Hi, I'm John Coe and welcome to icons of DC Area Real Estate.
A one on one interview show highlighting the backgrounds and
career trajectory of leading luminaries in the Washington,
DC area real estate market. The purpose of the show is to
highlight their backgrounds and their experiences, and some interesting
stories about their current business, as well as their past,
and to cite some things that you might take away both from
educational standpoint as well as lessons learned in the industry,
and some amusing and sometimes interesting background stories.
So I'm hoping that you will enjoy the show.
Before I introduce my guest, I'd like to share that both this podcast
and the community I started in 2021 called The Iconic Journey in Cree,
is now part of a new non-profit organization with that same name.
The new company will offer opportunities for sponsorship to
grow the community, both in membership and in programs.
It also allows you, as listeners to show your appreciation for this
podcast, which has delivered episodes twice monthly since August 2019,
with a charitable contribution. Transitioning the community and
podcast into the non-profit organization is underway.
The community, which is open to commercial real
estate professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, is currently
up to 65 members and growing. If you would like to learn more
about either joining the community or contributing to the podcast,
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Enterprises now will focus only on advisory work for early stage real
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more about its services, please review my website at enterprises.com.
Thank you for listening. Welcome to another episode of
icons at DC Area Real Estate. I'm thrilled to share that I had
the pleasure of sitting down with Bruce Pascal, a top commercial
leasing agent in in DC with Cushman Wakefield and also the world's
foremost Hot Wheels collector. Our conversation was a lot of fun as
we sat in the Hot Wheels Museum, his 500 zero square foot space with
very cool memorabilia, including over 7000 pieces of both Hot Wheels
cars and related full size models. Bruce and I actually sat in a
custom model T he will be taking to the Grand National's Top Fuel
World Championship in Pomona, California, actually next month.
Bruce's main profession, of course, is commercial real estate leasing,
and he has 36 years of doing that in the city.
So here are some of the key takeaways of our conversation.
Um, he balances his dual passions between his real estate career and
its Hot Wheels collection through managing his time pretty effectively.
He basically has deals going with both cars and real estate
deals simultaneously. So he's always negotiating.
It seems like he shares his candid look at the DC real estate market,
which he says is the most challenging he's seen in 36 years,
is in the office leasing market, which is no surprise.
He discusses the high demand for trophy buildings, of course,
versus the struggle for the older properties,
he said he uses both digital and traditional marketing methods to
stand out in a crowded market. He uses physical mailings and is
particularly adept at doing an in-person, personal things.
He's adapted to change from internet advertising to the challenges of
traditional canvassing. He's adapted his strategies over
the years. His personal background. He grew up in a car loving family and
pivoted from pre-med to business during college, and he set up
his own business, more or less delivering affidavits to prostitute
criminals and or served people. And he built his own business around
that. And he talks about that. And that led into real estate.
And then, of course, his Hot Wheels passion developed
when he was a child. But in 1999, it kind of turned when
he learned about the collection of it. And he goes into that story.
So he has a has a daily routine he talks about.
He talks a little bit about bidding wars for office space.
He gets into, as I said, creative marketing.
So his story is a compelling blend of professional success and personal
passion. We had a lot of fun. His insights into the market combined
with enthusiasm, as you'll hear. Whether you're a real estate
professional or collector at heart, there's something special here.
So please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Bruce Pascal.
So Bruce Pascal, welcome to icons of DC area real estate.
Thank you for joining me today. Good morning. Welcome yourself.
Thank you. So you're recognized as one of the
DCS top commercial leasing agents and the owner of the world's most
comprehensive Hot Wheels collection. What does a typical day look like
balancing these two passions. So I always put work first because if
you don't do your work, you don't have any money to do your passions.
So work is always my priority. But the great thing about
commercial real estate is you're not sitting there for hours
working on one project. You're typically returning a phone
call, preparing a letter of intent, reviewing a lease,
and then when that's down done, you always have time to then do
something else as part of your hobby, which in my case usually means
replying to 2 to 3 every morning, emails that come in talking about
whether somebody's trying to sell me something, wants to get information
about something they found, or just seeking guidance in the hobby.
So I think I have a really good mix between work and passion.
That's great. That's great. As an innovator in real estate.
What trends are you most focused on in today's market?
Are you navigating current challenges in the DC office market?
So the DC office market is from the landlord side,
the most challenged market that I've seen in my 36 year career.
On one hand, if you have a trophy building.
You're getting phone calls, you're getting demand, and you're
actually getting a bidding war. I had my first bidding war on a
space, but it's one of the nicest spaces in downtown D.C..
Uh, I have a building that's mid-block 1960s old air conditioning
system, lots of columns like Rome. And do you remember that old
commercial for the. What was that? The the the the Maytag repair
Maytag when nobody's calling? You know what I mean?
And I feel like the Maytag repairman. And if I had to make my living on,
you know, see buildings that are mid-block,
I'd be in really trouble right now. I'd have to be selling some Hot
Wheels. So, you know, that's how I look at
it. So it's a really strange market. So innovation is important.
So for example, I just met with one of my clients that owns a C
building and I said, you know, something just like a date where
the spouse or the man or the woman kind of makes their impression on
the first date in the first 10s. I said, we can't change the
location of our building. We can't change the ceiling height.
We can't change the columns. But, you know, we can do is why
don't we get the largest TV that you can find in the world?
Because the prices have come down, put a new material in one wall
and then have one of those amazing graphics.
Now these TVs, if you've ever been to a Best Buy and you walk in and
you see the fish on the wall, moving looks like a real ocean.
I said, let's do something. So when you walk in,
people are going to be like, wow, this is a 2026 building.
Uh, brand new sophisticated electronics.
And that'll be their first impression instead of what they have now,
interestingly enough, is a 1970s, uh, painting on the
wall for the 1970 building. You know,
that ain't going to work anymore. So that's an exact case of what
I would say is let's innovate. Let's change the first impression.
And then also it goes into marketing. I found, I remember years ago in
the industry when we became on the internet advertising flyers, which
our brokerage shops loved because they no longer had to do, you know,
hundreds of mailings every day. I'm sure there postage price
savings for all the brokerage shops was amazing.
But I remember two years in, I started making flyers and my boss
said, why are you mailing them? I said, you know why?
Because everybody gets on the internet every day, 17 to 25 flyers.
I'm going to be the only one they get in the mail.
And so I think sometimes innovation is just looking in the past what
worked. It's a good point. And and being different.
And that's all about marketing which you have to be a marketer if you're
going to be a landlord broker. Do people still walk door to
door and canvass, you know? So interestingly enough,
the walking door to door has become more difficult.
Number one, because the guards now are much better, right?
Number two, the floors are electronically locked off.
So, you know, you can't, you know, you get onto somebody's floor,
they may tackle you. So what made life easier now is
there's all these services where I can actually sometimes get the
personal cell phone for the decision maker.
Now, the question is, who's the decision maker?
Which is always the challenge. Of course, of any law firm,
corporation, etc.. But now I found the best technique
is sometimes between 7 and 8 in the morning or 6 to 7:00 at night.
That way the staff doesn't answer the phone and you have a great shot
at getting to the decision maker. But I was never a cold caller
just to say, hey John, are you interested in real estate?
I always believe you should have a morsel of bait.
The better bait when you fish, the better you are, of course.
So my bait would be. Did you know somebody just signed a
lease to move into your building? You know Apple is going to be
your new tenant. Or did you know that this law
firm just went bankrupt? They're going to be leaving your
building. And I felt if you make the phone
call Information based, your success rate is much higher.
People want to learn. They always want to know what's
going on in their house, and they want to know what's
going on in their neighborhood. And anyone know what's going on
in your building? Yeah. So let's go back in time.
Um, tell us about your upbringing. What were the defining moments that
shaped your drive and ambition? And why did you attend George
Washington University? So let's start with the earlier
story than that. So I'm a rarity. I am a true Washingtonian.
My great grandparents opened up a tiny when I called a grocery store.
It was probably 600ftÂ², but they had a grocery store in
New Hampshire Avenue. Today it's a 7-Eleven right
behind GW University. I was born at GW University.
My father went to GW Law School and I was thinking of becoming a doctor.
And down the street was a doctor who had a connection to GW.
So like a like a lot of kids, I was pre-med that first semester,
and then all of a sudden botany was pretty boring.
And I decided, okay, I'm switching to business.
And I ended up my defining moments where it's, interestingly enough,
is I had to put myself through school, and my deal with my father
was I'd pay for half the college. He would pay the other half.
Where'd you go to high school? I went to Whitman. Bethesda?
