Utah's #1 Investment Broker

Bryce Blanchard, Utah's #1 Investment Broker is on the podcast this week! Bryce sits down with Chad to discuss the win wins in commercial real estate and how to create them, the power of investing in yourself, and how to be successful in CRE. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Early in my life, I wanted security as fast as possible. And I must have read books and I took it, you know, NBA finances. So the principle become pounding interest to me resonated. So if I was gonna spend a dollar, I literally had to say to myself, do I want that enough? What I'm gonna trade that dollar for rather than having 10 cents the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Chad Moore, your host. Today, we tracked him down. We tracked down Bryce Blanchard, the number one investment broker in commercial real estate in the state of Utah. And it wasn't easy. Took a lot of phone calls, a lot of text messages. Um love Bryce. I've known Bryce my entire career. I'm super excited about this pod. I've been on the schedule for a minute and I keep thinking about it. I woke up this morning, I was excited about it. You probably didn't think about it at all until about five minutes ago. But before we jump in, I'm gonna surprise you with something.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Oh, this is gonna be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

And this is what they said. I said, give me one superlative that makes you think of Bryce above everything else. Don't think about it, just say it. And these are what they are exciting, positive, energetic, intelligent, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and the one that I thought was the coolest, engaged. I love all those. Sweet. I just thought that was cool. Thank you for doing that. I thought that was cool. Um, so anyway, without further ado, I'd love to turn it over to you. Give us your origin story, your journey. Um, we can kind of talk about the whole thing as we go, but I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Thank you, Chad. I'm excited to be here. And as you know, I'll start with kind of the the end of the story, at least where we're at today. And that is I'm so excited to be part of Newmark Mountain West. And the merger that happened in in August was a breath of fresh air for me personally and professionally, as well as everybody at Newmark. So us being back together, the family's been re-an reunited. That has been super exciting and has supercharged our productivity, our synergy, and our view of our role in this marketplace and what we can accomplish with you guys. So that's been super fun. Um, and that was the that's where we're at today. My my story started in a small town in Oregon, one of eight kids. Uh, my dad later in life discovered the industry of real estate. And so I had some good the great David Blanchard. Yes, he is a great. And he was more on the administrative side of the business. He wasn't a street broker or a developer, but he was he was a people person. And he he uh had a great following around the country in his early days uh as the membership director of NAI and then he worked with some clients like Airborne back in the day, which became DHL. Anyway, my dad's a great man.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

He's a great guy. Yeah, actually, if I'm sure there's some people that are listening that know David Blanchard, I met him when I was 16 just randomly at a at an NAI company party. Um, and he was he was everything you just said he was just a super energetic, awesome guy. And I'll actually ask you some questions about him later, but sorry, I interrupted you.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

No, that's awesome. And I love the fact that people know my dad because I I would not be where I'm at today without him and my mom. Uh so I went to Linfield College. I was a sports guy, I loved playing sports, I played baseball and basketball there, but I realized early on I was better at academics and sales. And so I took a liking into the business world, started looking at stocks and investing. And my dad actually got me a job interview in Utah, actually, uh after I graduated from Linfield with the infamous Bill Martin. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And Bill was in the middle of a uh brand change that we didn't know about at the time from NAI to a caller.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

To call yours, yeah. I was there right when that happened.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

And I was collateral damaged. Bill didn't hire me after I drove out here in a broken leg in a truck. Uh, he said he was gonna hire me and then didn't. So I kind of thought, you know what, screw those commercial real estate guys. They're not very good people. Yeah, and in Bill's defense, it was a weird time for him to then bring me on because I was David's son. Anyway, fast forward, I ended up a year later moving to Utah now to do grad school. I got an MBA at BYU in finance. And so that was my foray into Utah. At that point in time, I wasn't gonna do commercial real estate. I was had my sight set on going to New York and being like a sports agent or an investment banker. But I met this guy named Mike Falk at a dinner in 1998. Another legend, another Utah legend. And Mike and I took a liking to each other. He said, Are you good with spreadsheets? I was like, Yeah, I'm pretty good with spreadsheets. Can you sell? Yeah, I can sell. He's like, I want you on our team. So I was one of the first hires coming out of grad school for NAI Utah, which was a startup here in 98. And I joined in in 99.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And there, Mike said, uh, well, if you're good with spreadsheets and uh you can sell a little bit, we're we're pretty good in some of these specialties, but we don't have an investment guy yet. So he said, Do you think you could sell investments? And I, to this point in my life, I'd never owned a property, I never leased a property, never managed a property, I had a negative net worth, and I didn't even know where Highland Drive was. I was student provo. So my answer, of course, was yeah, of course I can sell investment properties. So that's been a theme in my life is to bet on myself, um, to take risks, to create an opportunity for access for upside. And with Mike and the early guys, they they were great mentors. They had good clients, they had good market share, and I was able to find my niche in investment sales. And originally it was a focus on industrial product, because that's what my partners had great uh market share in. But then I realized in a market like Utah, if I'm gonna sell industrial investments, I really need to learn office and retail as well. And so in May, that'll be 27 years. I've been focused on selling retail, office, and industrial investments. And the people here in Utah, I was a Blazer fan, I was an Oregon guy, but I fully converted, as you know. My love for the jazz. Well, because I've converted, I've become part of the fabric of this community. We've raised our four children here, my wife, Shelly, and I.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

