpful is because we can actually start to test different options. So for instance, if the developer is considering like two or three different amenities, we can actually go out and test those and get some clarity on, you know, whether amenity A is performing or, you know, more valuable than B or C or vice versa. And we can also kind of start to understand generally like how the developer is thinking about the asset and how the developer kind of wants the asset ultimately to kind of come to market, because that's a big part of the equation too, is, you know, if if the developer has a vision for this like, you know, very walkable, very neighborhood, you know, kind of driven master plan, then, you know, that's that's kind of brought into our analysis as well and and kind of brought into how we think about the positioning and ultimately kind of go to market posture of the of the project. So But yeah, we like to have some some sense of the sandbox. Like if we don't have a very strong sense of the sandbox, we have a couple partners that we have like help kind of shape things in that early conversation. But early stage of of something on the table so we can at least kind of press it, test some things, explore kind of what the the best bang for the buck is and what the real opportunities for for that asset are.

Yeah, do you I'm super curious, how do you how do you go about testing that? I don't want you to have to give away your secret sauce, but in my mind I'm like thinking old school, like do you fly into the town and do like old school focus groups and we like pull people together? Is it like my my brain goes like are you running like survey kind of campaigns just like with outreach or or running advertising to it? I I kind of curious, like how do you maybe it's way even far much more complicated than that. I I guess how you go run those tests? Like how do you how do you go run?

So what so we have two kind of layers. There's what's called secondary data, secondary research, which is really like essentially looking at the market and and what what available data data sources do we have. So like if there's take the Pittsburgh example, if there's ten other multifamily units in in the market or or buildings in the market, we just kind of like to get a baseline understanding of, you know, nine out of ten of them have a pool, you know, seven out of ten of them have, you know, this type of unit configuration. Just to kind of like understand generally what the market looks like, because that's another layer of how we think about our recommendations is like, you know, if if you're building the eleventh asset and every other asset has a pool, but yours, like that needs to be part of the consideration. You know? And so that's that's something we like to look at. But the primary research is is is a quantitative primary research study. So we have we use a a panelized process where we use a number of different highly reputable panel providers in a a dedicated market research team where we actually build these studies that are each one kind of bespoke for that particular asset in that particular market. But the way it works is, you know, if you've ever done kind of primary research on like a market study, you have, you know, these tens of millions perhaps of potential respondents in a given market. And the hard work of good market researchers is to segment down that that potential pool to the most likely groupings that you possibly can. So then you can start to actually not most likely, I would say best fit prospective tenants that you can. and then use that kind of that smaller sample to kind of design the the study around. So in our case, we get our clients as close as humanly possible to the actual prospective tenants of that particular market. And so generally you know, the way that we do that is is number one, we're screening for people that are either long term rental tenants or or intend to become long term rental tenants over the next three to five years, have some degree of interest in moving, right? because obviously they need to be generally in market. But then there's a whole socioeconomic layer as well where we're looking at based on, and this is again why we like to have the project be a little bit further down the field than just like raw land is that by then we have some understanding of where we need to be for target rents. And so that helps us understand, okay, generally like socioeconomic profile of who we need to be hearing from in this in the survey process. So that helps us get as close and and and file down that potential pool of respondents as as far as possible to be truly representative of their actual target base while still maintaining statistical significance that it actually represents the broader the borrowed pool of prospective tenants in that market. Does that make sense? Yeah.

It does, it does, it does make sense. And I can see where yeah, you need a dedicated team to really like getting to the to the down to the core of that. Cause yeah, it's just one of those things I you know, you from afar, you're like, I bet a lot goes into this. And then you know, but like you when you're not in it, you don't really know like the the level of depth that goes into really like figuring this out. it and it makes me think I it it's my brain is as you're talking while I was like or while as I was like You know, for these for clients, for example, I guess I'm curious like, are there certain metrics that matter the most to them in terms of like, is it how quick to fill a a capacity is with the right people? Is it is is it more like, hey, how long is a tenant staying based on this stuff? Like, do you I'm just super curious how when you're meeting with them, like what what seems to matter to them the most? I I don't know if it's per project per project, if there's certain things that seem to be like more important than not. Yeah, so

The two biggest ones are lease of speed, as you mentioned. So that's actually built into the financing model of the asset itself. And so meeting or exceeding that is is crucial. Right. And so that's another reason.

