Vacay Replay: Steve Glenn on Investing Through Change, Opportunity & Lincoln Bold

Mike and Marc are still enjoying their summer break, so we're bringing back another favorite from the vault!

In this Vacay Replay, the guys sit down with Steve Glenn—entrepreneur, investor, and visionary behind the Lincoln Bold development—to talk about commercial real estate investing, navigating changing markets, and what it takes to think big.

Steve shares his journey from growing up in rural Nebraska to building a diverse real estate portfolio, while offering practical insights on cap rates, leverage, interest rates, 1031 exchanges, and why today's market disruption may create tomorrow's biggest opportunities. The conversation also dives into the future of downtown Lincoln, the vision behind the Lincoln Bold project, and why relationships, community, and long-term thinking still matter more than ever.

Whether you're an investor, developer, broker, or just curious about where commercial real estate is headed, this episode is packed with wisdom, market perspective, and plenty of laughs along the way.

Enjoy this Vacay Replay, and we'll be back with brand-new episodes in August!

Thanks for tuning in to In the CRE Vault with Mike and Marc—where we break down commercial real estate without putting you to sleep. Powered by NAI FMA Realty in Lincoln, Nebraska. For more, visit naifmarealty.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey, thanks for coming back to the vault. Mark, where are you at, buddy? Oh, that's right. We're on vacation for a bit, summer sabbatical. Uh we've tuned, we've tuned up some pretty good throwbacks, reruns. Enjoy those, and we'll see you in August. Take care. Bye. Welcome to the podcast in the CRE Vault with Mike and Mark.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

All right, welcome back to in the CRE Vault with Mike and Mark. How are you doing, Mark?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Doing good. How about you, Mikey?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Doing good today. We're coming off an amazing volleyball evening last night. Uh tonight's our first football game. And more importantly than that, we have a very special guest in the vault today.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