There is no greater jazz fan than Bryce Blanchard.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

It's funny.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I've been to jazz games, many jazz games with Bryce. He knows everybody there. He knows literally everyone. I don't talk about fans, I'm talking about like employees, fans, anyone in the room. Referees, all the referees. I play pickleball with several of them.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It's crazy. So we've got we've tapped into that jazz ecosystem, and I just think Utah is such a great community. I'm so grateful. I found it. I raised a family here, I built a business here, and we're never gonna leave. This is home.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

What uh we were talking about your dad before, who I am a huge admirer of. I love David, he's a great guy. What what did you like what did you learn from him that you apply to your life, to your business life now?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, I mean, number one, he had a work ethic that was unmatched. That guy, you know, raised eight kids and and was all over the country, just had a motor. He was traveling like crazy. So the energy, the positivity, some of those comments, I would say I'm a chip off the old block in that respect. My dad also had he wasn't educated. He didn't have the resources to get a degree. And he was from an even smaller town than me in Oregon. And so he was a self-made bootstrap guy. Where he would tell you his most success was is he authentically cared about people. And people could say, well, hey, business is business, and that's kind of hokey. But the fact is, he authentically loved everybody in the business, even his competitors. And he, I think, framed for me how to be a player in the industry and find win-wins, and to do it in a way where you don't have to burn bridges, you can um create abundance around you, and you can do it authentically caring about every counterparty or stakeholder in a transaction. And so that that genuine love for fellow man and that work ethic, and uh I think were things that my dad modeled very well for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Do you think that carries through? I mean, obviously you're dealing with these huge institutional level clients out of New York or Chicago or LA that are managing billions tens of billions of dollars. Do you think your uh authenticity in Utah translates to them? Or do you think they're all just cold heart, you know, give us the deal and we don't care?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

I think there's a continuum. Some are at different spots on that continuum, but I do think that there is a sense of this marketplace, that this is a place where people can come raise their family, have a business, low tax, low regulation, low crime, great quality of life. And so it becomes an investable community. And people know that while that's all arrows on an economic indicator sheet, at the end of the day, there's also a heartbeat in Utah. And that heartbeat comes from, I think, the goodness of the uh of the people, the quality and the values that are here. And so I try to embrace that and model that. We're insanely competitive here, right? We all want to win, whether it's cheering for the U or BYU or the Jazz, the Mammoth. So we're a very competitive community. Youth sports here is huge, and everybody wants, you know, we got the Olympics again. So Utah has got a competitive spirit that I think is uh compelling, but I also think the institutional guys um look carefully at why they would invest here. And it's been a welcoming place. We bring people in and they feel like people are friendly, people are working hard, it's investable. And and the institutions at the end of the day, yeah, it's about numbers, but those numbers are backed by principles and values. And so I think they pick up on that. And as a frontline sales guy, introducing them and doing the tours and doing the calls, I think I'm able to model that in a very real way. And they pick up on that. They like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah. Hey, you know, what's the other thing that's really interesting is do you think there's I've known you for 25 plus years. And when I met you the first time, I was a huge admirer of you. I've always been that way. And there's one thing that's really interesting, and maybe you would disagree with me, but I've always felt like you're a highly disciplined human being. And in my career, I've always felt like discipline equals success in what we do in brokerage, maybe not in all aspects of uh business or life, but how do you think that plays in? Like you mentioned sports. Yeah, there's always that weird. Have you ever heard people say that like uh former collegiate players translate to commercial real estate brokerage really well?