Yeah. And I had saved up. I've been working since I was
six years old. I delivered newspapers,
I started a business going around door to door, taking care
of people's dogs and cats. When they went out of town,
I did anything to make a dollar. And when I wanted to get a ten
speed bike, my dad said, you got a three speed, that's good enough.
And I said, no, I want a ten speed. He says, well,
you got to go pay for it yourself, go get another job. And I bought it.
Now the car bike got stolen, but that's another story.
But to make a long story short, my sophomore year in college,
I discovered I think I spent too much money in my freshman year,
my savings was really low. What am I going to do?
And in 1980, Ronald Reagan passed a law that
sheriffs and and U.S. marshals no longer had to do summonses.
So if you're getting divorced or you didn't pay your rent,
it used to be a US marshal would go and put a note on your door.
Private citizens could do it. And they were called special
process servers. They would make the legal delivery,
and then they would have to do an affidavit and file with the court.
And the interesting thing was you would get $25.
So if I had to serve a summons on John Coe and I knocked on your door
and I handed it to you, I made $25. And back in 1980, you know,
if you did ten of those a day, that's $250. You're making some money.
So I was delivering the summonses for two different law firms,
my girlfriend's law firm, and my father was a lawyer, and I
got the flu. You ever had the flu? You feel like death. Oh, yeah.
I felt so bad. And so I leaned over to my roommate
in the defining moment of my life, and I said to my roommate, do you
want to make $15. He goes. Sure. So he went out and did ten
deliveries over the next few days. I paid him 150.
I sent a bill to the law firm for 250, and I said, wow,
I can make money while I'm sleeping. Which is kind of like the definition
of how you get wealthy one day. So I printed business cards,
parcels, process service. I've been a salesman all my life.
So I started knocking on law firm doors.
Well, to make a long story short, by the time I was a senior,
I had 65 law firms I was delivering. I was doing over $100,000 a year
business while I was in college, and I had 11 part time people.
The guys who lived in southeast DC did Southeast University of Maryland
students. Did, you know Maryland and. College students with your.
College students? And I ended up becoming the
second biggest serving firm in DC and continued it for a couple
of years afterwards. But that got me a lot of the
skill set that became great later on being a real estate agent.
The ability to knock on the door, tell somebody why I'm a better
company than a competitor and get hired out of the law firms.
Hear about you. So it was all door to door, and then
I found literally door to door. I'd be wearing jeans and I'd be going
to law firm and saying, who makes the decision here for process serving?
And usually somebody would come out and hand them my card.
And believe it or not, process serving is very
difficult because sometimes it's hard to catch people and nobody.
Unlike a restaurant, it's like a restaurant that had
a bunch of bad meals. Every client was willing to sort
of try somebody else to see if they magically could be better.
Yeah. It worked. And I grew the business and it
taught me tremendous skills of bookkeeping, record keeping.
The transferable skills are perfect for the real estate business.
Incredibly. And during, uh, which we can get
into, I basically got one side said, you know, I don't want to make
my living $25 a shot. Uh, somebody hit hit many a head
with a hammer once I was chased in the car. Guy had a gun.
You know, it was a dangerous business.
Yeah. Uh, serving summonses. I said, you know, I'm 26.
What am I going to do? So I called up a guy named David
Gilson, who was the premiere law firm broker at that time in DC.
We sat down and he said, tell me about yourself.
And when I told him I had 65 law firm clients, he goes, you know,
so and so at this firm, I was like, oh, yes, I know it really well.
Do you know Bob at this firm? Yeah. He took me down the hallway and
all I know was the president said, okay, you're starting tomorrow.
Okay. So yes. The transferable skills were there.
Yeah. And taught me a great life lesson.
So what firm was that? That was that was the precursor
to CBRE. I think one of the greatest
firms of all time in DC. Barnes, Morris and foster. Sure.
Yeah. Then we became insignia,
then we became CBRE. Right. And I stayed there 25 years
before going to Vornado and then stayed there for three years.
And then Cushman was Bob. Cohen running. The office.
Then Bob Cohen was running the office,
and it was one of the greatest persons you could ever work for.
Just an amazing guy. Yeah. Well. For the listeners,
I did interview Bob so you can listen to that podcast. It's a good one.
He talks about the origins of barns. Maurice. Actually, you know.
I remember my wife and I were buying our first home. We're so nervous.
Of course, we didn't have a ton of cash.
So she goes, well, why don't you go out to lunch with Bob Cohen?
He has that beautiful home and and ask him how he did it,
you know, how do you borrow? How do you get it done?
So he went out to lunch and I said, Bob, you know, I'm buying a house.
How'd you do it? He goes, oh, I paid cash because
I found out he was one of the most successful land brokers,
assemblage brokers in the city before he became the, you know,
the manager and the leader of our firm. So I came home to my wife.
She goes, how'd he do? I said, it didn't help much, honey.
It didn't help much. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he made big commissions.
He did. It is very successful, man. I mean, Oliver car.
I mean, he went on and on. Yes. People he assembled land for so.
Just. Recently retired. But I think that's a fake word for
Bob Cohen. He'll never retire. Literally the month after he retired
is when I sat down with him. So. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.
What a genuinely great man. Yeah, it was good.
So let's shift gears for a moment to your passion here.
How did your passion for Hot Wheels begin?
So I was born in 1961, and I remember distinctly my favorite toy when I was
7 or 8 years old, came out in 1968, was the Hot Wheels. Why?
Well, I came from a family that always loved cars.
My grandfather worked at the National Archives, and he was in charge of
the history of transportation, and he was considered the
foremost expert on the history of automobiles in the world. Yes.
When he died in 1962, he left a collection of 10,000
items related to the history of automobiles to my parents.
So in our house, growing up, even before Hot Wheels came out,
where toy cars of all types, advertisements, brochures for
cars going back to 1920s and 30s. So I loved cars and our family car.
Our fun car. My dad had a 1929 Buick. So I grew up in this automobile
world. So when Hot Wheels came out, it was.
And of course, my parents encouraged it.
You know, we had the orange track, we had the cars and, you know.
But like a lot of boys, I put them in a cigar box for 10 or
11 years old and forgot about them. Then in 1999, a real estate
broker that worked for Vornado named Curtis Paul, who was one
of my best friends at the time. He saw that box with me and he goes,
what's inside? I said, my old Hot Wheels and I
opened it up and he goes, oh, these are nice. I'll give you $200 for him.
I said, are you kidding me? These have value.
He goes, oh yeah, this Camaro is worth about 80.
This car is worth about 60. This one's 20.
This one's only ten. Condition. And he really knew. He was a.
Collector. He was a collector. And I said to self, if he's one
of my best friends collecting, maybe I'll get into it.
And, John, I guess you'll figure out. I guess as you see around here
in this museum, whatever I do. I only have one gear. 110%.
So within a week, I was running ads in the Washington Post.
Are you in your 50s and still have your Hot Wheels from your childhood?
And I started buying and buying Hot Wheels.
And then six months later, I read an article that the rarest hot
wheel in the world was going to be for sale. And it was around 2000.
Remember the tech bust? Sure. But text boom and bust was the boom
at that time, and our company had just given us retention bonuses to
stay. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna do it.
So I bought the rarest hot wheel in the world.
And once I got that car, I said, oh, boy, I now have a duty to
really learn about the company. And I remembered when I was first a
broker, we would put you in a dark room with the yellow pages and say,
cold call. And I probably made thousands of
calls a month to strangers. So I got pretty good at that.
And I said, you know what? If this rarest hot wheel in the world
was actually discovered in a former employees garage, maybe another
former employee has something. So I found out Mattel had an
alumni division. I got invited to go to one of
their events and I started creating a database.
I still have the database today, 4000 names of people who work for Mattel.
And the problem was, if the name was John Smith, you're never going
to find him on the Yellow Pages. But if the name was Otto Cooney,
Otto Gabler. You know, a lot of foreigners,
you find them. So I found over 400 former employees
and interviewed them, took notes. I eventually wrote a book on the
history of Hot Wheels in 2011. And. But every conversation I'd end and
say, did you keep anything from your olden days? Yeah, I was a patent guy.
I just had the patents. Would you sell them? Sure.
I was art director. I have a lot of the original artwork.
Would you sell it? Sure. So I ended up accumulating the
equivalent of, you know, breaking into Mattel's headquarters in 1968
and stealing everything but the cars. You know, the wood molds, the
blueprints, artwork, internal notes. They called it the the car,
you know, the toy car. You know, they didn't have Hot
Wheels named until later. And that's what I did.
I became a detective, but I used the same skills that I
used in brokerage to build up one of the largest historical collections
of Hot Wheels memorabilia. And this is my 25th year and I
haven't slowed down. If anything, I'm speeding up.
So this is the Henry Ford Museum of Hot Wheels, basically. It really. Is.
