We like to see underwritten returns versus reality and actuals, and that step right there, a lot of times people just won't share. That's on deals that went full cycle, but also on active portfolio that they currently are holding. How's it going compared to what you expected? And then from there, what's their specialty and why, their background, how long they've been in this space. Are they truly experts in their niche real estate sector? For us, we're trying to, not beat them, but join them, right? So you wanna find groups that are much better at what at what they're doing than what you could do yourself, and so that's how we think about it.
If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family's chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates and freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal, and well, I've analyzed thousands of them, and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground. Greetings and salutations real estate undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. I'm really grateful. And do me a favor and please keep your comments coming because it helps us. Not only does it help us in terms of feedback and what we're doing well and what we can work on, but also it gives us ideas on the asset classes that you're paying attention to. And so it's an invaluable feedback loop that, that we really embrace. And it's one of the reasons that we have, have diversified, a lot of the guests that we invite onto the show is because you folks wanna hear about fund to funds and mobile home parks and self-storage and all the other really interesting asset classes that still that still math out, right?
And so with that I invited Mark Curry of SMK Capital Management. Mark thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to meet you, and I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Mark KhuriLikewise, yeah. Thanks for having me here, Ed.
Ed MathewsAbsolutely. Absolutely. For those folks who haven't discovered SMK yet, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you guys are and what you do, and then we'll get into it.
Mark KhuriSure, yeah. We are essentially a family-owned boutique private equity real estate investment firm founded, oh, 2010 we opened the doors formally. Prior to that it was just my family and I grouping and pooling our own capital in real estate deals. Today we essentially provide pooled investment vehicles for our investors, private real estate funds. We partner with operators in a few different real estate sectors that we know and trust to diversify, and we invest for income, growth, tax advantages. And we can dive into the weeds as to what we invest in and what we don't, but we look at about 600 to 700 different private real estate deals a year, and we invest in 1% to 2%, so call it 5 to 10 of those over that, that time period.
Ed MathewsAnd so with that are... I know you had a fund. You have several funds actually, but is it through the fund that you're doing that, or do you do syndications or specific op- do you operate these properties yourself at all?
Mark KhuriWe
used to operate from, jeez, 2010 till 2017. That was all we did as a firm. But personally, my family as well, we were LPs in a number of deals during that time period, and then we pivoted, stopped operating. We wanted to diversify and get access and exposure to other real estate sectors that we felt had really, attractive risk-reward profiles. And so call it the last 10 years or so now, that's all we've been doing, is, creating funds. We do invest in single assets, and we also invest in portfolios. We create diversified funds, and we also offer our investors, one-off deals as well. So a little bit of everything there.
Ed MathewsNow, I know you've mentioned family. Are you Have you built this as a family office, or are you Obviously, you're taking outside capital as well, but I'm curious what you're k- how you're organized.
Mark KhuriYeah it's, W- we're almost always investing in everything we offer our folks. Personally, myself, my family we do take outside capital, Ed, and so that was a pivot we made in 2010 when we expanded and actually formed our company. SMK is my father and I's initials. And so he's since retired, but we chat business every, every other day. We're on the phone chatting about what's going on. So it's family operated and also outside capital.
Ed MathewsYeah. And one of the things that I respect about your business is how selective you are in the assets that you do choose to invest. I Here at Clark Street, our focus is on I always talk about,
going for the no, right? And so we're actively one of the first filters we're looking at is figuring out why we don't want to invest in this property. And it be ma- mainly because I'm very cognizant of in- of confirmation bias, right? I can make any deal work, right? But do I really want to? And do I want to, as a steward of our investors' capital, right? Sure. And so I'm curious about your thinking in terms of how you approach deals.