We we do. I have not I haven't slept since two weeks last Tuesday. And excitement for this guy. And I think we need we need to paint a little bit of a picture here on what happened. We we get a lot of emails from people and complimenting us on the on the podcast. And I know we're not as big as Smartless if you listen to the Smartless podcast, but I think we're getting there. We're gonna get there. And and so we got a we got a nice note from this guest, and and he had mentioned how good we were doing on the podcast and how he enjoyed listening to him. And and we just dove right into the deep end on that response and said, Hey, we need to get you in here. And he said, I would love to come in here. And and and and this guest is an icon in in the city of Lincoln when it comes to investing. He does he does another little side gig, we'll say, but that has nothing to do with our conversation here. So, anyways, it's uh we are we are really excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah, we are. It's uh it's my pleasure to introduce Steve Blenham. He wears many different hats. He dabbles in a lot of different things. He's a contemporary, he's a customer, he's a client, he's a friend. But we can talk for we could talk for weeks in here, but we what do we want to specify on Clark? What do you what do you want to dive into first?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I am just excited to hear what Steve has to say about his investments. I I I'm a huge journey guy, and so I like to hear everybody's story and and how they got started in the stuff. Did they did they trip and fall when they bought their first investment and they just fell into it? Or, you know, I like to hear those stories, and and I think I think Steve's gonna have a ton of them, and and the negatives and the positives, and and maybe give some guidance on on you know the the the newbie that wants to jump in here and and and so Steve, why don't you you know talk about talk about maybe your first project going back in time? When was that? What made you want to buy an investment property? And and and just jump right in.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Great, thanks, guys. Mark and Mike. It's fun to be here. And uh I'm honored that uh you invited me. Thank you. I hope my wife is listening to hear that I'm an icon, but I don't think that'll prevent me from having to take the trash out tonight. Yeah, I mean, uh, but uh I uh I'm blessed to live in Lincoln, Nebraska. What a great town! And and NAI uh FMA Realty is is uh talk about iconic. I mean, you guys are where the action's at. And uh so we've been blessed that you have a relationship with you at the Piedmont Shopping Center and you help manage that system and that property, and that's full. And uh boy, when you have retail real estate and it's full, that's a beautiful word it is. Yeah, that's it. So and we're blessed to be in Lincoln and and uh you know, I I hate to say this, but I I don't think you know the success that we've enjoyed in real estate has been uh because I'm so smart. I think most of us being in the right place at the right time, right? That's right, and uh uh as is true in life. And so I I grew up on the farm in Pawnee City, Nebraska, still uh have a retail hardware store there, uh, and uh had a home there from my parents lived in from the grandparents from World War II, World War I actually, and and then before that into the Civil War. So so that's my roots, and of course got into farmland down there, and that's that's been a good uh investment. Um, and then moved to school here, moved uh up to Lincoln uh a long time ago. And Lincoln was a small, small town for many years, and now it's really expanded. And I'll tell you, one of the more contemporary stuff that got us started is I own uh retail hardware stores about one street by eight seven and Van Thorne. And um, I learned how to leverage things, you know. In the good old days, you could almost buy real estate and have very little cash down. You know, those are the good old fun days. It's a lot different today's, you know. Um that leverage has gone from uh 80% to 70% to 60%, sometimes it's now 50%. So the world is a lot different. And I think the world's moving from, if you if you look at it, and you guys know it's a different world in commercial real estate because of interest rates. When you went from a 4% out to an 8% now, the world changed. We moved from a world of leveraging to the world where today cash is king, right? Right. And we and real estate has to compete with a 5.5% CD that FNBO issues, right? Yep. And they got to say, well, if I can stick it in a savings account for 5.5%, I better get quite a bit more out of that risky real estate over there. Yeah, that's true. So that's what we have to compete with in the future is is the return on cash. And of course, we're seeing that in um we're seeing that in uh what cap rates are doing, aren't we? They're going up because you've gotta you've gotta have a higher earning on that uh net operating income, and and because we gotta compete with that return on cash and being likely. So uh it's an exciting world. I think it's a tremendous opportunity, guys. Whenever there's disruption, great opportunity. Yeah, and if you're sitting on cash, man, you are like you're smiling because you're gonna get a lot of deals right now. I think so. Yeah, I was up with uh with your team, by the way. Congratulations to Richard Guinness and uh winning the CRE summit in Omaha last week. Richard was smiling big, and your whole team was up on the stage because you guys won uh an award uh for the for the best uh commercial deal uh that you sold to uh Brian Hospital uh on 84th Street, and you you brokered that, and your team was up there in front of 900 commercial real estate people. Yeah, uh being getting the award for the best deal of the year.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah, that's big.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, that's gigantic. And so it was it was fun to see you know your leadership in that area and uh making things happen, and it's gonna be a different world to make things happen going forward. It's not gonna be as easy as it was because money was easy and it didn't have you could leverage a lot of a commercial deal. So going forward, it's gonna be different.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Yeah, I think so too. I mean, Mark and I just did a a podcast specifically on cap rates and how that turns transition points rates and just things like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yeah, I enjoyed listening to that, and it helps. And you know, when you and I, some people when we talk about cap rates, they don't understand what that means, right? A lot of people go Google that what is the cap rate? How do I figure a cap? I remember doing that years ago, saying, Oh, what's a cap rate? How do you figure that? Yeah, and figure in your net operating income and divide it, you know, by that cap rate, find out what the value of that property is worth, right? Face my cap rate. So we've seen those sneaking up, and we get we constantly get people that say, hey, we we'll give you this cap rate on this property. And and uh the only thing that I always figure the toughest thing for me, except for 1031 exchanges, is how do you sell something today and keeping you that money except for sending it to Uncle Sam, right? Yes, that's true, yes. So, and that's with businesses or or investments in commercial real estate or whatever. So yeah, we we've uh we've really enjoyed real estate, but we've enjoyed the time when it was a different time, and now today we have a different world.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