If you've ever been to Henry Ford's museum. I grew up in Detroit.
I'm a native. Detroiter. And when you talk cars.
Yes, that's my blood. Yes, yes. I. By the way, you did see my 1913
model T hot rod, right? Yes. So there's a little Detroit down.
Here for you? Of course. Yeah. Same thing, same logic.
My father. Worked for the. Largest department store in Detroit,
and then his father was with General Motors for 35 years.
Wow. Amazing. Yeah. So you have a little oil in your
blood? Yeah. You can't. You can't help but love cars if
you grew up in Detroit. Yeah. No. And you can't help not to love cars.
If you grew up in a family of antique cars and car shows,
and that was part of my life. I've probably been to 500 car
shows in my life. You know, just to give you an idea.
So it's. There. The passion is passion's there.
Your collection is legendary, including the rare pink rear
pink rear loading beach bomb. What's the story behind
acquiring that piece and how did it shape your collector journey?
So six months after collecting, I read a newspaper article that
the rarest hot wheel in the world sold for $72,000.
And I came home to my wife and I said, I am so mad.
I would have bought it if I could have.
And that was in the Washington Post. Then, interestingly enough,
I think it was the Washington Star or some other, you know,
newspaper I read three months later had the same article with
a little words on the bottom. The deal still has not concluded,
but the seller has already bought a Dodge Viper. Okay.
So I said, whoa, that's interesting. So the guy's name was Chris Marshall,
who owned the car. Try to look up the name Chris
Marshall across the United States. You'll never find him.
So what did I do? Same technique I always do.
I called the writer of the article in the paper. I tracked him down.
Kansas City star. And the guy said, you know what?
I don't think ethically I can give you his name and number,
but what's your purpose? I said, well,
I'd like to buy the car. He goes, well, I know he wants to
sell it. Let me give him a call. And then an hour later, the phone
rang. Chris Marshall, there you go. We took 2 or 3 months of negotiating,
and we eventually I bought the car from him and he flew down in
the airport and we exchanged the money for the car.
And that was 25 years ago. So that's how I got it. Wow.
Isn't that something? So were there any early signs
that sales and negotiation would become your career focus?
Any childhood or early career moments that foreshadowed that talent?
So great question. I've done practice interviews for
over 3000 people that wanted to get in the industry over my 36 years.
Wow. So what I'm always looking for is
because we can train anybody in finance, Excel, all the necessary
tools to be a great broker. But the one thing you really can't
train is that instinct. Salesmanship. And what I look for is people who are
in some ways like me as a child. I ask people in the interviews,
did you ever win any sales contest? Did you ever do any sales?
And if the answer is no, I'm you know, I get nervous.
If somebody said, you know, for example, I sold lemonade.
I distinctly remember that at six, seven, eight years old,
I went door to door. I was part of a youth group selling
doughnuts, and I was competitive. I had to win, and I think I sold the
most doughnuts every single year. So the essence is we're looking
for the the woman who sold the most Girl Scout cookies.
Those people tend to be great salespeople.
The one who sold the least cookies. They, you know, their back room.
They're not going to be the front person.
So I knew sales was a passion all the way through college,
knocking on doors and getting clients, you know, have no fear.
You know, as I tell my wife, I probably ask that 100 girls
who said no, you know, thank God she finally said yes.
You know what I mean? But yeah, it's there's no shame in
getting rejected and and that's, that's, I think, a barrier for a
lot of people to get into. Yes. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.
But it's, you know, overcoming the fear of asking to to some extent
for some people. At least once. You do it a few. Times. Yeah.
It's then becomes habit. Yeah. So what drew you to real estate as a.
Career and how did your sales skills develop over the time?
So after college, I bought a small warehouse at ninth
and Rhode Island Avenue to house my process serving company. Right.
And we were on the second floor, and I didn't know what to do
with the first floor, and it was like a warehouse.
So I found some local artists Zenith Gallery,
Marjorie Goldberg and others. And I rented space to artists on
the first floor. and about two years later, someone
came to my door and said, hey, I want to buy your processor in the
company. And I was ready to sell it. So I sold the processor and I
had a little bit of money and started buying and selling houses
in Logan Circle. Oh, really? Now, in those days,
I remember one house I bought, 1511 Vermont Avenue. I paid 75,000.
A year later, somebody knocked on the door and offered me 150, I said sold.
Today it's worth 2 million. So there's a good lesson in there.
You know, bought a bunch of smaller properties
because you could buy houses back. People don't realize in 19,
you know, 80, 86, 87. Yeah, you could buy houses for 60,
70, $90,000. It was unbelievable. And my house was a Victorian
three storey, you know, miniature mansion, you know,
for 75,000. So I was doing that. And then we had a little downturn.
I'm trying to remember the year. I think it was like 88, 89.
89, 98. 89, 90. And it was the first time that I was
renovating a house, and I realized, I'm going to sell it for 25,000
less than I paid for, you know, in it and to lose money at 25,
I realized, geez, I've done my process surveying.
I've done my real estate. I have a passion for finance.
I was president of the school's, you know, investment club,
a passion for sales and a passion for real estate. What am I going to do?
And then somebody told me about the industry, commercial real estate,
and they suggested I meet David Gilson. Right.
And I called David Gilson up just to to have an informational meeting.
What does a commercial real estate do?
And actually, to tell you the truth, I went in totally misguided.
I thought you just show somebody a building and you walk away and
you get paid. I didn't realize there's a lot
of work in between, but that's when David hit off and
found out I had 65 law firm clients. One thing led to another, went
down the hallway, said Bob Cohen. And within 48 hours, I was hired to
try to, you know, learn the business. So that's how I got into it.
and my sales skills were easily applied and developed because in
those days we really didn't have the internet and computers like
we do today. Matter of fact, there was no co-star.
We had a book called black Sky. Do you remember that? Of course.
It's like a telephone book and it would tell you what space is
available, updated. What was it like twice a year
they would update? Um, firms would send you a sheet
of paper alphabetically. I'd put them in my drawer.
So I used to do surveys. I felt sorry for anybody that
had a name of a firm. That started with a pause, because
I had done my survey with Blake, you know, and Carr and Douglas, you
know, some of, you know, early on. So, um, that's how I got into it.
But my sales skills totally developed because I was required
to make hundreds of calls a week. And that's exactly what I did.
So you met people that way? The old fashioned. Way.
The old fashioned way. So in the early days,
what was the first deal or experience that confirmed that you made the
right choice in real estate. There's one deal that I'll never
forget. Uh, two weeks into the business,
a broker, John Phillips, came down the hallway and said,
listen, I'm going to do you a favor. Have you ever done a listing side?
And by the way, I didn't know the difference in those days between a
landlord broker and a tenant broker. All shops did everything.
There was no specialties back then. Right.
So he hands me a Burger King that had caught on fire behind the FBI
building on E Street. Oh my God. 900 block of. Eastern. Yeah.
And literally when you walked in there, the place was a mess.
Your shoes would slide on like the burnt oil. You know, it was a mess.
He had that listing for a year and a half and no luck.
So nobody had told me how to market a building at that time.
And I didn't know how landlord brokerage worked, which traditionally
you put a flyer and you send a flyer to the actual brokers.
Brokers have clients they bring a tenant by.
So I found out the company would pay for postage.
So I went to the Yellow Pages. I went to those days.
We call them secretaries. Went to my secretary.
And by the way, it was like one sixth of a secretary, you know. Right.
You know, and I said, can you do me a favor?
Can you make a label for every single restaurant in Washington, DC?
I don't remember it may have been 200, 250 or whatever.
And I created a flyer and I sent the flyers directly to the tenants.
Within three weeks, I had three tours, and then all
of a sudden I had two groups, a Burger King and a remember the
old store called lunchbox, and the two of them were looking
at it and then lunchbox said, I'll take it. I was like, oh my God.
And I did a ten year lease, you know, for 5000ft in my first
month in the business. Now there is a little bit of a
preamble, a post to that. The landlord decided, well, I'm
proud I put a demolition clause in. I'm probably going to only pay you
for five years because, you know, I'll be demolishing the building.
I went to Bob Cohen. He goes, well, sorry,
this is what happens. But, you know, maybe you'll do a lot
of business with them in the future. Zero in the future.
So my fee got from 100 grand to 50 grand, and then my partner goes,
hey, the deal I brought you in, and I take half.
So all of a sudden, you know, a hundred became 50, 50 became 25.
And I was a bunch of months into my draw, I had to pay back the
company first. That's how draws were. So I got a check for, you know,
like $6,000, whatever. But it paid off my credit cards.