Mark KhuriFor sure. For us, it starts with the sponsor and operating partner the people behind the deal. Yeah. A lot of our investments are with repeat relationships where we have active capital with them already, and so that helps because we know how they think. We are on asset management calls with them regularly. We understand their team, their underwriting their operations. So that's a big step for number one. Huge. Ed, the people. Yeah. And if it's a new sponsor bringing us a deal, then we we have a pretty detailed due diligence checklist of things that we need to see and understand and vet prior to considering an opportunity with them. And in full transparency, not every operator wants to deal with that. Might be a lot of work for them, and we've had folks just say- Good "Hey, like this is just too much for us." And so that's okay. We're not a good fit. We move on, right? There's thousands of sponsors and operators out there in our asset classes. And so it starts there. From there, it's deal analysis, underwriting, of course vetting. A lot of times we'll go out to the properties. There's a lot of red flags we look out for, Ed. Usually within five minutes I can screen a deal and see if it's going in the recycling bin or if we're gonna pursue it further and d- dive in.
Ed MathewsSure. So let's talk about the operator's questionnaire and how you approach that. It- I love the fact that your due diligence in terms of the operator themselves turns people away. Mission accomplished, right? And so I'm curious about, at least tops of the waves, what are some of the things that you're looking for in those operators, the information you're requiring them to provide so that you know that you're- Sure You're dating, right? And if you're gonna get married, you wanna know what you're getting yourself into. I'm curious what you're asking and what you're paying attention to.
Yeah. It's essentially we have a 40-point due diligence request list. Three categories that we bucket things into. First is just general firm information, then deal level, and then we have deliverables, requests for product mo- models, PDFs, you name it. And so the firm and the team credentials, we're typically looking for, let's just say 500 million-plus in AUM experience, multiple full-cycle deals. We like to see underwritten returns versus reality and actuals, and that step right there, a lot of times people just won't share. That's on deals that went full cycle, but also on active portfolio that they currently are holding. How's it going compared to what you expected? And then from there, what's their specialty and why, their background, how long they've been in this space. Are they truly experts in their niche real estate sector? For us, we're trying to, not beat them, but join them, right? So you wanna find groups that are much better at what at what they're doing than what you could do yourself, and so that's how we think about it. And then of course, there's the team depth, right? We try and stay away from one, two-man teams in case something happens and they are no longer around. How could that disrupt the business and our capital under management with them? So we wanna have asset management teams, acquisition teams, in-house financing and accounting personnel that are essentially handling things every day, right? 'Cause there's always work to be done. We do background checks on principals, key members, so we gotta have their
information and full names. Can't tell you, but couple times you just get people's first names, and that's a big red flag for us. It's like, "What are you hiding your last name for?" So that doesn't happen often, but we've seen a lot of things over the years, and so- Yeah, I don't
Ed Mathewswant you to, I don't want you to find out about my fraud felonies, right? Yeah something like that, right?
Mark KhuriNo, that's happened. That's literally one, one exact example. Oh, I have no
Ed Mathewsdoubt, Mark. I have no
Mark Khuridoubt. From there, obviously a big one, Ed regardless of- whether it's about them or their firm or their deals is communication. How well do they communicate? How transparent are they? And that is a process. It's not like a question and answer. You vet the communication style, frequency, and clarity over months of- Sure working with them to get to know and trust them. And so also how much access do we have to some of the key decision makers on their team, right? I love talking to the acquisition guys that are building the financial models. I have a finance background, so I'm great with spreadsheets and analysis and that's a big part of our strength. As a fund to funds manager, we have operations and underwriting experience, and so you put those two together, they go well with analysis of other teams and groups that we might wanna work with. Sure. And of course track record it- it's all, all important, Ed, as far as how that goes. And so again, I could rattle off mo- many other things. Let me pause and see what questions that brings for you.
Ed MathewsYeah, no, it's that's exactly what I was looking for. It's interesting because I meet investors... it happens less now than it did a few years ago, but, there were times where I had conversations with potential investors and I fully... my model is I think about dating and marriage, right? And when we're dating I'm, you're evaluating me, but I'm also evaluating you. And can this work? Can this can this... Do we share the same values? Do we share the same needs in terms of, and vision in terms of strategy, growth, versus income or a combination thereof? What is, what are you g- what are your plans for this capital? And I really wanna know because I really wanna make sure that any capital you're investing is in alignment with what we're doing. I don't wanna put a square peg in a round hole because at some point one of us is gonna get frustrated and I don't want that. That's not the way to build a business, especially when you're talking about people's- in- invariably you're talking about people's retirement.