SPEAKER_00 10:08

For sure. Yeah, I think I think the discipline, the structure. Um Lipsy, you know, the company that tracks the commercial industry, did a study and they said, what are the factors that that translate into a very successful commercial real estate broker? And you might think, was it negotiating skills, salesmanship, uh, work ethic, uh, education, all these different things, economics, finance, knowledge. There were two prevailing indicators for what makes an alpha in our industry. And those two things that came through on every person was intense competitiveness. So there's your college athlete parallel. And then what they call the have a beer factor. Are you the kind of person that other people want us to hang out with, spend time with, reference in their social circle? You need to be a hub to the spokes of your community. So for me, it's have a root beer factor, but the same kind of principle. And those two things, if you think about it, chat, are actually at odds with each other. So like the princes principles of justice and mercy. How do I satisfy both? Yeah, how am I intensely competitive, but do that in a way that you don't drive people off? Because a lot of competitive people are hard to be around.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Did you ever read that the first David Goggins book? No, you know David Goggins book. I do, yeah. Yeah, it's actually he said exactly what you're saying right now. He is the most competitive human in the world, but he also admits everybody hates me. I'm a total prick. And so he never was able to like mesh the two together.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah. And the broker has that id, that it factored to be both very disciplined and competitive, but do it in a way that is still likable. Yeah. That translates into some charismatic influence and sociality that people want to be close to you. You don't piss them off because you're constantly trying to win every argument. And I think that's why, as a broker or any stakeholder in our business, it goes back to do you have the ability to create win-wins? Are you listening to what the win is on the other side? And do you have the intelligence, the created creativity, and the desire to literally put together win-wins and then have the technique to communicate that in a way that doesn't feel inauthentic and that is real. And people trust you really did go for a win-win there. So I think the athletic thing did translate for me. And in my life, I'll I'll tell you, you know, I one of the things I'm 51 now, Chad. And I think you and I'm one of the reasons you're probably doing this podcast is you've learned in life and you want to give back, whether it's through a mentorship or you know, I'm teaching some classes at the U. I mean, you want to give back because we've done this for a while. And so this podcast is a great way to give back. And as you say that, one of the things I've been telling everybody that will listen to me, I do this little thing called um in my car. It's called uh consulting from the car. Yeah, two or three minute minute sound bites. But one of the things that is a life hack for productivity, the discipline you talked about that everybody should do that listens to this. And it's what's helped me be successful. Because as you know, in brokerage, it's popcorn. You make commitments, you say you'll do this, you need to follow through on that. You've got 20 different deals going, plus, you got your wife and kids and your social life and your civic stuff. I mean, it's not a lot.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

So I have created a system of discipline, and that is if I agree to do something, anything, make a commitment to you, to her, or even as important to myself, quietly, that commitment then is either done in that moment, check, or it gets put in a master task list that second. And if it's time sensitive, then with a date or time of when I will do it, or I don't say yes. Because what drives people crazy is people in their life, in business and brokers, if people say they're gonna do something, do they do it?

SPEAKER_03 13:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Do they fall through? And if you're busy, you might intend to do that, but I can sleep at night because before I go to bed, I have looked at that list 10 times during the day, and I've been working things off that list and it keeps me straight. So the minute you say to anybody that you'll do something, if it can't be done that moment, it's got to go to a place, an a calendar or a two-door list, and you've got to hold yourself accountable. And then people, my dad likes to say service is a byproduct money is a byproduct of the service well rendered. This is a David Blancher call. That is a David Blancher code. And he said, if you serve people and if you take care of them, you follow through with your commitments, they will stuff money in your pockets. And I found that to be true. The world needs people that care about them and serve them and follow through. When you say you're gonna do something, you better do it. The busier are, the more you gotta have a system.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So when my suspicion of you being highly disciplined was was 100% accurate. You're very disciplined.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, I mean, it's health and fitness, whatever it is in my I'm I mean, discipline's a good word for it. Maybe it's ADD, maybe it's OCD. I don't know. I might have a condition, but I need to get a lot done every day. And yeah, I've got a a certain way that I get it all done.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