But that one deal I showed me, I said, wow, this is the easiest
business in the world. So early on,
I underestimated the complexity. But I had an amazing success in the
first month, and that's what got me to be convinced to become a landlord
broker. And that's what the majority. I've done about 3000 leases in
my career, probably about 2600 of them have been landlords and
about 400 of them tenant. Although from an income standpoint,
the 400 tenant probably gave me half my income in my lifetime.
Interesting. Yeah, because they tend to be
longer lasting, larger deals, and you get a higher fee doing a
tenant deal than you do on a landlord side. Interesting. Interesting.
So basically if you're in the brokerage business, you have to
choose if you have more patience. And then the long term kind of
thinking you might be a tenant broker, whereas, you know, if you're
into the high volume process, you're the landlord broker. Is that so?
So the answer is it's interesting. You know, actually I'll give the
best advice I can. Okay. If you want to become a broker,
you actually should learn on the landlord side because you you
only learn in this industry. And trust me,
everybody makes mistakes and you learn you by doing deals.
Of course, every time a doctor does surgery, he learned something better.
I'd rather have a doctor who did 4000 surgeries than the first one, right?
So on the landlord side, it's a volume business.
So you're doing a lot of letter of intents.
You're learning the language, the clauses.
You're doing a lot more leases, you're meeting a lot more brokers.
And it's a faster way to learn the business.
And I would say the landlord side also, you're in the meetings
with the landlords and you get to understand how they think,
how they look at deals, what's important concessions.
So when you do a tenant side of the job, I always felt more prepared
and I brought an advantage. I heard once an expression,
wouldn't you like to have a former IRS agent be your person
doing the taxes for you? And that's what I would say when
I go into some of the pitches, is I understand how landlords think.
I understand how they work. I understand then hopefully I can
craft what I would call a win win situation for you and the landlord,
and that deal will be better for you. And that's been my mantra.
That's great. So DC's office market has faced
seismic shifts over the past last decade.
Starting with sequestration, the pandemic, and now the new
administration's policies. How would you describe the current
state of the office market in D.C. and surrounding area?
Well, as I said earlier, it's bifurcated that if you have
a brand new building, a trophy building and a great location,
you can sleep at night. You know, you're going to keep the
building and you have a coveted item. If you have a B or C building,
you're seeing vacancy rates depending on what shop and how they calculated.
Anywhere from 23 to 27%. By the way,
let's put that in perspective. When I started my career,
we were five and 6% vacancy. I mean, I couldn't even fathom.
I remember the first time ever Northern Virginia hit 14%,
and we thought it was a crisis. And I felt sorry for every
broker working in Virginia. And now, you know, we'll take 14%,
2%, you know. Did the market have. The same tearing when you first
started ABC? No. We've never had such a divergent
market. Uh, I remember one of my best
years was 2011, 2012. And actually,
the economy wasn't doing great. There's a lot of cutbacks at that
time, and I had a lot of buildings, and I was doing deals left and right
because businesses were looking to reduce their rent from 40 to 35,
from 45 to 25. And all my buildings filled up,
and I ended up being one of the top agents that year.
And all the the brokers that were traditionally doing the
more expensive buildings, nobody wanted it.
Nobody could afford it. So it's it. That's one point to say how
divergent the market is. The true trophy vacancy is
probably single digits right now, because there are some buildings
that can't even do deals because of their financing.
So if you actually Take your tenant out to true opportunities.
It's it's an extremely tight market. If you're just looking for 4000ft
in A, B or C building or even an, you know, an A minus, um,
you're gonna have 50 or 60 buildings to look at. I mean, if.
You look at the last five years in, in the Washington, DC area,
the buildings that have delivered in those last five years are all
well above 95% leased. Pretty much. Right? Yeah. Hundred percent.
If there's something left, it's incumbent.
Tough to get a few exceptions, but yes, 100% correct on that.
And it's just. People want new space. If they're in that in that realm.
So think of all the dynamics that have changed.
The column placement instead of 20 by 20 it's 35 by 40.
Which means you can put your conference room anywhere you
want and be happy. The ceiling heights have been
increased from eight, four, eight, six to, you know, nine feet.
The air conditioning system that used to be on the side of your door.
Taking up space, humming Coming all day now is in your ceiling.
Now they have dough. It's better controlling. Windows.
The windows are floor to ceiling. Yes. And you know who?
Versus a punch window. So, you know, in many ways it's
it's such a better product today. And I think people truly
appreciate it. And that's not even including
corporations that want to go to a Leed certified building or,
or have other unique requirements. How has tenant behavior changed
post-pandemic? And what strategies are landlords
employing to stay competitive? So I the best word I could say
is scrambled eggs after Covid. Every client used to know and
tell you what they want. It became scrambled eggs after Covid
and it's finally getting closer to becoming a hard boiled egg,
if I could use that analogy. The first few years,
the first couple years after Covid, I don't think anybody really knew
how many employees really are really are going to come back?
They're all nervous. The ones that they had,
policies where the lawyers could move to other states and work from,
and things were working, and now everybody wants everybody
to come back to the office. And what do you do?
Do you call that lawyer that moved to Utah and say you have to come back
here, or do we make an exception? And then how many exceptions do
we make? So I do believe if you believe
what you read about Donald Trump, who's going to require five days
a week, if you see JP Morgan and some of these other firms, I think
the pendulum will be swinging back. And that is the number one thing
that I'm looking for. How sad. I love D.C. as a, you know,
fourth generation to see all these retailers that closed.
It's really sad. Yeah. We lost another in my building
at 2101 L Street. We had Stoney's Bar and restaurants
closed. Reopen, closed again. I was a tenant there. Yeah, we.
Had a coffee shop. The coffee shop just closed this
week. We had a bagel shop. Bagel shop has been closed and
never released. So we have an entire L street of
vacancy. And look at 1050 Connecticut,
one of the greatest located corner of Connecticut.
Now they have these graphics on all the vacant space.
So you walk by and you see a scene of graphics, you know,
you got a Starbucks and you got a few openings. Do you see the.
21 01L sold. Recently? Yes. We knew that was going to happen.
That was quite. A discount. Price.
The discounts, you know, this is what I say.
Every day I can look and see what my stocks are worth by the minute.
I don't think landlords want to know what their building's worth. No.
Uh, and it's very difficult to buy a building for $100 million.
And then to accept today that it may only be worth 35 or 50.
And there is a tremendous amount of buildings in DC that have debt
that are now, if they bought buildings in the last 15 years,
you know, they're underwater. And there's a dance between
lenders and owners. And the lenders don't want the
buildings, the owners want to keep it.
And I think that's a dynamic that that will still have
another few years to really get out of our system.
You get involved in the capital markets at all when any of your
business or not. So the way I get involved was
when clients interested in purchasing a building. Right?
Years ago at one time I had 38 different listings, and each of those
38 listings had different owners. And there's a new building for sale.
I would sometimes get 20 phone calls of saying, hey,
this building at six and nine is coming for sale. What do you think?
You know, can I lease it? Interestingly enough, one of the
reasons why I never bought office buildings in my lifetime is I
always look at the negatives first. You know, I don't like that
particular side of the street. I don't like the architecture.
I don't like the ceiling heights. And other brokers would say, oh,
my God, you know, the lobby is beautiful,
the parking garage is abundant. And we used to jokingly say,
if you want a conservative rent, call Bruce Pascal.
If you want a high rent call trip. How you know.
So and the reality was, the rent was probably in the middle
of the projected in the future. So that that's how we looked at it.
That's fascinating. So with federal budget cuts and
remote work reshaping the office landscape, what opportunities or
challenges do you see for brokers and landlords in the coming years?
So the first challenge. We're all facing right now is
the financial health of our of the landlord clients.
And it's actually changed everything. So, you know, we used to do deals and
go out and have dinners to celebrate. Now, you know,
we just it's not celebrating. It's just like we're just
climbing out of a, a hole that we're in right now.
I think the challenges are how what best used is for buildings and for
owners to make those decisions. In some cases,
it is conversion to residential. In some cases it's just giving
the building back to the bank. And in some cases it's, you know,
adding amenities to the building and doing some renovations.
So the problem is, though, you know, you got a developer that's got a
building that has a $350 debt, and the building is only worth
$300 a foot. And how do you tell them to go out
and spend another $100 a foot to, to renovate the base building,
then put another 150 into tenant ties? Wait two years of free rent.
You know, the math just doesn't scratch out. It doesn't.
So we're really in for some interesting times to see.
You know how this all works out. The one advantage is and this is
tremendous, is there are developers, as you mentioned,
who are buying buildings for $90 a foot that were once 300.
And, I don't know, one statement I always learned as a kid,
buy low, sell high. You know, maybe that opportunity
is there, that there could be like the RTC days, The greatest
creation of wealth is people that have a long term vision that.