Yeah, a big question for us there is, what is your preferred exit strategy for this deal? How and when are you planning to get out of it? And that alone can help you just learn how they think about longevity, if they want to hang onto this thing forever and just refi all the capital out and keep holding for p- perpetuity, or if they're thinking of, "Hey, three to five years we're gonna exit this thing." And so-
Ed MathewsYeah.
Mark KhuriYou gotta know that, that is a big part of alignment, 'cause for all investments you wanna know, how am I getting out of this thing and when?
Ed MathewsIt's the first question you need answered, right? Is when I need it, h- how do I get it back? And what are... And me as the either the fund person or the operator what are your expectations there so that I know that if that request comes, we're aligned and I can handle that in the course of operations as opposed to having to do gymnastics to make it work, which I don't wanna do, 'cause that disrupts everybody. Of course and setting that expectation and being transparent is really important. One of the things that, that I saw is, you have focused quite a bit, especially lately, on mobile home parks. And I'm curious about the, what you're seeing. I'm gonna ask you to pull your crystal ball out a little bit, right? What are you seeing in that asset class, and why mobile home parks versus, say, self-storage or multifamily or some of the other
places where you've put money in the past?
Mark KhuriSure. Yeah. Mobile home parks are very unique from other real estate sectors for a few different reasons and attributes. One we always talk about is supply. Very difficult, if not impossible, to build a new mobile home park in a desirable location and have it actually be affordable, and so that is due to several reasons. One, NIMBYism, "not in my backyard." Yeah, exactly. And a lot of municipalities essentially don't want them, not necessarily because of the demographic or the, the aesthetics. It's honestly a lot of times down to lower tax income than they can receive versus something else that could be built with higher and better use for tax income for the cities. And so that's one, one reason there is a a big moat around the asset class from a new supply standpoint. You also have, the reality is it's expensive to build new ones, and most of the new mobile home parks that we've seen, again, there's not a lot of them have had pretty expensive homes after they're done being built. They're just not af- not that affordable, honestly, Ed. And supply is constrained, demand is growing, and you put those two together, Econ 101, and you have a, what we think is a long-term positive trend that we wanna get behind. And we've been saying this for... geez, we started investing as LPs in 2012 in mobile home parks, so it's been a long time. But back then, going in cap rates, 10% was normal. You had a 10% preferred return. You get that start paying year one, and it was all, all relatively easier from a a, a numbers metric. But the, the space has expanded pretty greatly from a visibility standpoint. There's a lot of large private equity groups that are chasing mobile home parks. It's become a lot more competitive so it's harder to find great deals. But nonetheless, they're out there. You just have to have the right connections and the right teams and know who you wanna work with. Yeah. Another advantage in this space is, the ownership is predominantly mom and pop still. So you have it depends
where you read. 70 to 80%, maybe more of mobile home parks are still owned by mom and pops. And so you have one to two parks that they might own. A lot of families, they've had them in their families for many years, sometimes decades. They've been passed down. The younger the younger generation may not wanna deal with it, to be honest with you, Ed. And so a lot of times you'll see, I would say, mismanaged, underperforming communities that have a lot of value add upside, and we love those kinds of stories where, "Hey we are 100% occupied and, we just don't mess with this thing anymore. We don't wanna touch it. We haven't raised rents in five years." Whatever the story might be, Ed, right? "We're not charging the tenants back for utilities." There's a lot of low-hanging fruit where you can come in and create value, which leads me to the next advantage that we like. We think it's one of the easier sectors to create appreciation, force appreciation manually through value add strategies. A big one is occupancy. If you've got a community with 100 lots and maybe 80 of them have homes on them and they're occupied there you go. There's 20, 20 more lots you could infill, increase the number of lots and homes that you have under management and grow revenue. Almost regardless of what the market's doing, and I say almost 'cause there's always a market situation where you wouldn't do that. But you don't have to go out and build, you don't have to go out and essentially buy land, right? You can create a, a additional occupancy and revenue through, through that strategy. Another one is, taking park-owned homes and converting them to tenant-owned homes. Yeah. And so that is a big strategy we love to see.