You you've almost got to adapt and just kind of juke and jive with what the market's growing at.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you you can't, I don't know if you can beat the market. I mean, but you can posture to do really well. Right. And think of all the opportunities at the CRE summit last week. They mentioned that like they had a property, a banker said they had a $20 million property that was had a net operating cash flow of uh $1.2 million or something. You know, really good at solid investment. It was coming off of a five-year of uh five-year note. Okay, at four percent. And guess what it's now? Eight. Yeah. He says he's they've got to bring four million dollars to the table to keep up their debt service ratio.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

You know, that's hard and stuck.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Oh my gosh. So, what I'm saying is the guy that has four million cash is probably postured really well to take advantage of deals like that coming out.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Well, and I think, you know, back to your your statement on the cap rates, you know, they always say there's a 12 to 14 month lag for cap rates to actually catch up with interest rates. Um, as interest rates drop, naturally cap rates go really quick. Um, but we just don't want to come to the realization the cap rates need to raise as interest rates come up. So I think we're probably in the middle of that lag. And and the industrial, the, the, the institutional buyer is is doing nothing now. And I think that's kind of formalized maybe our industry. And I think we probably have another 12 months of this uh of buying. And so back to your 1031 exchange. Yeah, I don't know how you do anything but give your money to the government because you're only overpaying for your for your transition property. And and and I think it's difficult.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, you know, I I've been blessed, and I keep telling about people about timing is everything. It's not smart, it's timing. And and we refined uh a bunch of properties back when it was low, locked them in for 10 years, and you know, only by God's blessing did that happen, not because of my smart, you know, just the timing worked out perfectly, and then that takes your investment and makes it a great investment. Right. You're leveraging somebody else's money, and that's what real estate is is leveraging somebody else's money. But you're right, the bankers are frozen. I mean, they are literally frozen because they don't work know what the Fed's doing, they don't know what interest rates are doing, they're having to compete for money. You know, they were paying nothing for that money sitting in that checking account savings account, and now they're paying 5.5, 5.3% for it. And and then they're gonna loan it out at 8.75 or 8 or whatever it is. And so it's a different world, and the bankers are looking for stability, you know, they want to say, hey, the world is stable, I don't have to worry about going out of business, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So Steve, back to your disruption comment. Um, because you triggered a thought in my brain, you know, I'm I you're you're in you're you're heavily in in property ownership, you're also heavily in into retail. That's a fair statement. And and when you're talking about disruption in current economies, I think back to 2015 when brick and mortars were going away because Amazon and Walmart came into play, right? And that's a fair statement. And and you want to talk about one of the largest disruptions, that was one of them right there. And then and then you had another hiccup, and then it was called COVID, and and that that affected this the disruption. And I think you've done fairly well um through that whole process. And and maybe it was the leverage side of it, and maybe it was the optimist uh the optimism in you, but I think to the current disruption in the office, in in office buildings, uh, maybe CBD district, and maybe even in all districts, I just think office buildings are in the largest disruption right now. And and and how do you, you know, and and and this isn't so much a question, more just a statement. How does anybody want to dive into that deep end of owning an office building or even a high-rise downtown with the the optimism that's just not there?