I don't know if you, I'm sure you remember this, but a long time ago, 20 plus years ago, you did something called, I can't remember the name of it, but it was like a fitness, uh, financial fitness is what it was. Oh, yeah. Financial fitness. A little seminar. Yeah, you did a seminar, I think it was after hours or something. Yeah. And I actually went to a couple of them. So uh what a lot of people don't know about you is you're this incredibly successful commercial real estate broker making all this money. But you have a different side also where you're heavily involved in you know, financial planning and you're always preaching about save money and do this and do that. Commercial real estate brokers are probably like all salespeople, notoriously bad with their own money.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, money in, money out.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah. So we can make a lot of money, but man, do we figure out a way to spend a hundred five years?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

When you get six figures coming in, it's hard to not say wahoo and and go do.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Even though you haven't had six figures coming in for about 20 plus years, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, no, I I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Um It's been a little more.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I I've committed when I was a kid, I would play Monopoly by myself and I would build spreadsheets and investment. You gotta write that down by the course. This is true. My wife's actually hanging a picture in my office at home. We were just remodeled with a Monopoly board to pay tribute to the fact that I would sit there and do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Did you switch places?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, yeah. I would play with myself because I couldn't find any of my siblings who were as competitive as me. So I was, you know, anyway, a little messed up. But uh, and then I would build stock portfolios. Before I had the money to buy stocks, I built fake portfolios. Um, and both my dad grew up with a very uncertain financial childhood, and and to some extent until I became much older, um, we had a lot of that. And so early in my life, I wanted security as fast as possible. And I also read books and I took it, you know, NBA in finance. And so the principle of compounding interest to me resonated. So if I was gonna spend a dollar, I literally had to say to myself, do I want that enough? What I'm gonna trade that dollar for, rather than having 10 cents the rest of my life. Literally, every time I do buy anything, that was the calculus in my own mind. And so early as a broker, uh, I started putting money into investment deals. I bought my first stock in 1999 with my first commission, bought Verizon. I still own it to this day.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Verizon Warner, that's my client.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

There you go. I love Verizon.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

It doesn't do as well as it used to.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

It's got a good dividend, over a 6% dividend. So there's different reasons to own different things. But yeah, I have a huge believer in stock and investing, huge believer in putting money in our industry, huge believer in compounding interest and also investing in what you know. So I invest in companies and with people and in real estate that I personally know. Where I find there's so many tragic stories is when people invest in things that other people know or other people say they know, even worse.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

I I think one of the tricks of the trade is find develop expert power in your life where you know something better than other people. Then it becomes very investable. And I would tell people to find out what that is and what they have a passion for. And companies, when I was paying for gas every day, commuting downtown when I was poor, I realized I'm a price taker with the oil companies. I can't not go to my job. So what did I do? I wanted to financially hedge that and I bought oil stocks. I'm up hundreds of percent in energy funds, Conico, Phillips. Uh, I realized that Amazon showed up every morning at my house now. Well, I want to be on the other side of that trade. So I bought Amazon stock. I saw my wife started buying Amazon. So every time a package shows up, I'm like, great, more money in my, you know, my stocks going up. So I think you create for yourself financial hedges, invest in what you know. And I also have seen people in my life, you get over your skis with investments, and what's the right size of an investment? This is an important concept. It needs to be big enough relative to your chip stack, your other diversified investments, your liquidity, your net worth goals, that if it goes well, like it mattered. I get a little bit of an endorphin spike, it mattered. If it's too small, it's like whatever. The investment well went well, it didn't matter. But the investment can't be so big that if it goes poorly, it changed my lifestyle, my wellness, my sleep, my stress levels. So each time anybody, and sometimes there's a FOMO and something's going well. So you say, Oh, let's double down. No, no, no. Unless the double down is the right amount because things have gone very well in other departments. So I preach a lot to people that that want to listen to investments. Invest in what you know, and the size of the bet needs to be enough to matter, but not so much than if it goes bad.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Two of my mentors uh in that respect, Herm Franks and my brother Bob Moore always said the check on an investment needs to hurt. Not a lot, but it needs to hurt a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

I like that. That's a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

And never do one deal that can sink your whole ship.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

And I've always those two things I've always tried to live by.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah. I love that. Never bet the farm.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Never bet the farm.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Unless you're in your 20s, you can build a new farm.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I mean, how many times have you seen that?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah, oh, so many times.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

It's it's brutal.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

It's brutal. You can't have one deal, your last deal, your biggest deal, unwind the previous 10 or 20 that got you to that spot. So I mean it's an age-old principle of diversification, and you can't be greedy.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