It has a little bit more risk of course, because you don't really know for sure if the tenant wants to, is able to, capable of, essentially coming to homeownership and owning their homes. But we have had a lot of success in that strategy as well. Just to name a few. There's other things there, but a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to value add on a lot of these communities.
Ed MathewsSo that's an interesting The last point you made is interesting to me. So are you talking about selling the home itself? Is that typically A- and I know they trade for, anywhere from a few tens of thousands to a couple hundreds of thousands depending on the, the type of, of- mobile home. But the, I'm curious about the m- the method that they sell those off. Is it typically a bank f- can you finance those bank-wise, or is it, are you selling it to the tenant on terms and then using that as passive, another stream of passive income?
Mark KhuriYou can do both, just depends on quality of the home, the tenant's financials. There are loans available for folks to be able to buy homes, for sure. There, there's a rent-to-own option or a lease with an option to buy, where a lot of times the tenant might be your typical renter renting the house. And maybe I'll just make up some numbers for math's sake. Let's say it's $1,000 a month where they're paying for maybe it's $600 a month for renting the home and $400 a month for lot rent. If they wanna become the homeowner, you start essentially flipping that. You could go the other way around, "Hey, we're gonna charge you $600 a month for the home and 400 for the lot." And I might have mixed those two up as I'm going through- Yeah, but you could flip it- the example- No, I, I- But you get what I'm saying Yeah,
Ed Mathewsand thus the, the 600 becomes a the lot rental, and the 400 becomes a, an accrued down payment over time, I assume, is what you're talking about, right?
Mark KhuriThat, that's how it would go, exactly. Okay. And so the benefit of that is, when they own their home, they're responsible for maintenance, upkeep, and expenses on the home versus when we, the park owners, own the home, that's on us. And so your operating expenses go down, your more predictable income stream without so many, unknowns that could pop up. So that's a big benefit. Another one, we see a lot of used homes that will be essentially sold for very little, call it a few thousand bucks, Ed, to what we call handyman specials. These are, savvy contractors that will come in and renovate the house themselves, and they own it, and you hand them over title. And so you don't have to, outlay capital for renovations and upgrades, and you can get a, a tenant in there a homeowner in there much sooner. And so there's different ways to do it, as you can see in order to increase the affordable housing and homeownership. This is one of the best spaces to do that.
Ed MathewsSo knowing that private equity has been paying attention to mobile homes is this asset class still a darling, or are we getting trade crowded here?
Mark KhuriI
think both. And the reason why, again, going back to 10, 12, 15 years ago, cap rates were 10 plus. You can buy mobile home parks today in the 3, 4% cap rate range. There's It's some crazy numbers out there. We sen- tend to stay away from those. Usually there's a lot of baked in potential upside in those lower cap rate numbers, and they're usually in, high infill dense urban markets. So there, there's no supply around there. Usually nicer, higher four or five-star communities. You're buying it for long-term. We tend to focus more, I would say, on the middle. We stay away from war zones. We stay away from, dilapidated parks that have just no, no love in them. And so we try and find the stuff in the middle where you can improve the appeal, the curb appeal. Come in and put a bunch of capital dollars into renovations, paving the roads, adding in streetlights, adding in playgrounds, a mailbox, just a community mailbox center. There's all these different ways to i- increase the curb appeal and make it a, a more desirable community. And so that's a bit of what we're seeing. Now, multifamily over the last several years has, of course as we all know, suffered from a valuation standpoint. Rents are down. Vacancies are up. We've seen that sector, I say, get hit one of the hardest from a peak to trough valuations are down 20 to 40%, depending on where and what you're looking at, from 2022 to today. And a lot of the brokers in that space have shifted over to the mobile home park space lately because they're, of course, trying to keep revenue going. Sure. And there's a lot less deals happening in multifamily. And so we are seeing mobile home parks getting more competitive from that standpoint. There's a a, a lot of brokers that have entered and you're seeing a, a lot more bidding. But what most of our Honestly, most of our deals come from off market direct to seller. We work with a few operating
partners that, you know, have dedicated acquisitions teams that cold call and have been doing this for over 10 years, and they get a, 80, 90% of their deal flow is direct to seller without any competition. So that really helps.