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yes, yeah. Well, I think I think you hit the nail on the head is uh in the office sector, as you guys know, that's been so disruptive with work from home, virtual workplace, that you know that's basically the value of that office basically gone down dramatically. You know, I'm hearing things on the coast, which are usually uh, you know, the first movers is some of the stuff's being picked up for 50 cents on the dollar, repositioned as uh apartments if it can be um in San Francisco, New York City. And luckily we don't live there. But uh it the office, the office area is is a uh a bankers uh view it as uh it's not no longer in vogue as an asset. And so it's hard, even our building. We're trying to put a building at 9th and P Street, and uh it's called Lincoln Bold, is the investor group putting that together. We've been working on it. We bought this uh gas station uh from uh Mark Whitehead's family, and we're working right now to take the we've got the tanks out of it, but we have to deal with all the environmental issues that dealing with it, which rightfully so, but we're doing it right. You know, we're not trying to do shortcuts, making sure all the dirty dirt's out of there, and they take it out, they put it to a dump that takes that kind of stuff, and then we have to bring in new dirt that's that's clean dirt, put that in. And so that'll be happening in the weeks ahead as we go, and then um, you know, the process now it's all about two things it's about financing, right? Right, and it's about rental rates, which you can get, um, and then a debt service coverage ratio. The banks, that's all they focus on is how do you cover the debt? And if I can get to a 1.175 or 1.25, you know, I'm a green light. If I can't get there, uh they don't want to load it to you. Yeah, so we've we've been doing feasibility studies about what kind of rents we can get. Now, the good thing about Lincoln is you won't believe this. Our feasibility studies showed we can get two dollars and 49 cents a square foot out of a luxury apartment in downtown Lincoln. Now, that's pretty high for Lake, but it's not high in Kansas City or Minneapolis or Chicago. So the hope is that our building will help pull up the rent rates for investors. And if that's the case, then these buildings will hold on to their value. Very good. Not just ours, but other rental properties. Yeah, so we're we're excited about that. And you know, basically we're looking for trigger dates for this building. The trigger dates are when we align the rental rates we can get out of the property, align with the interest rate so that the debt service coverage ratio hits. So when those when those two come together, that's the trigger of go. Yeah, okay. It's very simple. It's very we're data driven, which means you know, the problem with it with real estate guys is we have these big hearts and going. We're the biggest dreamers in the world. You have to be. You gotta dream. So we're dreamers, but we've got to shut down the heart and start thinking with the brain.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

And that's why we put in these triggers that are metrics based on you know the interest rate, the sulfur rate, which is now about 5.5 percent. And the bankers will add about 150 basis points on top of it, put it at 7% for HUD funding. And so that sulfur's gonna for us to be to be a trigger, it's gonna be at 5 or 4.5. So we've got about 100 basis points that that thing has to hopefully slip down to before the trigger hits. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

What and that's a very that's just a wonderful point in our in in just general in all the podcasts we've had. When do you anticipate that coming together?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