So last month you closed a hundred million dollars of commercial real estate. That's true. In one month. It was a good February. And you're 51, and um you don't need the money at this point, obviously. You've been making a lot of money for a lot of years. What? What drive it's not money that drives you, obviously. What drives you?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah, I mean, those six deals, it was two retail and office and three industrial. And I've got a great team, by the way. I'm gonna shout out Steve Walt and Suzanne Bender, who've been with me for years. They're they're incredible in doing what I do. But so so they're part of what drives me. I've got a team and I like working with those people. Uh, we've been working a long time. We flow well together, there's no drama. We're like brothers and sisters. Um, they're in my estate for heaven's sakes. That's how important they are to me. And um, Steve and Sue are amazing. So they're part of the reason I can still produce at this level because I have a big life. I I like to travel, I like to coach my kids. I have passions of golf and pickleball, a lot of community stuff I do. So what drives me still, though, Chad, and you'll appreciate this, early on as a broker, it's tough. Your your knuckles are bloodied, your mouth is dry. I mean, you're just begging to get hired. You're working on tough assignments, people treat you like the water boy. I mean, it's brutal.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Get your hands on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

But if you work at this long enough and you and you work hard enough, you you develop a brand and a market share and clients and relationships and know-how and comps and history. And I I can drive up and down this, I've sold 550 deals in the state of Utah. I can drive around this town. I'm like, I sold that, sold that three times. I own that one. And and there is an intoxication of the connection of this business out as an alpha male to retire to what? We are built to create, to build, to serve, to love, to, to, to get up in the morning and conquer. And so I'm pretty good at some other things in my life. I get to teach, I like to play golf. Pickleball is an addiction right now, but I'm best at real estate. So why would I leave what I those dues that I've paid? And I tell people all the time we're not curing cancer in real estate. We're at the end of the day, we're making most of the time rich people richer. But but and you say I don't care about the money. I don't, I money's how we keep score. Sure. So, and I like to win, I like to play games. Play online Scrabble, I play boggle. Like I like to win, I like to compete. Real estate gives me the opportunity to still uh compete and to win and and and to serve people, to problem solve, to get to yes. And to me, it is not about the money anymore, but it's about all those other principles. And that's that's really what drives me. And I'd love to have more people come into my business. You know, I've I've named it the Blanchard Investment Group. And, you know, I think over time it's gonna outlive me.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I like that. Yeah. And you just hired somebody else on your team too.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, Brandon Nelson, who's been a property manager for 12 years. And uh yeah, that's a great example, Chad, of how I want to help other people find success in this. And there's momentum in this business. And the minute you step out of the deal wheel and you unplug, you your power in the business goes way down. And so as long as I've got the horsepower and the right team around me and clients that'll keep hiring me, I want to keep having $100 million months.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

But so you're a big, you're a big happiness guy. Like you're one of the happiest people outwardly that I've ever known in this business. I've never, and I've worked with you for 25, I've never seen you down. I'm sure you have been. But I kind of view myself as a steady guy. I'm never up or down. But you're one of those rare guys that like can be up all the time and never fall below the baseline.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Is that intentional or is that just I mean, some of it's probably how I'm just wired, and then some of it is absolutely intentional. Uh I would say I'm addicted to finding to living an optimal life, uh, to being happy. I also don't come from a lot. And so I have this viewpoint every day of gratitude where I I feel like like I have so much gratitude in my heart every day that and I, you know, you read books when you're young, a man search for happiness, and you and you and you realize that happiness is a choice. And a lot of happiness, there's an equation behind happiness. Happiness equals expectations minus results. Sorry, results minus expectations. I have always kind of said, I don't expect success. I don't expect to be given anything. And every little thing in my life, the sunset, I appreciate for a sunset. And so I think if you have a set point of gratitude and your expectations are low, then when your results are high, that delta between results and expectations is happiness. So when a client thinks my property's worth 100 million, you get them 90, they're pissed. If they think if the same property sells at 90, but that they thought they were getting 80, they're thrilled. Now, in both cases, the property sold for 90. Right. So managing expectations for our clients and for ourselves of what we're entitled to. I don't think I deserve anything. I don't think I'm entitled to anything. So God has blessed me with health and and wealth and relationships and family. And I'm just I just feel so thankful. So I think the happiness is a result of not feeling entitled, not feeling I deserve anything. And so what I have obtained and experienced, I'm just so appreciative of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, that's awesome. That's a great attitude. What's the Jurassic Park mentality?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Oh, so you know, there's there's people that get really worried in life about the the latest trend that's gonna cripple society or change life as we know it. And we've had we've seen black swan events, the great financial crisis and COVID. And and right now, AI is the big thing. And everybody should be talking about AI because it is the thing. Yeah. I'm using it, and every day my mind is blown at new applications. I was talking with my daughter about her homework last night. We're talking about how to use AI to help her learn faster.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