That come in when the market is at a low.
So I think right now we could be at. That nexus of all these
opportunities. And if you have a landlord that has
a lower basis, they can afford to do deals to undercut the market
and do quite well. So it's a good. Time to buy. If you're in that realm.
But you have to be patient. Yeah. This is not a buy to flip market.
You have to have patient money. That's what you. Need. Right.
Which interestingly enough, if you look at all the class of buyers,
that's a family money, right? Long term family they they can
buy a building. They can you know, they're buying
it for generational wealth. Um, you know,
I represented one family client in, in the DC area, and, and I
remember when the market was weak. You know, the reality is,
you know what? The market's ugly. Instead of getting 70.
We'll do 60 instead of this. But guess what.
Ten years later hopefully the market will be better again and that
next generation will do better. If you have that mentality,
you can adjust for the market and and do deals well.
I had a panel last week and we had that's the last podcast,
Bob Murphy said. You know, I bought Gallery Place
recently and he got quite a. Discount on that. Incredible.
And, you know, he said, you know, how can I lose?
You know, it's I paid 80 bucks a foot for a parking garage, you know,
that gets an eight return. Just the parking garage on the deal.
Yeah. How can I lose with this location?
You know, and then, of course, when he had it under contract,
the Wizards and the capitals were going to move to Virginia.
And it turns out that turned around during the time he was in
due diligence and a change. So I personally think that deal
is probably the best buy of any transaction that I've heard in DC.
The with with everything happening from the Wizards monumental signing
120,000 square foot lease in this building and the renovations that
they're going to do at the arena. It's going to help the
surrounding retail. So I just think that was a home
run deal. Home run, no question. The other angle that was presented
is Lacie Rice who's talked about, you know, the shame back in the
90s and stuff for turning office buildings back to to lenders.
That's that's gone. It's totally gone.
Matter of fact, a lot of people don't realize there's one reason why
some owners want to go and default. And let me explain why.
If you have CMBS loan, you can't pick up the phone and say, for example,
I have a client that has, I think, a portfolio of eight buildings
that recently went into default. They got multiple offers to buy three
of these nine buildings at a great number, but they couldn't sell any
individual one because the CMBS loan was for all nine properties.
They couldn't get a phone call returned from anybody at CMBS,
because there's no such thing as a owner of a CMBS loan.
There's thousands of them or hundreds of them.
So the only and they and they never defaulted ever on the loan,
but they defaulted the day the balance was due.
And they finally got the phone call the next day.
And now they can present their plan. Let's sell these three buildings
an incredible number. Let's, you know,
keep the loan going with these six. You're better protected today.
I'm protected and we're all great. So there are situations especially,
you know, you're to get a CMBS loan. You may be getting a slightly
better rate, but you're getting yourself much tougher conditions.
Tackling that situation, ironically. The servicer who is making that
phone call may say, no, no, no, I'm going to negotiate that even
though it looks like a great deal. Yeah, because there are incentives
there to hold to to string it out and generate fees out of it.
So they have a disincentive to make a deal right away.
You are correct on that. You are. You are correct. But you know what?
I think at the end of the day, most of them have done deals because
they're going to have such a backlog and they really are overwhelmed.
Let me tell you, the CMBS people don't want to be in the management
business. No, you know what I mean. Because they, they they they do
recognize at the end of the day, they have fiduciary duty to do it.
It's you're right. But it is the only way to get a
phone call returned. You know what I mean? So it's crazy.
What impact do you foresee from the current administration's
policies on federal leasing and office vacancy rates?
Well, not the current administration. Let's say the one that's about
to happen next week. Well, I think it's just what the
doctor ordered. President Trump will probably
require five days a week. There will be a fight because a lot
of people don't realize a lot of government workers are unionized.
And the unions will say, hey, you can't take away our
privilege from working at home, etc., but there'll be a fight.
But I think at the end of the day, I'll pick Trump over the unions
for winning in the end. And I think you'll then see if
the government starts coming back five days a week,
the way our city of of government affairs offices and corporations,
other firms then will say we need to come back 4 or 5 days a week,
and then we'll finally see the. Ripple effect.
The, the, the retail demand for restaurants.
And I feel so sorry for a restaurant today that really only has people
showing up three days a week and they're paying rent seven.
Days a year. If I'm starting a restaurant now,
I'm looking for retail space. Yeah, in the right locations.
But now's the better time. You know what I mean?
Yeah, after January 21st. But yeah. So I think the overall positive
effect of the five day a week is the, you know, it's it's the Covid shot.
You know, the vaccine that we need. There is a fear that President Trump
will then turn around and say, we're going to close the Department
of Education or whatever. But I think some of these I don't
even know where they're located. They're in obscure areas of southwest
D.C. and spread around that. You know, the only restaurants
there are coffee shops anyway. But yeah, it's going to be some
damage to those neighborhoods. But the overall effect,
which as a leasing agent, 62% of the market is the CBD in East End.
And that is not necessarily where all the large government agencies are.
No, it's more southwest than other. Yeah. Well, yeah. Southwest.
What this does is gives the opportunity to what I've been yeah.
Promulgating on my last 5 or 6 episodes is to take the real
estate between sixth and 12th and independence and the wharf,
basically, or the freeway, because, you know, you wouldn't
build around the freeway per se, but that whole swath,
which I don't know how many acres that is and just, you know,
level it. Up and. Start over. And the federal government could
subsidize that along with the city. Turn that land into a DC taxable
land. Mhm. It's a win win win. You know what's funny about that
is my father grew up in that southwest you know poor area. Okay.
And that was one of the first major urban redevelopments in southwest.
Has he ever driven in that area? Yeah.
You only see 1 or 2 old churches that were preserved, and everything
else was leveled to create what you described as this urban.
McNair, I think, was the first development. Yeah. Yeah.
You may be correct on that, but the bottom line is that is an area that
if you could get everything together and have the residential comeback.
And again, what a great location. Easy access to Virginia to to.
Maryland, all the amenities now. Exactly, exactly. the ballparks.
The, you know, the riverfront, the wharf, everything.
And the good news is some of the buildings are actually owned by
the federal government, which allows them to sell it as
surplus property, which is much, a much quicker process than a private
developer who may only have half the building lease to the government.
So my belief is the landscape of downtown Washington will change
dramatically. It will, but. Nothing happens overnight.
Even if even if Trump says, I'm going to move the Department of Education,
it you know, it's like the FBI. How many years have they still
been there? You know, it may it may take we
may not see the effects to 3 or 4 years from now, but you'll
definitely see some positive impact. So how is passion for collecting
Hot Wheels impacted your life in real estate sales?
So that's a great question. I think if you look at any successful
broker in this town, they probably have a passion or other things
they're involved with in their life. The broker that shows up at six in
the morning, that works at 10:00 in the office and, you know,
doesn't have passions or other interests or sports or anything.
They're probably not as producing as much as the ones who are just
out there and have other people. So the Hot Wheels world,
it's interesting. It's it's a microcosm of a lot
of people my age, early 60s, everything from the greatest expert
on genetics and the country's art collector, a rock n roll guy
with the band Widespread Panic, who I get to get backstage passes to,
you know, his concerts to policemen. It's a cross index.
So for me, it's it's a social aspect of of collecting is amazing.
There's not a day that goes by where I'm communicating with 3 to 5 people
around the world about my passion. And I would say it's interesting
now that I'm in my 36th year, Hope this doesn't get me in
trouble for the podcast. You know, I'm getting closer and
closer to that eighth and ninth inning of, you know, your career.
And the Hot Wheels passion is extremely comforting to know that if
I ever do a lot less real estate deals, you know, just a few a year,
I have something that keeps me busy. A place to go.
And there are days, believe it or not, that I don't go to the office.
I actually come to my Hot Wheels museum, and you're sitting on my
desk right now. And this is where I do all my
business work. So I'm already co-mingling.
You know, the two, the passion and the work right now.
So what about the business of Hot Wheels?
I mean, is it I mean, obviously it was hot.
It started in 1968 and has its sales continued to go up,
or has it been kind of plateaued a little bit over time?
That was the number one toy in 1968 for boys.
Yeah, it's the number one toy in 2024 for boys. Oh my gosh.
Okay Barbie dolls for the girls. Number one toy still numbered.
Still a husband and wife. The wife invented the Barbie doll.
The husband and did the hot wheel. The number one in the world
record sales last year. 56 year of Hot Wheels.
It's absolutely amazing. So from that time,
it's been continually. There has been some ups and downs.
You know. It almost died in 1973 during the
recession, you know, but they've kept it going and they've kept,
you know, keep one of the secrets of their success is because they
have such a mass volume that they've been able to sell a hot wheel
back in 1968 for $0.69, and today it's only $1.19. Really? Yeah.