You know, you kind of hit it on that. Did we talk beforehand? I think we did. Yeah, we think it's eight to 12 months. We've we've got we've got the experts to say that, but who knows? What the nice thing is when there's an inverted, there's an inverted uh interest rate curve, which means your your short-term rates and your long-term rates are in historic levels that would screen that long-term rates are going down. Okay, now that hasn't happened yet, which but historically it there's never been an inverted uh rate curve without unfortunately I may say this, a recession and lowering rates. Now, we don't want a recession, but we certainly want lower interest rates. Now, the only caveat, and you guys know, are the macro side with a country with a country that's sitting on $32 trillion of debt. And our country used to borrow that for nothing. And and think about talking about real estate, our US government now is paying 5.2 or 3% for a 90-day T bill. So their interest payment went from zero to 5.2. That's crazy. That's crazy, which means the only macro thing that could take us out of decline in interest rates long terms for commercial real estate is the federal government eats that credit up. You know, so that's my only worry.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Well, and I think once you start looking at the macro side of it, I think that's the scary portion of the financial side. And and and and that's just uh one of the scariest conversations when you when you do figure it out of what's exactly happening, then it becomes real scary. It does. Talk about the bold project, because when did that when did that become a thought? When did it were were you driving by thinking, boy, this would be a nice looking building here? When did it become uh just a a thought in your brain to kind of pen to paper and and unwrap that a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah, well, uh, I've been working on it for eight years, believe it or not. The thought was to put in a high-rise in Lincoln. Um, and um so I worked with uh architect up in Omaha, Leo Daly, and they're world-known. Um and we so we worked together on concepts and ideas, and then just a couple of years and a half, two years ago, we were able to bring on a gentleman named Alex Carlson because I didn't have the bandwidth to do the project by myself. And so I said, Alex, I really need your help on this, and he's a sharp cookie, and uh so he helped uh helped me build the financial side of it out, engage in the architectural firm and other firms, uh contracting firms and others. So uh we were able to do that, go to the city hall, put all the TIFF package together and get that passed. And you know, a project just won't go in downtown Lincoln without TIFF. The numbers don't work. And so the whole idea, the concept here was Lincoln is a great city with a foundation of the university and the state capital. But we need to be more bold in our thinking. That's where the term Lincoln Gold came from. We need to think of the future, not just the past. We're we love the past, that's our heritage, but our future is going to be high-tech. Uh, how do we compete for people on the coasts and bigger cities that we've got to bring and attract here? They're we're used to living in an urban environment. We're not used to living out on 84th and all chain, right? Uh so they're used to living downtown, working downtown, and uh so we said we've got to we've got to bring a product in place that could be the best between Chicago and Denver. Kind of set a bold vision, something that has never been done. And uh we wanted to have the top half be top third be condos, middle be luxury apartments, and the bottom be commercial. Well, obviously, today that commercial side has kind of fallen out of bed. So there's no financing for the commercial side. People, there's a lot of funding still available for apartments. Um that uh, but a lot of that is some of the the huh, the fanny Freddie that will do those, still do those deals. The bankers are probably frozen for six to 12 months, you know, they're just worried about survival, right? And so the our community banks, we're fortunate, we've got green banks, Union Bank, Pinnacle Bank, FNBL. We've got great, great banks and uh Corn Husker Bank, you know. And so it's great to have a company. Then we've got great insurance companies like Assurity. Oh, yeah, you know, they're a really great player in the uh commercial lending market. So we've got we've got these great teams in place, and you just got to make sure that the products fit what they're looking for in their mix. And I think we'll see this freezing of funding for commercial happen, as you said, Mark, in that six to twelve.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I I I your project there is just kind. Of the finale for it in in walkability. And I and I give this speech all the time about how we had the entertainment district, which would have been the hay market, and then we got the C BD district, uh, you know, Universities of the North and uh Telegraph now, which but there was a break in the walkability, so from we'll say 9th Street to about 11th Street, yeah, the journal Star Building, which just got redeveloped, which uh I think Trinitas did that. Um, but there was just that break in walkability, so it broke that conduit line of coming from here to there. And I think your building there will finalize just that whole continuity together. I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah. We're yeah, we're really excited. We we're gonna have to look at if we have to build contingency plans based on financing, you know, those things can all, as you guys know, in development sites, you get you better be fluid because you're gonna get hit with 12 different types of uh scenarios. So we're looking at contingencies, you know, if we have to go full hut and just do apartments tied to the building, or if we, you know, how we can do with the condo. Um, also condo, um, you know, the condo regimes out of when Florida had their problems with the condo falling down, you know, and then suddenly that became an out of O uh investment. Uh so all those things are fluid, and you've got to find a banker that's willing to say, yeah, I believe in you guys. And uh so those are all the fun things of people think, you know, this is an easy business. Well, you guys know it's not an easy business, and you better know how to dance and be fluid, and yeah, and uh, but the the bottom line is it's still trust. You know, people have to trust you, your word has to be good, and and you got to follow through. Uh, you know, I was thinking during COVID, we had Feed Munch Center. We went several months. It's a small business that's that rents 1,200 feet from you, and uh, they're a small business. They're they're hoping to make it payroll that next one. Right. You know, and they got hit with COVID, they got shut down. We said, I said, they're a small business. Let's just give them so many months of free rent. I mean, yeah, that's the thing we can do.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yep, I mean we're a community, we're in this together.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

