The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

On today’s show we are taking a look at a new law in the city of Los Angeles that has been recently amended called SB8.  This new rule states that no new development can take place that demolishes housing whether occupied or vacant unless replacement housing is constructed that maintains equivalent affordable and very affordable units and rents those units to low income households. What are the intended consequences, and what are the non-intended consequences of this new rule? ------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Why is our money supply shrinking so much? Will that precipitate a credit crunch? On today's show we are looking at QT and what is driving it. -------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Brad Cartier specializes in developing new "missing middle" multi-family apartment buildings in secondary and tertiary markets within a radius of Ottawa Canada. On today's show we are talking about the merits of missing middle investment opportunities. To connect with Brad, you can find him on LinkedIn. Also visit his newletter which can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/briefcasere -------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Dr. Pippa Malmgren is a very well informed economist who has served as a former presidential adviser and a national security advisor to the Joint Chiefs of the US military. She is extremely well connected and offers insights that are not being shared in the mainstream media.  I believe that seeing things as they are happening before they become news is a competitive advantage.  "Signals" by Pippa Malmgren is a thought-provoking and insightful book that explores the power of economic and geopolitical signals in today's interconnected world. In this book, Malmgren offers a unique perspective on the importance of paying attention to the subtle signals that can indicate shifts in the global economy and political landscape. ---------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Governments across the US and Canada are starting to become creative when it comes to addressing the issue of affordability.  Rather than a straight cash handout, different schemes are aimed at assisting financing. California, Utah and Idaho are three states that have recently implemented programs aimed at improving housing affordability.  But the problem is that the true cost is often a combination of variables. Many of these programs have an impact of less than 5% on the cost of housing. Those families struggling with finding affordable housing are not just 5% off from their majic number. The gap is much larger. At least governments get to claim that they did something.  ------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Tracy from Washington State asks: What does one do when a City imposes/interprets a code ruling wrong? I have a situation where a City official did not follow the standard guidelines for fire protection in a multifamily unit. Normally if buildings are located 10 feet or further apart standard attic venting can be applied and we designed our duplexes accordingly. When we submitted our plans the City would not let us install venting in the soffit because the homes were 10 feet from the property line and "they did not know what the neighbors would do". Now given we were responsible for all the builds on the street (and could control this), and the setback requirements would not let a home be any closer than the current spacing this was silly. We even went to the surrounding jurisdictions and they agreed we should be allowed to vent the attics. We told the City in question about the stance of the other jurisdictions but the building official was new and stubborn. So we installed attic fans to compensate. But given a litany of circumstances, the attic fans were not enough (extreme cold weather required extreme heat in the homes) and mold has formed on some roof sheathing due to condensation collecting. Now I have not only mold mitigation to do (which is done and approved by the City)  I am moving through this but this is not the first time this City has caused problems.  They did not meet the statutory timeline for subdivision approval (which they admitted to but I let go) and when they lost staff they extended the normal building permit process from 3 weeks to 6 months costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars in holding costs. ------------ Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

 On today show, we are looking at how human behaviour can vary predictably damage to global banking system. There are many examples and many repeated opportunities in history to see this phenomenon at work. But on today show, we are going to look at a very recent example that most of us can easily relate to. In the early days of the pandemic, we started to experience shortages of every day staples. Households emptied the grocery store, shelves of non-perishable food items Like canned soup, pasta and rice, prepared foods like frozen pizza, and everyone’s favourite toilet paper. The human response to the risk of a shortage was to start hoarding. Paradoxically, it was the hoarding behaviour that created the shortage. I’ll make sure there is enough toilet paper for me and enough chicken soup for me even if it means that somebody else will not have access to toilet paper or chicken soup.  That was 2020. That was the pandemic. This is now. We are not experiencing shortages any longer. Why are we even talking about shortages? Well that is actually incorrect. We are experiencing shortages and we are seeing the exact same behaviour that we saw with toilet paper.  We are seeing people starting to hoard their cash, out of of a sense of anxiety about the banking system.  -------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

On today’s show we’re talking about another missing piece in the puzzle over the evolution of money.  Crypto-currencies were launched with the promise of replacing FIAT currency with a crowd sourced anti-establishment, off-grid alternative. The technology is rooted in the need for a system that would enable online micro-transactions where the transaction cost could be virtually zero.  If you want to make an online purchase within a game that costs only a few pennies, or perhaps a few tenths of a penny, there is no payment processing system that caters to these micro-transactions. Some of the early movers were looking for a light-weight system that would make it possible to create a low overhead transaction. Rather than charge users for the transaction, the would require each computer to do a small amount of work. That work in exchange for money was called hash cash and would take the place of a centralized infrastructure required to process a transaction. After all, data centres are expensive to build and to maintain. They consume a lot of power and required air conditioning. If instead of a datacenter, you harnessed the distributed computing power of all the users, you could get the work of managing and maintaining the database for free and require no data center at all.  This concept was the early days of what later became known as mining for bitcoin. If you do a small amount of work, you get some micro financial credit for the work.   Since the early days of bitcoin the notion of free work has been at the core of the distributed database that makes up the distributed blockchain.  The agenda behind these technologies was simple and pure. Create a low overhead financial transaction system. Later on, blockchain technologies took on the agenda of becoming a crypto currency. The notion of a store of value and an ever increasing value came much later.  It is this quality that has raised the ire of the financial regulators.  Governments generally don’t want competition for the nation’s currency. The US doesn’t want it, China doesn’t want it and have already outlawed crypto currencies.  --------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

On today’s show we are looking at some currents that are underneath the surface which to me are very concerning. We have a history as a society of taking quantum steps to relinquish our individual rights in response to a crisis or even in some cases for convenience.  In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 many people in the West allowed for governments to collect much more information about each of us in the name of safety. Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Today, payments are increasingly becoming electronic, which means that your banker knows when you bought pizza from Dominos at 2AM. So far the government doesn’t know that you ordered pizza at 2AM. But if they did, what value judgement would be applied to that transaction? Would it impact your credit score? At what point will government become enmeshed in your financial world? What will be the trigger? ----------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Today's show is coming to you live from the Secrets of Successful Syndication Conference in Dallas. We're talking about the current market reality. ------------ Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com