So it's the Wall Street Journal did an article on it.
How it's defied logic that it's, you know, the price.
So if you have a kid, you want to make them happy in 1968, $0.69.
It's actually less expensive today, $1.19 in the store.
You know, the kid will be happy. Um, I actually keep a bag of Hot
Wheels in my car. And if Amy and I or my wife and
I are at a restaurant and we see some young kids, I run to the car,
pass out a hot meal. You have no idea. Oh, yeah.
I've given out a thousand Hot Wheels a year. You have no idea.
Just a little hot wheel and a kid. And how excited they are and how it
sparks their interest in automobiles. So many people come here and say
my kid's knows every car. He can say, Tesla, this car,
that car. And he goes, how does he know him?
Because the cause of the Hot Wheels. And when the real car drives by,
it's exciting. And if you have no idea how many
adults have Hot Wheels or toy cars just laying around their office,
many times matching their own car, if you have a white Tesla, I'll
get you a white Tesla Hot Wheels, you know. What about little other.
Model little cars like planes or other things?
So Mattel Hot Wheels has done planes and has done boats just
generally not as successful. Uh, and in the collecting world,
even today, Hot Wheels, you know, they'll do something crazy like they
made a hot wheel with a toilet seat, or they made a hot wheel like a
snake or a bird or a dog. You know, the adult collectors
don't collect those. Those are for the kids.
But adult collectors are amazing. There's over 100,000 serious hot
metal collectors in the world, and most of them actually collect,
you know, the real models that that Hot Wheels makes.
So there's not much cross-pollination with other, uh, moving vehicles
either. No. No airplanes. Well, there are some collectors that
say I don't collect Hot Wheels. I collect one of their competitors.
I think their car may be more detailed or whatever reason,
but Hot Wheels is by far it's a mile ahead of any one of its competitors.
Do you think your collector. Mindset gives you a unique edge
in identifying real estate opportunities or in negotiations?
So the answer is yes because it changes the way you think.
Number one, the way I found most of my items is cold calling Like.
And that same technique was actually developed from the real estate.
So there's a connection right there. Interesting.
Number two, I discovered that it's not too hard to figure this out.
There's 700 commercial real estate agents in DC.
So what did I do? I did a chance. I changed my LinkedIn,
and it says commercial real estate agent and Hot Wheels collector.
How many people? That sets you apart. It sets me apart.
And then I will tell you, there's so many times people say,
you know, I was intrigued by, you know, your phone call,
and I googled you and and like, wow, I still have my Hot Wheels, you know?
And I've actually had people I didn't get their real estate business,
but they brought me their Hot Wheels to sell.
But yeah, I think it's a if you're anybody who's anybody
unless you've lived in a cave, you know what Hot Wheels are.
And it's kind of unique and interesting.
So it's a conversation starter. Well, you know, it's interesting.
I did the same for my profile and I put podcaster right up front. Yep.
And I am, to my knowledge, the only commercial real estate
podcaster in Washington. So I think you're correct.
And and so once again, you must think like I do. And it separates you.
And and again LinkedIn. It was kind of a risk to do that
to take such a professional, you know, thing to say.
And hot wheel collector. But you know what?
It's part of my life. Yeah. Well. Podcasting is my life. Yeah. Yeah.
So we both have more fulfilling lives, is what I say.
That's right. Yeah. So I don't have to do deals anymore.
And I haven't been. But I have a community and I do
other things. But the podcast, of course,
has led that. So anyway, you've had an
extraordinary career arc from transforming Crystal City at Vornado
Realty Trust to representing over 20% of DC's office market at Cushman
Wakefield would have been the most pivotal transactions in your career.
So Crystal city was an interesting thing in 2013.
2012 was my best year career. I finally made my dream and it was a
dream to win the number one ranking. And I finally did it.
And then the phone call rang the next week from Mitchell Shire,
who ran the portfolio for Vornado in Crystal city.
And he says, I want you to come and lease Crystal city.
And I said, Mitchell, two things. I think I've only been to
Crystal city once in my life, you know what I mean?
So you may have the wrong guy. And number two, I just had a
great year and I don't think you can compensate me, he says.
If I tell you I can make you happy in the compensation,
would you want to talk to me? And I said, yeah, sure.
So I went out to Crystal city and I talked to him.
And at that time, especially, admittedly, it was a city built
for government agencies. Everything was the same color brick.
The architect was not necessarily award winning. Is that a nice.
Chelsea Smith company? Yeah Chelsea Smith underground
retail. And it was tough because you couldn't
win by the most beautiful building. But it actually had several
things going for it that were just unbelievably dynamic.
You know, the closeness to the Reagan airport, the metro accessibility,
the fact that you don't have to go to downtown D.C. and your views
were the most beautiful skyline of D.C. so I ended up getting hired
and I Mitchell said, you know, you got 30 days to come up.
How are you going to? We're 78% occupied, 79%.
You know, we need to get to 90. What's your plan?
So my first plan was I walked around the city and all these buildings
and I said, what could we do? And I realized we didn't have a
multi-million dollar budget. And then I came up with an aha
moment. I said, you do realize that you can
take the Oval Office if you want and recreate it in a townhouse
in somebody's house, you know. You know,
you could do it in Crystal city. So I said, okay, I can't afford
to change the 100 million or the billion dollar project to knock
buildings down and rebuild it. But I can make the interior of this
space as nice as any place I want. And I came up with this idea, and I
said, and I presented to Mitchell, I said, Mitchell, why don't we take a
floor of this building that hasn't had a deal done in over two years?
Why don't we take an empty floor? Why don't we get one architect
to do the hallway of the future? And then why don't we like a
pizza pie? Split the rest of the floor up
into six suites? And let's hire six architectural
firms. Give everybody the same amount,
$65 a foot and say we want to see Gensler S TCL's Otj.
S vision of the future of office space. And to Mitchell's credit.
Every single thing I asked for. He said yes.
And to Mitchell's credit, he came up with the name Design Lab.
We actually had labs. I still have the lab coat.
I will tell you the competitiveness of the architectural firms.
We would see them sneaking into other firms that would build out. Period.
One saw that one was installing art, so everybody installed art.
One had a bicycle in the wall, and TCL porcelain had just come
out as a material for floors. Our TCL had the most gorgeous
porcelain floor you've ever seen. Uh, they had a new LED light that
came out that that's movable. And another firm had the first
use of these newest LED lights. Okay, here's the summary.
We kept count of how many people walked into that floor.
2300 people. Brokers, Tenants. Occupants of Crystal city.
It got written up. Within nine months,
the building was 100% leased, and we had people for the next couple
of years coming around and saying, I'll take the space in this building.
And at the end of three years we were 89% leased and then JBG
bought the place. So you got to tell me where that
idea came from. Bruce. It was the. Spur of the moment, because I'll
tell you what it came from. Whenever you hire an architect, they
would come in and say, this is who we want the bathroom to look like.
And then the owner would come in and say, hey, dude, you know,
that's a little, you know, I don't want red,
I don't want green, you know? Can we do it like my, you know,
what my house is like or whatever. And I always saw there was a
natural conflict between, you know, what a decorators idea would be
and what the client pushed back. And I said, we're not going to
push back. You have two goals. I want you to design this space for
the future, and we're going to give awards to who leased the space first.
What the. Brokers want to do. Do you know two brokerage firms
called me up and said, can we have our monthly meeting in those spaces?
And so it was remarkably successful. Now, the next idea, though,
and this one bothers me. You know, this is an old expression.
It's the deals that you don't make you think about for the
rest of your life. Yep. So after Design Lab,
which was really successful, I came up with another idea.
I said, how am I going to outdo Design Lab?
And I said, I'm going to look at other cities
around the world and just see. So if you go to Saint Louis,
you see the arch and Washington, D.C., you have a monument.
And I went all around the world. And then I saw something.
I think it was Paris that I liked. I said, okay, this is what we're
going to do, Crystal city. We're going to have the largest
Ferris wheel at the beginning. Everybody in DC will see it lit
up every night. This will be the iconic
transformation. Mitchell didn't know I was
working on this. I found a used Ferris wheel in Italy.
It was like $3 million. And I went in and I told Mitchell,
I said, Mitchell, this is it. We're going to put a Ferris
wheel here on this land. At the beginning I said, I believe
we're not going to be too high, so it won't be a problem with the airport.
It will be lit up and it will transform Crystal city.
I said even the idea of crystals on it, you know, and I said, this is it.
And for whatever reason, two months later, it was never accepted. Okay.