Ed MathewsWow, that's great. So let me ask you, in terms of the deals and I have a feeling this is gonna be a target-rich question for you. What's the hardest deal you've had
in recent months that you really wanted to make work, but you just had to walk away? Yeah, what was the tell? What was the thing that kinda went, started the... what was that first red flag that, that kinda showed itself?
Mark KhuriYeah, honestly, s- a lot of it comes down to underwriting assumptions. And so when we're starting to look under the hood at the financial model, and you're looking at the trailing 12 or trailing 36 financials of the seller and how they were operating it, and then you see this expectation that we're gonna be, 30% less on expenses, it's just so hard to get comfortable with that, Ed. And don't get me wrong, we work with a lot of sophisticated teams that know these markets inside and out, and they they know their own numbers because they're operating in those markets. And so you try and get comfortable, but at the end of the day, you're just asking yourself, "Are we just being too aggressive here? And will it pencil if we decide to be a lot more conser-," excuse me, "conservative?" And so we'll stress test that, and we'll run our own analysis, and if we find that the expenses are just too what's the term, rosy
Ed MathewsYeah
Mark Khurithen we just can't get comfortable.
Ed MathewsOne of the, one of the things I learned very early in my career is that pro forma is actually Latin for full of shite. We'll say it that way. That's good. Yeah. So i- it's it- rosy is probably a more sophisticated way to say that. Sure. But all right. Anyway yeah it's interesting. It's I still look at I don't look at the volume you look at 'cause we're a much smaller shop, but we're looking to buy one or two deals a year, in terms of the acquisition operation part of our business. And on the debt fund side, we, we look at way more deals. But it's interesting. The sellers still, pro formas to this day, and, with technology and level of sophistication of the investor base, and, guys like you and me who've been doing this for a while we're asking hard questions that they may not have the answers to. Nevertheless, I still get Yeah n- not a week ago, I got a, a pro forma, an offering memorandum basically, that was talking about the cost envelope for operations was, like, 31% of overall rev. And I'm like, "No. No. That's not the way this business works." And, you dig, you spend five minutes and you dig into it, and you, you start to realize, okay they're self-managed. Their insurance is a third of what- Yeah it should be. The taxes are based on what the valuation is today, not what it'll be when they reassess after the sale, and, yada yada. And you're like, "Wow this is fantasy." Appreciate the effort. I would, I would do the same if I were on your side, but holy mackerel, that's not even close
Mark KhuriYeah, that's a, a big part for us just to add, like all the underwriting analysis, due diligence you can do, at the end of the day there's just one question you have to be able to say absolutely to, and that is do we believe that this investment has a very high likelihood of meeting or beating the projected returns?
Ed MathewsRight on. Exactly right. That's it. And one of the other things you said earli- earlier is, and that really resonated with me is, y- whether the valuation of the deal... see, we can't con- there's things we can control and things we cannot, right? Valuations will go up and will go down. You mentioned I think 30 or 40%, which, oh, that that's a number that would keep me up at night. But but the bottom line is through that market correction or whatever you wanna talk about or however you wanna f- frame it, cashflow still works, and that's what gets you through, your capital reserves and your cashflow is what you, gets you through when you're a longterm holder, three, five, seven, 10 year holder. That's what gets you through those lows, 'cause they come back, but you better have your ducks in a row in terms of the operation itself so you can weather that storm.