You guys get measured on that? Like is that part of like your is that something where you guys are saying, Hey, is that a is that a value prop for you guys? Hey, we'll help you hit that? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so so that's that's the big one. It kind of depends the the retention question, which is how long people would will stay. That kind of depends more so on what the the strategy of the developer is. Like if they're trying to to hold it long term, that becomes more and more and more valuable. That's yeah. But the other the other metric that we were always looking at is concessions. So essentially what kind of offers or discounts does the developer have to offer in order to meet the the minimum lease up yeah occupancy rate percentage that they need to need to match. So, you know, that's another reason why we're really bullish on this model is because we're trying to figure out exactly what these folks want. And so you're not kind of offering these concessions to kind of make the the building more attractive than it otherwise would be in the open market. So those are kind of the big ones.

That's okay, super interesting. I didn't even think about concessions. So that's makes a ton of sense. It's like, hey, do we have to what do we have to do lever wise to pull to to get more people in the door? That's

Yeah. Yeah.

super interesting. I I never, you know, I I as a more like working with more smaller, you know, probably sub ten million a year business owners and to look at this in kind of a a bigger project standpoint is really interesting to me. I'm I guess Well since I've got you here, I was just thinking, I was like, you know. Do you feel like this this might be less specific to former colleagues, but in a way it's super relevant is based on kind of where we're at in the real estate market, do you see more of these sort of do you feel like there's going to continue to be more demand for these big kind of multi tenant will just you know, outfits versus say, you know, I'm just looking at interest rates right now. It's probably I don't know if you're feeling it yet of more people like it's only been super recent, but if people are feeling like Renting still makes a lot more sense than maybe going and buying. Do you guys feel like bullish on that in the sense of where you're headed with with former colleagues? Just super curious because cause you're in it, you're seeing people make big decisions based off of it.

Totally, totally. Yeah. And I'll you know, I'll be honest, like the interest rate hike, you know, we had a couple of conversations that we're like, whoa, we need to just figure out, you know, what is the next couple of years going to look like? And and so that's a very real thing. Like, particularly projects, and I'll say that that pain is far more acute early on in the development process than later, right? You think about a building that's, you know, fifteen percent complete or thirty per or even, you know, fifty six fifty percent complete. you know, suddenly that interest rate question, you're like, you know, you're trying to get to the end as fast as humanly possible. But if you're early on in the development process and and you don't have anything in the ground yet, it's a little bit more comfortable just kind of sit and wait and see what happens. I will say, like what we're seeing, obviously there's a nationwide housing shortage. There's a lot of complex challenges around housing. And and we are in conversations with a handful of groups that are coming up with some really, really exciting and and are really committed to like the affordable housing end of the business and and the industry, which is exciting. We love working with them. But I'll say like one of the things that we're seeing just from a consumer and and and resident standpoint is j exactly as you said, where folks that, you know, perhaps in a different macroeconomic environment would be moving more towards either purchasing a home or either purchasing their first home or moving up to, you know, a an upgrade or whatever it might be. Those a lot of those folks seem to be kind of standing in a a renting environment. And that's a complex, complex thing. You know, it it kind of you're kind of getting pulled, the multifamily industry seems to be kind of pulled in two different directions at the same time. One end, like there's a huge housing demand and, you know, that's especially among our larger cities, but then like this interest rate situation is also causing a lot of those, you know, large scale development groups to kind of pause and just kind of wait and see what's gonna happen. So it is something that we're looking at a lot. And I think that the, you know, you're you're seeing that also in like part of how we run our our survey process is we try to understand like how do people think about their housing and think about the, you know, The act of signing, you know, a two year lease. Like, is that a scary proposition? Is that an exciting proposition? And what we're starting to see more of is that, particularly on like upper market, more premium type products, that those options are becoming more of kind of a a stage of life upgrade. Whereas it seems like in the past, those were more of a, you know. people weren't describing their like long-term rental housing in those same ways where suddenly, you know, this is like moving into a specific development was more synonymous with like buying your first home. It's like, this is the place where I'm gonna like potentially have a family. This is where my career is going to continue to take root and I'm gonna become like really invested in this community. and I think that's like, you know, I think that poses a lot of interesting and honestly exciting opportunities for developers because I think for better or for worse, people seem to be looking at, you know, at rental housing as being more of a long term community driven thing, which I think a lot of developers kind of think of it as. But I think the market's starting to kind of pick up and and agree with that and and kind of act accordingly in a new way. You know, a lot of this is is just what we're seeing in the data. And, you know, I'm sure there's some voices that would would disagree with that. But I do think that there is a shift that's happening. And depending on how long this this interest rate environment's going to last or if it's, you know, if there's going to be another hike in a couple months, we'll see. But all of these things I think are are worthy considerations for people that are building these multifamily or mixed use assets. Because ultimately, and I I wrote about this earlier this week, that like, you know, the good developers in our in our industry understand like this is people's lives, like this is housing, this is like security, this is, you know, identity. You know, like where you live is like a really powerful thing. And that's a serious mandate to to be responsible for. And, you know, I look at some of these trends around like more long term rental housing, all that stuff. That's a big mandate that we need to be serious about shepherding and stewarding as we move forward. But a lot of the the good developers are already thinking about it that way and that's really exciting.