Three months after it was sort of officially turned down, I opened
up the newspaper, National Harbor. Peterson National Harbor decides to
do a Ferris wheel. Peterson did it. And a year later, I'm at the
award ceremony in Mitchell. He was sitting next to me.
And the deal of the year, the Ferris wheel.
At National Harbor. So that was. And I'll never forget that for
rest of my life. I just truly wish we had done it
because isn't that iconic? Isn't on the news every night when
you turn it on for the weather and everything. I think of.
London, the Eye of London. It's what I think of.
Which is, excuse me. That's what was my inspiration.
That was it. It was the. London. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So I just I never got it done, but I. I'll put it on record today if
my good friend Mitchell's here is listening to this,
that we would have gotten to 95%. You know what I mean.
Instead of 89.9, you know, if we had done the Ferris wheel.
Well, Mitchell's no longer with JBG Smith. That's true, that's true.
You are marketing now for the current operator, which is now known
as National Landing JBG Smith. So they're probably happy about your
discussion here. Well, yeah, it's. I think they've done a
remarkable job. I in many ways I rooted for them
to get the arena. But also as a lover of D.C.,
I'm kind of glad they didn't get it. But if it was going to go anywhere,
I would have loved to see it, to go there. So. So what do you think?
How JBG Smith has done since you've left Bernardo and how you
know how they developed. So I don't do any. Yeah, I.
Don't do any work with them now. But winning Amazon is the equivalent
of somebody winning the lottery, right?
And I believe you've only seen the beginning.
I think they finally filled up one building completely.
I think in five years when you drive by Crystal city with, you know,
the developments and the way the future is going, I just think it's
going to be a great skyline there. That everything we talked about
that we had in the past will be much better with the residential
developments, the apartment buildings, the hotels.
I just think that's just going to be a fantastic piece of land.
Well, another person. I'll bring up and you actually
mentioned him before we started our discussion today and he we
talked about it. He spent a lot of time in my
interview with him was Henry Ford, who basically took the retail and
brought it to the. Street in. Crystal city, and that he had to
work with Bob Bob Smith to get that mindset. Yeah. To to do that.
And I think part of what you did and what Henry did, I think is what kind
of stimulated the opportunity that now exists there by some extent.
It's a fabulous. Investment for JBG. You know, there you know,
it's sort of Vornado is New York. And if you're going to have
properties in Virginia to be next to the airport, it's the only walkable
airport in the United States. Yeah. So you could literally walk from
your office to an airport. Think about that.
And now they're building a. Bridge across, you know, route one
there. And yeah, well, you could. Do it illegally.
You actually have to run across the street.
I, I did it on several occasions. There's like, you know,
there's little beginning of it. You just walk, there's a path.
There's actually a path by where the little coffee shop is.
You go down there and that everybody did it all the time.
Well, Arlington County is facilitating.
Yes. A pedestrian walkway now across. We talked about it when I was working
for Vornado at that time. Exactly. So how do you stay adaptable and
relevant in an industry that's constantly evolving? That's a.
Great question. I think innovation is, you know,
thinking of something to do different all the time.
I'll give myself credit for one thing that actually changed the
market back in the early 90s. We never had to grab and go,
do you know what a grab and go is? There were no grab and go,
and I had a developer who had a building a 32 to 1 New Mexico Avenue.
No metro Ringling Brothers in Berlin. Bailey circus was the tenant that
left, and he asked me to lease his building, Larry Brandt.
And it was tough because I would call people up and say,
can you come by 32 on New Mexico? They're like, where is that located?
Because it's not a not CBD. It's right down the street from.
American University. Though. 100%. But oh, it's sort of still like who
wants their office space there? You know, thinking back in those
days, especially when Metro was much more important.
So I told the owner, I said, let's let me grab eight brokers and
bring him to lunch. He goes, great. So I bought a bunch of brokers and by
the way, there's no grab and goes. So what did the brokers do?
One guy ordered a surf and turf. One guy.
I think six of them had alcohol in the middle of the day.
And the bill was like $480 or something.
And I went back to the landlord and he said, well, what did they think?
I said, well, all eight had never been to this building before.
All eight will now consider it. He goes, okay, you know,
if you want to do it again. I said, you know what?
And by the way, it was 2.5 hours. And I know that's a lot of time.
Yeah. So I said to him, I said,
Mr. Brandt, I have an idea. Why don't we offer everybody $20
to help pay for the cabs? Remember the old zone system?
We'll give everybody $20 and let them get in and get out.
Because not everybody has two hours. Why don't we give everybody,
like, a bag lunch from. I forgot there was, like, a grocery
store. You know, that was back there. Well, actually, deli is whack.
Beeswax oils are one of those ones next to it,
because that's a good idea. So I basically invented the grab
and go where brokers get paid. Now they get $100 and they get a
great, sometimes catered meals. Um, so even today,
my innovations are different. I had a there's one of these
luncheons now going on I wish I could have patented,
but I think there's 2 or 3 of these luncheons every week in DC.
And so when I do them now, I innovate at Men's Deli is the
best corned beef sandwich out of Baltimore. There's one in Potomac.
So one of my grab and goes, I had admins come in and carve the
corned beef roast beef sandwiches cost us $10,000, but everybody got an
authentic Jewish deli experience on an empty floor of an office building.
And the difference. Is Parkway. And Silver Spring might argue.
Yeah, I used to go there. Try the corned beef in advance.
Uh, but what happened was we could tell the brokers stayed
around for an hour. They stayed there, they got there.
We filled up the tables. Normal. Grab and go.
They come in, look at the space, and they're at within 16 seconds.
So we got them there for a long time and able to, you know, get success.
And then we usually generate tours right after we have these luncheons.
So innovation is critical. And right now what's more
important than innovation is personal relationships.
Because on the landlord side, if I have a friend who's representing
in the brokerage industry, a tenant that's 5000ft and I have a 5000 foot
square foot, and he said, look, I already picked my favorite five.
My expression is, I want to be the number six.
So I will many times call personal relationships and say,
hey, Andy or Bob, do me a favor, just bring them by this building.
You know, again, you're already looking at five buildings. Yeah.
And getting that six. If you don't have a date, you're
never getting married. Of course. So to me, I'll do whatever it takes
to try to get an opportunity for a client. So they're building a scene.
Nothing's worse. When you hear about a tenant
that toured last week and you know you missed it.
So that that's to me it's it's innovation is also just pushing
relationships and making sure when you're a landlord broker,
you better get along with everybody. There you go.
So since the beginning of your career, technology has significantly
transformed brokerage. What were you some of the earliest
technological shifts you experienced, and how did they change the
business in your mind? Okay,
I'm going to make a confession in the entire podcast industry right now.
Uh, the 760 brokers in DC, I'm the bottom 5% in technology.
I remember when we finally had this new computer system.
I loved it when the newest innovation was the flip chart.
Do you remember those? Uh, sure. We have a.
You know, you flip the chart. You flip the chart. Yep.
And then finally, they became computerized and I said,
I'm going to do everything I can and I'm going to learn how to do this.
So I go into this law firm and by myself, I put on the screen, I push
the button and we go through seven slides, and then the client says,
do me a favor, go back to slide six. That was the end of my career,
and all I could do is I figured out how to get 27 of them
showing up at one little time, little teeny squares,
and and the only way I could do it is to stop everything, reboot
and start from scratch, because I only knew how to go forward.
Who would ever told me to go back, you know?
So anybody that works with Bruce Pascal knows that I thank God a
successful broker always has a team, and I've always had great
teammates that were much more technologically advanced than I am.
And to this day, I still regret, you know, I literally have to
run to our tech department. My screen's dark.
How do I make it lighter? You know, so what I'm doing now
is going to Google and trying to figure out stuff myself.
It's mind blowing to me that you can do this. This.
This Hot Wheels museum and not be technologically savvy. No.
I'm not. I'm not at all. Think about Hot Wheels.
There's no motor. Yeah. They just roll down the track by
gravity. Come on. You know I'm the Hot Wheels broker.
You know I go by gravity. Yeah, it's. It's been a challenge. And.
But at the same time, at the end of the day, like my story I told
you earlier of mailing the flyer. You know,
the old technology still works. Meeting the people and talking to
people. And sometimes. Even better. I still think so, you know?
Yeah. It's funny. A.I. is poised to revolutionize
industries across the board. How do you see AI shaping the future
of commercial real estate brokerage, particularly in client relations,
market analysis or deal structuring? Or have you even played with it?
So my coworker worker. Told me about ChatGPT.
Is that what? It's GPT. So I ended up getting on TV and
did an experiment, and I wrote a love letter to my wife.
And you know how much you mean to me or whatever.
And I gave it to her and oh, boy, did that work.