They didn't they didn't ask us, we gave it to them because that's how you do. You know, these people, their wife works there, they work there, their kids work there. Yeah, this is their livelihood, right? It's not about big commercial investment, it's about family, people, children. You know, it's that's everything in life.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah, it's the treat people you want to be treated.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah, so those are the things that I think we do in the Midwest that sometimes at the REIT level and other things, they treat it hard and fast, and a dollar is a dollar, and a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, but no, it isn't it's people, families, husbands, wives, children, customers. And when you approach it that way, I think it's a long-term approach, right? So even though things have to make sense, you gotta use your head in real estate, but the beauty in the Midwest is is female.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I think we look at the community versus the bottom line would be a fair statement. And and I think you're the epitome of that, and like the perfect example for that kind of situation. Jump back into the bold. Um, and I think the big the the big question I think for all of us is construction costs. Oh boy. And and and that is a that is a tumor and has been for you know years. Um talk about how that's affecting your vision on the project and just just just explain that because that that would be difficult.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, you know, when you go when you go and say we're gonna be Lincoln Bold and we're going to be luxury, and then you have all these great ideas, and then you find out what they cost, right? Because the project started at 85 million, and then one of the bids we got was 115 million. Wow, you know, boom, and you go, where did that come from? Well, yeah, concrete money, right? And then the windows, the windows for that project, our original quote was like 15 million dollars, just for remnants because it was all glass, it was like all the structure. So those are all the things, the nuances you have to work through and say, how can you do that? Less expensive. Uh, without how do you do it without kind of impacting the visual or the feel? You know, there's a feel about luxury. And you so you know, we work through that many, many times. And I'm sure we'll have to do some more work independent on what the financing comes through. But everything, once again, you have to put through that that uh focus on the debt service coverage ratio, the rental income, what your net operating income is, and how it will service that debt.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Do you find that maybe, and I'm just gonna throw that $115 million price tag out there? Do you do you have an inkling that maybe that was the highest that you're ever gonna see out as a bid on a building for for of that sort? I mean, can we only go down with supply chain issues kind of releasing and in in costs?

SPEAKER_02 27:18

I mean that's a great question. And what what we're seeing is the labor cost has gone up and we'll probably stay up.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Is that what you guys are sensing? Yeah, I think that's probably fair.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I I think contractors are figuring out that it's a supply and demand curve, and there's only so many of us electricians, for example, out here. So so yes, we need to find a threshold uh of of where we can kind of equalize everything, and I think they're figuring that out. So yes, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

And we've seen, as you guys know, we've seen some commodity areas that have gone down, like lumber, for example, during the the height of COVID $1,600,000 more foot. Yep, and I don't know what it is currently, but I know it went down $300, and I like that. Um, and we saw that with some cement issues, we've seen it with a lot of electrical conduit and electrical wire and stuff, so all that stuff. But generally speaking, you know, we we saw a 20 to 25 percent hit since when we started drawing up the the project to when the drawings were done. So we're hoping that we'll moderate, obviously, because we still have to fit a budget. And so um the other thing is just the intensity of building. And we've seen it at the CRE summit last Friday. It was interesting to hear bankers and when when people said, What's your deal flow? And the bankers, two of them said on the panel, they said, We're only doing 25% of what we were doing in Europe. That's crazy. 25%. So that means that's gonna take the pressure off of some of this cost inflation, and hopefully we'll see a moderation. But that maybe that's my hard talk and not it makes sense it would flow that way. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, what's bad news for them hopefully will be good news for future projects. But like you said, Mark, at the beginning of the program, we're probably gonna see a 12-month area that's kind of like everybody's like, well, let's just see what happens in 12 months, yeah, right. That's what my sensing on the market is.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