I was too, except for I said, you need to do your homework. And she said, I'll just use AI, it'll take five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

But therein lies, I mean, are are we gonna buck the resources or are we gonna allow ourselves to say, now the critical skill is not obtaining the information, it's knowing how to frame questions that allow us to obtain the right information and then synthesize the information to apply it. That's actually where workplaces and education needs to go, rather than say, well, AI is shortcutting or cheating. It's not. We just need to reframe what we're educating ourselves for. Um, but my my sense of AI is Jurassic Park. If you remember that great movie, there's a wonderful line in it. And it says this life finds a way. Remember that? Yeah. It's awesome. And that is true. If you look at the history of our species in this planet, life finds a way. So is AI going to change the world and create 20% structural unemployment and vacant office buildings and take society so that we're eventually taken over by robots and everybody becomes just sloths, consuming and entertaining? I don't think so. Because I think life will find a way. Office buildings will find a way to repurpose. Humans still need collisions, they need culture. And so I've been selling a lot of office spaces, and that's the way that I'm using that phrase is everybody's freaked out thinking AI is going to cripple employment and it's going to render office space as we know it is archaic. And my point is poor office space, class B, C stuff that people don't physically want to be in, you might be right. It'll be converted housing or taken down. But good pieces of class A real estate, well-located, amenitized, with the right feeling. Humans need a place to gather. And so you should be buying office. If you're not buying office right now, the right building, the right rent roll, right location amenities. It's like saying in 2009 when the stock market was at a historic low, I just don't want to buy stocks because it's scary. When it's scary and the pendulum has moved, be a contrarian. That is the art of investing, is you have to buy when the herd has left.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

So you think there's a generational opportunity in class B and C office right now?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

I think B and C is a stock picker's market. You could get burned by B by buying B and C because I don't know that those assets will command.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

It's got to be some compelling story.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

I think I think the op the generational opportunity is buying class A office. B and C will eventually be repurposed, fueling more demand for office for class A. And replacement costs is going through the roof. Totally. And so the existing class A, I've sold 16 office buildings last year and a half, and I've personally invested in like nine of them because this thesis is real.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Most of which were class A.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

All of which are class A. That that to me is the thing. B and C is a different uh scenario entirely, and that's case by case. So yeah, life will find a way though. We are not going to go to structural unemployment, and office buildings are not going to be rendered as archaic.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

What do you feel like is the hottest sector within investment right now?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Well, everybody likes the sureness of industrial, and we live in a consumption economy and more onshoring with you know drama overseas and tariffs. And so industrial is the darling. It's funny because when I started in the business, the highest cap rates, the least sexy asset class was industrial. And we were mostly a flyover market. As was retailers. Yeah, those were retail went through a real dog time. And now it's a darling again.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

In 2008, 9, you you couldn't even get a bank to lend on a retail investment acquisition.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And now we're at 3% vacancy in retail. Yeah. Cap rates are, you know, in the sixes are lower. And debts, you know, it's debt's not even accretive to that. And so retail's hot for sure. Um, and we sell a lot of retail. Industrial can continues to be hot. Cap rates should be higher based on the yield curve, and they're not, just because people want to be in that space. It's seen as safe and it's seen seen as a place where rent growth can happen. Multifamily's got some challenges right now. We you've had other people on the pod. Definitely. Um, where we just got to work through inventory and work through concessions and affordability. But Utah is interesting because our claim to fame here used to be we're a low cost of business place.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Come exploit the housing arbitrage, right? The labor, cap rate arbitrage, all of it. Yeah. We were a low-cost leader. That was our value proposition compared to Phoenix, Denver, LA, Portland, Seattle. That has changed in our two and a half decades on the job here. We've become now a quality play, a flight to quality, a safety play, a culture play, um, a work edge play.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Not a week goes by that I don't talk to somebody in New York or wherever looking to buy something in Utah because they heard it was all those things you just mentioned. And I tell them a cap rate, and they're like, oh, I can get a six cap. I can get that same product in Texas or Alabama or whatever for 7.5. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