Yeah. You're you're I it it's really cool to hear your perspective as just seeing, you know, how much you're in in that field and and people making big decisions about it, not only thinking about it, but with a lot of money as well, like going into that area. And yeah, it's really interesting. I think you make a really good point of I I've been experiencing this personally where it's like, Yeah, I I you know, I'm I'm one of those people. I'm thirty nine, soon to be forty. I don't even really have a huge desire to own a home anytime soon from a like I I you know, if it if it happens, great and a need arises, but that's like I'm thinking long term rental in a lot of ways because I I have the business that's kind of more of my my you know investment versus where a home used to be the asset, right?

Exactly. Yeah.

So it's just been really interesting to see, even personally how I'm viewing it and seeing friends view things, even friends who are having families are thinking I can buy a house in the next three or four years. I'm going to rent here. And and it's like, well, what are you thinking about? Well, they got to have enough space, right? And they got to be in certain a lot of it's about can I walk somewhere? We're in, you know, Pittsburgh's by no means a major urban area, but big enough that if you live in certain places, like what's walkable and be able to do that. So yeah, it just really highlights to me the need of the forethought of who's gonna make your, you know, essentially your your building your entity represent what you want it to. And so I I really see where where former colleagues would make a lot of sense for people to go in. Well I Wills, I guess for just for time's sake, man, I I would love to know where do you see kind of the next year or two going for you guys? in the sense of do you I don't know if it's continuing to to do similar projects. Is it to take on more projects and grow and and build team? Is it sort of, hey, we're gonna see where the market goes over the next year or two and kind of Just calibrate based on that.

Man, that's that's great question. you know, I think in a lot of ways, you know, we always have like, you know, and I always have some big dreams for the business. I think in broad strokes, you know, we want to continue to refine our model and our delivery process to be we want our process to be extremely reliable, efficient, and and And I think that that's gonna be like an evolving process that we're gonna continue to to improve on. we have some cool things that are kind of we're kind of thinking about and and how to kind of operationalize and put this into into into some real client engagements. one of the things that particularly around the mixed use side of things is retail mix. And so interesting when you think about, you know, a a development that has, you know, pick a number, you know, eight to twelve retail retail spaces at the ground level. we've done some early exploration around like how do we take this tenant and market understanding and actually map it into what is the ideal tenant mix for for the retail side of things. And so that comes with a lot of interesting possibilities because then suddenly you are you're integrating the target resident, you're integrating the target retail tenant. And making sure that all of that kind of reflects the opportunities of that particular market. And so that gets me really excited because I think that and this is again from having conversations with these development groups, you know, the right retail mix on a mixed use asset is is incredibly valuable, not just for the kind of experiential layer of of what it's like to kind of live, walk, play, you know, enjoy enjoy the the property. But from a valuation standpoint, the right re retail mix is incredibly critical to the retention question, to attracting the other right type right fit retailers. So that's something that we're we're kind of gonna be head down in in in refining that piece of the of the offering here in in the coming year. And and yeah, I think ultimately, you know, this may be a a down the road type vision thing, but we're we're also looking at being actual investors in our projects. So that's gonna be kind of the next thing that we're gonna try to explore is making sure the incentives are so aligned and that the process is so dialed in that that we that we and we believe in it that strongly that we're we're actually at the table helping shape it. So that could be three years, that could be ten years down the road. But you know, that's what we you know we'd love to get to that point at some point in the c in the future.