Mark KhuriAbsolutely. And have the right debt in place where you can weather the storm, where it's not coming- Yeah due at the wrong time so- You don't lose money by, by selling in a, in an up market, right? You sell in a down market. And so just hold on as long as you can and things will tend to work out.
Ed MathewsYeah, exactly. Yeah, time is your best friend in this world- Yeah in our part of the world. That's
Mark Khuriright.
Ed MathewsOkay, so let's get into the final five. So I'm curious about your purpose. Obviously you have done very well. You're you run a thriving business, and congratulations on that. I'm sure that the, the stuff at home is paid for, the tuitions and the mortgages and the car payments and all that. And nevertheless, you get to, you get up on Monday morning and go to work. So what i- for me, I look at that as purpose. So what is driving you? What gets you out of bed on Monday morning?
Mark KhuriI have a family. My kids are eight and nine, Ed, so they're still quite young. And that is honestly number one, just to continue to provide and do well. And I also love it, to be honest with you, Ed, right? So I got into this business 16 years ago formally, and I loved it five years prior to that while working in corporate America. I started investing in real estate on the side. And that's 20-plus years ago now. Y- there's a-
Th- there's this passion that you have to have, I think.
Ed MathewsYes.
Mark KhuriAnd every morning just waking up and saying to yourself "I have a choice. I could just do nothing today, in theory, and go sit on the deck and get some sun and take a nap," right? But is that really what you wanna do, right? Exactly. So it's of course family, but also, you gotta really love what you do if you can, and that's great. Yeah. Not everybody does, and that's okay, too. But I think that's a big part for me, is just really enjoying it.
Ed MathewsRight on. Right on. A- and so I'm curious about the mentors you've had along the way, whether that was in your corporate experience or now since being an entrepreneur working with your dad and the rest of your family. What's the best advice you ever got, and who gave it to you?
Mark KhuriYeah. One always comes to mind i- my f- when we were actually flipping houses way back in the day, and my father and I were partnering on a deal, and we had brought some additional capital in from some other colleagues and friends of ours. And I ran the underwriting. We had five different models for this one deal. And I told my father, I'm like, "Look, I- we can run the numbers all different ways,
just the question isn't whether it's gonna do well, it's how well it's gonna do right. So we're gonna hit 20% plus average annual return, whether we're on the low case, best case is higher, et cetera." He said, "Great. Show them 15." And just that was it, and it was for me, young at that age, you're aggressive. You wanna, show people how good you could do. That was a, a big one for me to just always work to try and of course, underpromise and overdeliver and provide projections that you really think you can beat, even with all the unknowns out there.
Ed MathewsAbsolutely. Yeah, because the brain damage that it causes if you don't is not worth it, right? Exactly. I would much rather say, "Hey, good news, bad news. The good news is we're gonna hit the 15% projections, and the there is no bad news. We're actually gonna hit 18%, and let's have that conversation," right? Yep. Yeah, I would much rather have those talks than, "Hey we're gonna have to have a capital call," which, oof, I feel for the folks that got into that situation over the last few years. Speaking of mistakes I fundamentally believe we learn way more from the, the moments we stub our toes than from our successes. So I'm curious about, a decision you made over the years that you look back on now knowing what you know and think, "Oh, man, I would love to have that one back." And how'd you manage through it?
Mark KhuriYeah I mean There isn't a specific one that pops in my head, Ed, just to be honest with you. We've been running a real estate business for 16 years full time. It's hard. Yeah. We're always faced with new challenges. There was a recession in 2008 and '09. We were investing back then. Drop in values, drop in rents. We had fires at properties that we've had to deal with hurricanes, storms, damages. All this stuff happens if you're in the business long enough. Obviously the pandemic, all bets were off when that hit, and of course the most recent interest rate hike, fastest pace in 40 years, right? So these are all headwinds and challenges that are very hard in themselves,
and some properties have fared better than others, especially when there's physical damage to them. So I'll just say, like for me, when I got into this business, I knew inside "You need to be able to bust your ass in order to be successful," right? You have to be able to take it on the chin and keep going, and k- going and going. And so that inner push, that inner confidence, always finding a solution to whatever the problem is, the best solution that you can possibly find is our job every single day. And so I don't know if that helps answer the question, but there's just been so much. I could talk to you about properties that have burned down, how we handled them and things like that. But at the end of the day, you gotta have a thick spine, and you gotta be able to just wake up and plow through a lot of the, the challenges that come our way, 'cause there's always something.