There's no growth. There's no growth in Alabama. Here we have, yeah, as we all know, the lakes and the freeway. We have the third world birth rate. We have still net in migration that's compelling. And so Utah's uh it's the place. I mean, Bergam Young had it right, right? It's the place.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

What do you think about uh I'm really polarized on this subject, but what what's your take on data centers?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, I mean it's certainly a darling right now in the industry, and and we know some people here that are doing it and doing it right. The and I'm not a data center expert, so uh if we talk about something I have deep expert expertise in, I'll I'll tell you that. But uh so I'm but I'm watching the trends. I mean, it's comes down to power availability and um you know finding the right uh land position and municipalities that'll play ball, particularly with the power. But based on how everything's going with the the demands for cloud and and AI, it's it's super, super compelling to play in that space.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, it's really interesting to me. And I just wonder if it's sustainable. If we've seen so many booms and bust cycles of niche commercial real estate over the years, and it feels like one of those on the surface, but you know, AI is so compelling. And still early stages. I don't want to use the sentence it's different.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

This different this time. I do think it we're early stages. Um, and so I think it's got room to run. That's my personal view, is there's absolutely room to run, and that's gonna stay hot for a while. At some point in time, like almost every trend, it'll get overcooked, and then it'll, you know, there'll be a boom and bust probably on the back end of this thing. But we're I think we're still in the second inning of that trend, maybe third.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

What are some cool things that you're excited about that you're working on personally? Obviously, you don't have to give us specifics, but yeah, just in general, like what excites you right now that that you see in front of you?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, I mean, the jazz going out of tank mode is like amazing for 2027.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

If that happens, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

It's gotta happen. We now have the pieces. I'm given good assurances by the powers that be.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Total side story. Yeah. I'm somewhere with Bryce 20 years ago. I can't remember where we were. We were out of town somewhere at some convention, and you and I were talking about something, and you looked at me and you said, I'll probably be the GM of the jazz one day. I did say that. And I was like, but nobody, nobody then, nobody now knows more about jazz top to bottom than you that I've ever met in my life.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Well, I love the NBA. I played college basketball, I've been a basketball junkie, which is funny because I'm a midget. So it's ironic that I was drawn to basketball, but I've always loved the NBA. And there was a time in my life where I like, maybe I'll do real estate for a while to build up my chip stack, and then maybe I'll chase that and get into the ownership and management side of pro sports. I also love baseball. Um, and I actually own a pro sports fund with Arctos uh as one of my investment vehicles. And right now, Chad, you talk about a passion I'm doing. Uh I don't know if I want to break this story right here. I guess we'll break it right here in the top. Let's go, let's go. I'm in final negotiations to buy a pro pickleball team and relocate that team to Utah. Nice. So that is a little side action thing for me that's gonna manifest my love for sports, put me in an ownership position. Um, I'm also hoping to play. Um this is self-serving. This is somewhat self-serving. It's like LeBron starting a new league. I'm gonna be a player owner. I'll draft myself first overall. Uh so I think pickleball is a huge trend that I've got passion towards, uh, both playing, owning the ecosystem. And I'm spending more and more time on that, supporting a lot of people that are in that space as well in different ways. The jazz are an exciting thing. Uh, clearly, the merger of our company to me was another level up, and getting us all under one roof is gonna be really exciting. Yeah, it's gonna be cool. Uh, on the personal front, Shelly and I are about to be empty nesters, and so our last daughter, Miley, is gonna be leaving us uh, you know, in a year and a couple months.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

So we're in the exact same boat.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

That's wild. So I do ask myself every day what's what's next. I think the pickleball thing's part of what's next, uh, is to love golfing. We got some charity things we want to do. I'm getting more involved up at the U. They've had me up there several times to teach. Yeah, it's cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

I I watched, I watched one of those.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. There's some passions out there. The jazz, you know, I don't think uh they've got a great jam with Austin Ainge. I golfed with him the other day, and they're going the right places, and that's probably a bigger job than I'm willing to take over my 50s.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Not that they're hiring anyway, but what's the deal with the with the pickleball? I mean, obviously it's super popular right now. Utah in particular, it seems like it's really gained a foothold here. Yeah. Uh Denver, I think, is another market.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Yeah, I mean, the Pardo family's from Utah, and so they started the PPA, and then the MLP side's the team side, and then they sold it to the uh big some big money in Dallas, a part of it. So it's on the rise. And if you look at the MLP teams, it's like who's who in uh cult pop culture. Athletes, A-list, celebrities, Tom Brady owns a team. It's like amazing. The people that are investing in pickleball. Vince Vaughn owns a team in the senior league, which is the one I'm talking about, and the senior leagues right now um joining forces with the MLP. So it'll all be one league, kind of like the PGA tour with the regular and then the senior division.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