I love asking just 'cause I know as business owners there's that visionary side of you that's always like, this thing, this thing, and I'm always curious, kinda, what what you know, and it it rarely ever ends up exactly like we think and but it takes us to a different road and we we kind of, you know, do something different. And I just I it's so I just always get a kick out of here and like, Hey, where are you headed? What do you want to do? What do you want to where do you want to go to? And then checking back in in a couple of years or something and it's like, Hey man, that idea didn't work the way I thought, but here we are now and took me here and you're like, Wow, that's so cool. so I'd love I'd love to see that. And yeah, I got it. So Wills, I guess one one last hopefully simple question. Because I got you here and you're into and you're in the real estate space. If you could live anywhere in the US besides Virginia Beach, where would you where would you be living?

yeah.

Or if if you need to we'll we'll accept like top three.

That's a great question.

And not based on like property value and all that. Just like where would you wanna like exist at, you know?

Yeah. My wife and I, we lived in Chicago for a number of years. that was kind of like early marriage days. And we we still love it. We have a lot of great friends up that way. So I would say Chicago's probably in the top three, preferably in the city. let's see. Gosh, Will, this is a tough one.

It's all right. Hey.

anywhere in the world.

Well I was gonna say US just just for this, but you could go anywhere in the world. We could open up to the world too. That's fine. That's fine. You can go wherever you want.

No,

I just know I was curious 'cause I know you're you're you're you're working so many different markets and you're seeing different places of like, Hey, is there a place that like you know, sometimes I work with a client in a certain area and I'm like, Yeah, it'd be so cool. I bet it'd be so fun to live there for like six months, you know? And

Yeah. Yeah. No, I l so Chicago would be one. I love it's silly, but I love Tell Yuride, Colorado. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Do you use skier? Do you ever ski?

I'm I've I've snowboarded before and spent more time on my butt than I did on the on the board, but yeah.

Yeah, Tell Yuride Colorado would be would be on the list as well. And then just because, you know, I do I do love California, when we're out there, it would be Cardiff, California, I think.

Part of California. Interesting. All right. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I'll have to look it up. Yeah. The Wills, dude, it's it's been so just it's been so great to get to finally connect. And yeah, if anyone, I guess for people who are who are gonna be listening and are curious about former colleagues and maybe even just reaching out to you about kind of the work that you do, what's the best way for people to get in touch? Or if if that's just going to check out the website, if that's connecting me with you on LinkedIn or somewhere else.

Yeah. Yeah. No website formercolleagues.com. Send me an email, Will's at formercolleagues dot com. And then LinkedIn is always great way to get in touch as well. And and I should be fairly easy to find on there. And I I just love, you know, one of my favorite parts about running a business is just getting to meet great people. And so just Will, thank you for not only your encouragement because you're great at that, but also just your friendship and it's cool to be pulling in the same direction, trying to build things. So thank you for having me on.

Dude, I it goes both ways. I and yeah, it's just it's always so great when great people connect you with other great people. And I'm I'm super grateful that that's the case. And yeah, man, we'll have to do a part two, maybe sometime in 2027, catch up, see where see where things are at. And if you're if you're if you've enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying stories like this, please go ahead and hit the follow, subscribe or like button, whatever all the Gen Z terms are for following, connecting, all that kind of stuff. Love to have you continue listening in and we'll catch you on the next episode of Building the Business.