Ed MathewsSomebody I used to work for had said, that y- when it
hits the fan and it will there are leaders who, drop into the fetal position, and there are leaders who decide, "Okay, this is where we're at and this is how we're gonna manage forward," and you figure it out. And I will go to war... I will share a foxhole with anybody in the latter in the latter bucket,
Mark Khurithere you go.
Ed MathewsSo I'm curious about how you take in information whether it's audiobooks or, conferences or, you know- physical books. And m- more importantly, who are you reading these days? Who are you paying attention to?
Mark KhuriYeah. All of the above as far as taking information. I think over the years it's shifted to less physical books and more conferences webinars and, articles and reports on market trends and conditions. That's very specific to what we're constantly reading. Who we follow, Jay Parsons is great for multifamily. We like Marcus Millichap, Green Street Advisors, CBRE, a lot of these larger data houses that have tons of information that they can summarize and provide trends, updates, how things are looking. Are big, are a big part of what we do. As far as economists, there's a bunch out there, Ed, the only question is how wrong are they? But we also believe that a lot of them provide valuable information. One is Richard Duncan. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he takes a really more of a macro global view on where things are going. And so that's who we're following.
Ed MathewsGot it. Right on.
Mark KhuriSome of them, yeah.
Ed MathewsSo how do you define success in your life?
Mark KhuriYeah, I think it's gotten to the point now where, personally it's do we have to go to work or not? And- then if you have that choice, that's a big part of it. And then for our investors it's, are they coming back for additional deals, repeat investors? That means we're doing a good job, not just on performance at the assets, but communication to them is critical, too, right? Are all their questions being answered, or are they, wondering what's really happening behind the scenes? And if we're doing a good job and they're coming back for more investments and allocating additional capital, then that to me is us being successful.
Ed MathewsRight on. Right on. Yeah, I was actually in the Referring to your previous comment, I was ref- I was looking for the I was trying to remember the joke, and it was a, a Paul Samuelson, he was an economist, joke about, the fact that economists have successfully predicted the last nine, or nine of the last five recessions, over decades. That's
Mark Khurigood. Yeah.
Ed MathewsYeah.
Mark KhuriI love it. That's great.
Ed MathewsS- so when you're not talking about real estate what do you like to do for fun?
Mark KhuriYeah. I, My family and I live in Bend, Oregon. So for those of you that don't know it, just Google it and look at images. It's beautiful here. We are originally from the Northeast and lived in Southern California for many years, but Bend has been home for 10 years. And I mention it because, we are outdoors a lot. Skiing in the winter. There's a mountain 30 minutes from our door, and it's fun. It's great. Mountain biking, hiking, lakes, rivers, outside in nature a- as much as we can. That's a big part of our lives.
Ed MathewsYeah, I've got a My brother lives about 140 miles from me in Klamath Falls.
Mark KhuriOh, yeah. It's a
Ed Mathewsbeautiful part of the world.
Mark KhuriIt is. Yeah.
Ed MathewsYes. If people wanna learn more about you or SMK Capital Management what's the best way to get in touch?
Mark KhuriYeah. Honestly if people wanna find us, our website is a great place. smkcap.com. And they can, simply sign up, join our investor network. We provide a lot of education on what we're doing, what we're seeing out there, and of course investment opportunities along the way that we think are worth allocating to.
Ed MathewsAwesome. Mark Curry, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you nothing but continued success.
Mark KhuriMy pleasure. Thank you, Ed.