So the team will be the Utah, whatever, and they'll tour. I'm working on the naming right now. I don't want to ruin that. Yeah, we we're but I'm gonna suggest the Yetis.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

We Utah Yetis is on the board. The Salt Lake Scrappers is another one. Salt Lake Scrap Shredders, Utah Summit. Uh, you know, there's a few things that we're bumping around. Um, we'll see. But the deal's not done yet. But but pickleball is a huge trend. Number one health and fitness trend in America. One of the reasons is you can be if you can walk and chew gum, you can step on a pickleball court and play. If you're eight years old, you can play. If you're 80 years old, you can play. And it doesn't take five guys and a ball. That's right. It doesn't take, you know, and the injury risks are lower. And so it's a beautiful sport. What I've seen, it's a combination between when a serve happens, it's like a football snap. There's that adrenaline of here we go, the play's on. But it has the fluidity and the spacing of almost like a basketball secondary break where you're moving the ball around and bodies are in motion, the balls move in spots. It's it's like physical chess. I I think it's the best thing going.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I can't wait for that. Yeah. So where would you guys play?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Well, there's multiple facilities in Utah and play at the Pickler a lot. Okay. Um, but there's a they're groundbreaking, I think, this month in a location in South Jordan, right off the freeway. That'll be the coolest facility, biggest, best facility in the world with 47 courts right off I-15.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Uh, that uh is part of the Utah Black Diamonds, and it'll be their home and it'll host international tournaments. Yeah. Utah's all in on pickleball. The big PPA tournament is in St. George next week at Black Desert.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

At Black Desert. Yeah. And you'll get a little bit of golfing in too.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

I will. It's gonna be 90. Global warming is real. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Turns out Al Gore was right. He may have been. Um, any other uh final advice you got for us? So you're always full of quotes and Brycisms. Yeah, that's a that's I try to write down as many of them as I can along the line.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

That's a great question. I I think um, you know, just find everybody's just gotta find things that that give them passion. And then everybody's gotta find and be true to their whys. Everybody should be intentional. I I think too often in life, uh, the inertia of our life, society's values, other people's expectations push and pull people different ways. And what I would encourage everybody is to to be quiet and just ask yourself, what am I doing and why? And um and be as true to that as you can be. And we all have, you know, there's mortgages to be paid and there's chores to be done. So it's not like we can all just, you know, chase passions from sunup to sundown. There's there's real life that gets in the way. But I think we're on this, we're on this earth to find our whys and to be true to ourselves and lift where we stand. Be great in where you've been placed in a family, in a community, in a business, and decide every day that every person you meet that day is a brother or sister, and you want to lift them, you want to bless them, you want to compliment them, you want to smile at them, you want to have an interaction that's positive because you give what you get in life. And I truly view the the world, it's not me against the world uh as a competitive. And I am super competitive, but I choose to say it's me with the world. The world is I don't experience it as my adversary, I experience the world as my ally. And I and I try to use things and people around me to accomplish things together. And I think that's a a healthy worldview. And that old saying that always resonates with me is how you do anything, it's how you do everything. So I just tell people be great in whatever you're doing in this moment. No how mundane or that nobody's watching, just choose to be great, be excellent in that thing, and then that pattern will permeate your life.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

I'm not gonna be able to sum up Bryce Blanchard any better than you just did. I love it. So I just want to say personally, I really appreciate it. Really appreciate you giving us uh some time here. I know you're super busy, and I had to drag you out of the way. And I was late making a deal. I'm so late all the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

That's one of my fatal flaws.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

You did come running into the room on a phone talking on about a deal. So all day, every day. Love you, appreciate you, respect you, and uh just gratitude and thankful that you're here and that we're doing this together for however many decades we're gonna finish this thing together. It's gonna be fun. Yeah, thank you. I'll be the first listener of this pod.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Love coming back at you. Appreciate everything you've done. The opportunity you've provided for us to bring the band back together and ride off in the sunset together is phenomenal. So personal thanks to you.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Thank you. Rice Blanchard, everybody. Thank you.

unknown 39:49

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

That was fun.