I think we need to get the institutional investors back into the ballgame. And I think they're sharp enough of a pencil to figure out that, like you had said, you can go get a five and a half percent uh CD. So why why would I look at anything that's a six or seven cap and and uh ownership of any building doesn't want to come to the realization that they should have sold two years ago and now they're stuck with where they are. And I I just think that's just the model that we're working with. And and even on all the projects, and and Mike, you can follow me up here, but e even all the projects that we've taken to the finish line on on the sales side, it's all been users. Yeah, yeah, no investors.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Um, you know, I hate to use the term 100%, but pretty darn near.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Oh, pretty darn near. And and I think that's a good uh a good snapshot of what we're dealing with. Yeah. So I think we got a little bit of ways to go, um, but I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. Um, we get the question uh we get the question all the time are are we are we going into a recession? And a wise man once told me that if you get asked that, then you are in a recession. Um and and and I don't know if that's true or not, but it I think it's one of those things you don't know until you look back, and and I think you know it's true. All recessions are different. When this first started, we'll say a year and a half, two years ago, everybody kept asking, Are you gonna see the same thing we saw in 2009, 2010? Well, I don't think you'll ever see the exact same thing that you saw. I think there's just always a diversified way to look at it.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

So there's a lot of money still in the market. I just announced the Fed just announced that consumer spending was up like 7.7 percent for the month. My goodness sakes, that doesn't that's not a preamble to a recession, right? Right. So I there's so much money. I mean, I'm in the travel business as well, and you can't believe the number of people taking expensive trips to Europe and and other places that that we just never saw before. I mean, and uh so they're saying, and we also saw that I saw a really interesting graph just this morning that showed how people had moved from buying possessions to buying experiences. Yes. Okay. So they basically said, I'm not buying that couch and chair, I'm gonna use it to go on a cruise to Europe or whatever. So they're moving to from spending all those billions and trillions on on possessions to experiences. That's a massive change in that. That's interesting. Yeah, that's a good article in the Wall Street Journal. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

So buy a trip instead of a Rolex.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Oh, what I can imagine. Yeah, I think uh I I would agree with it.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Well, a lot of people are doing it in the context of a family, you know. They're saying, how do I get intergenerational uh out of this? How do I take grandpa, mom, and dad, right, and the grandkids, and it's the one time in their life they can create a memory, pull them all together for that memory where that couch and chair probably aren't memory.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

Right. It might smell funny years later. This couch smells like grandpa's pike.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Well, well, the good news is is commercial real estate and real estate in general, it's always been we've got residential, we've got commercial, we've got retail, all those uh have always been a great investment. They'll continue to be a great investment. The more shows like that, this that you guys put on, which I compliment you for your leadership, that will educate me about how you do them and how you can be successful. So I really am glad you guys are taking the leadership role in our community or state or nation by educating people about hey, you can just put in a simple C D or you can have an impact on a community right by building a building a vision, helping a small retail store, helping a family get an apartment, stay a home. I mean, those are those are grand and great ideas.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Yeah, we appreciate those kind of work, Steve. That's that means a lot to me, Mark. You listen, you like it. That's that's that's really really nice to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Well, I'll tell you what, Mikey, I could go on for days asking questions to Steve, but we gotta wrap this up at some point.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

We do, I'm sure. It has been a wonderful conversation. It has been. We'd love to have you back sometime.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Oh, I'd be honored. This is really cool. Um uh upstairs from the vault here, uh, the new cafe deal.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, yeah, the main floor.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

They just if you haven't checked out the UBT new cafe lobby, you gotta come check it out. Stories coffee is here, yeah. Um, which is really good. My sister just texted me a picture of it. Um so she checked it out. So it's it's cool. It's it's an experience, it's like you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Yeah, and really nice, and it's just brief for you know a company like uh Union Bank and Angie and her family, just uh great people. Yes. I mean, what a blessing to our state.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

We've got good good people here. But well, thanks a lot, sir. Appreciate you taking the time, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

See you, Mark.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

See you, Mikey.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of NAI FMA Realty. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. NAI FMA Realty disclaims any liability or responsibility for any individual's views or reliance on the information presented in this podcast.