So I have taken that same thing. What I've done now is I will
many times, uh, write a letter, and then I'll run it through
ChatGPT to see if it's better. I find out, though,
is people can identify. That's not really Bruce speaking.
So what I tend to do then is I kind of take a few things out and
then add some personalization. But what a great tool.
It's mind boggling. I know a lot of brokers are just,
you know, sending out hundreds of letters using, you know,
the new artificial intelligence. So I think it's an absolutely an
amazing tool. Well, um, here's a hint.
Take some of your other writings and feed it to ChatGPT. It learns. Yeah.
So then you say write this letter like Bruce Pascal. So then.
It will. You'll read it. See, I could have written this.
Yeah, it's. It is amazing. I found that it's a great tool.
I also do a lot of volunteer work with an international human
rights group. And many times I want to quickly
learn about something that's going on in this country or that country.
And you just ask the question. Amazing. It's absolutely amazing.
And it's better. Than even better than Google.
Search. Oh, I think so. I think so. No question.
Because it's more it's a direct answer and Google gives you maybe 25
links. Customizes your. Answer. 100%. So I think it's a it's one of the
greatest tools of our lifetime. The question though is how.
Yes, it will help your letter, but once you're in front of the
client, you still know how to speak. And yes, it may get you in the door,
but you still have to have a good team. Well, the.
Questions that I generated today. I've obviously.
Curated over the last 123. Interviews.
However, I did use ChatGPT to refine them immensely.
So good for you. And you've said. Good question many times today,
so I'll. Take that. As a compliment. Okay. You and you and Mr. Chat.
Okay. Okay. So your unique talents include
strategic problem solving, innovative marketing and negotiation.
Which of these has been the most instrumental to your success and why?
So negotiation skills are really fascinating.
And as a landlord broker, I've seen a lot of amateurs out there.
And I've also seen a lot of patterns certain brokers negotiate.
There's one broker who technique is always to say, if you don't give me
this, I'm not going to, you know, you're not going to make the deal.
You know, and it's like in a lot of brokers then run to the client.
This is our only shot. And then one day, this particular
broker, she gave me that word, but I had a little spy that knew
somebody in the firm and said, you know, you're the favorite.
They're going to go to your building no matter what.
And I remember calling the broker up and saying,
you know what you told me? I had to give you 150 and 12
months free to make the deal. I'm congratulating you.
She goes, oh, we made the deal. I said, no, I'm congratulating you
because your other building will give you that deal. We can't though.
But congratulations to you. Oh, no. No, you got the deal.
You know what I mean? Okay. I was just trying, you know?
So you find your bluff. So negotiation skills.
I love I am a believer of what's called win win.
It's understanding, I believe the best negotiating person in the world,
100% understands both sides, how a landlord thinks.
And that way you can craft a solution to make both people.
I don't know if they're always going to be happy,
but you can make a transaction. And my most unusual thing I ever
did in my life was getting involved in the negotiations to help a
prisoner being released from Cuba. And Alan Gross, I don't know if,
you know, years ago was in jail and I ended up going to Cuba four times,
meeting many people in the Cuban government.
And I used every single skill set that I learned as a real estate agent
of how to start a meeting, how to, you know, make a friendship and then,
you know, trying to negotiate. And one of the earliest, I guess,
I can say this now, you know, eight years later, one of the
earliest negotiation skills was when somebody from the it wasn't
technically an embassy at that time. The attache office from the Cuban
government said, we'll get together and said to me, but I'm sorry,
I don't we don't have any kosher food here. He thought I kept kosher.
And I said, no problem. I'll tell you what.
I will bring you a bottle of kosher wine when we come to our
first meeting. And we got together in our first
meeting and I gave him a bottle of Manischewitz, which cost me $6,
And he handed me a case of Cuban cigars. I said, okay, good.
I'm going to learn how to negotiate easily with the Cubans.
So bottom line is I've used those negotiation skills to the
most important things that I've ever done in my life.
And I consider that was one episode that I was involved in,
where all the skills of brokerage were. Used. At a diplomatic level.
Uh, so our skills that we learn to be a broker are interchangeable
for other aspects of life. Did you were you successful today?
Yes. Yes. Alan Gross was released. I ended up bringing in one of my
clients who was a lawyer, to become his lawyer.
We put together a team, and I was called at Wednesday morning to go to
a special location, the white House. White House van took me to Andrews
Air Force, Van Andrews first base. The airplane came in and Alan
Gross got off the plane, and it was one of my most memorable days.
There's a picture of it. I know you can't see it,
but that's John Kerry, Alan Gross, the lawyer and myself watching Obama.
Minutes after he landed. Opening up the relations with Cuba.
That was part of the deal. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
And I understand the current administration might be reversing
that relationship. Yes. Cuba today is being taken off
the terrorism list. Will probably be put back on in
a week. Yeah. We won't go. We won't go down that road.
No, that's another podcast. You've also been a leader in
philanthropy and community impact. How is giving back shaped your
professional identity? So let's just start off in my.
I've hired 15 agents. All 15 agents. I said, I will not hire you
until you join a board. All 15 agents came to me and said,
I'm so broke. You know what I mean? How am I going to join a board?
I said, you know, just tell them you're broke, but just volunteer.
I absolutely believe you have to be on a board to be a successful broker.
Explain what you mean by a board. So, for example,
I told Matt Castle, one of the young top agents of our firm.
I said, Matt, you need to find a charity.
And if you can't find one, I'll find one and find out that
they have a board. Almost every charity has a board,
and you need to get on that board. You need to be to see how a
nonprofit operates, because that will teach you things.
And so, sure enough, Matt found a small nonprofit and said, I'll help
you out in your real estate needs. And they had a single office empty.
And so Matt joined the small board. They had a single office available.
And you're not going to believe this. Three weeks later, I hired him.
Somebody called on that single office, meets him and says,
you know what? It turns out I don't need one office,
I need six. And that did his first deal in six
weeks because he joined the board. Now, you don't join a board because
you're going to make money. No. But there is a relationship for
most successful brokers. So for example,
I saw a big broker one day, you know, walking around this big tenant.
How does he know the decision maker from both groups?
We're on the same board. It's an opportunity to meet
other people. It's an opportunity to give back.
And it's a it's a it's a teaching moment for you.
And you're also giving back to the community.
So I don't think there's anything more advisable for a young person
getting into this industry or any industry, than to try to join a board
and learn how nonprofits operate and do good for the city. Okay.
Talk a little bit about your philanthropy. So my first.
Weeks in the business, a an artist that I rented space to in my process
serving building called me and said, there's a shelter for homeless women,
but it's a daytime shelter. Nobody sleeps there at night called
Rachel's Women's Center, and the building has rats and problems.
We pay, you know, $1,200 a month. What can you do?
Can you help us? So here I am. I don't know much about real estate.
I said, I'll come meet you. And it was 11 nuns and it was part
of the Catholic Charities of DC. And they rented this worst
building you've ever seen at 11th and End Street.
And I said to them, you know, you could buy a building in this
neighborhood for a quarter of a million, get a mortgage, and your
payment will be about the same. And then you could fundraise on
that building. Now, I must tell you, the way
they made money was bake sales and grants and things like that.
And most of them didn't even know they're all nuns.
They didn't know what? Someone didn't know what a
mortgage was. Right. So I said, I'll tell you what, put
your faith in me and I will go out. And we got Madison Bank to
commit to loan us the money. And we found a building,
1222 11th Street. And two weeks before settlement
banking crisis, Madison Bank was taken over.
So I ended up calling a wealthier philanthropist.
And I said, I need to borrow $250,000.
And we'll give you in those days 8% or something.
And, you know, and I'll even do a kicker if the building goes up
in value, you get to share. And he says, okay, we got a deal.
So I got the money and we bought the building and we within three years,
fundraising brick by brick, we paid off the mortgage and I
ended up joining the board. And I suggested to them, I said,
you may do better not being part of Catholic Charities, but running it on
your own and expanding the board. So I immediately brought in one of my
law firm clients who then brought in their personnel management company,
you know, their human resource company, and within two years,
from $200,000 a year revenue, we were we went up to almost $1 million a
year. Wow. By changing the board. So for me, it was a transformational
episode of being a real estate agent, getting involved, becoming president,
changing the board. And that taught me a tremendous
lesson. But here's the byproduct They sat
every month with the leader of that law firm, and ten years later,
when their lease came up, I didn't have to interview. We were friends.
We see each other every month. So there's like a benefit for Bruce.
There's a benefit for the charity. You know, everybody wins in the
end by making these relationships. So I start off with Rachel's
Women's Center and ended up joining several other boards,
including my most active, which has been Abraham, which is the
oldest Jewish human rights group, started in 1843, in New York.
I believe it's the oldest nonprofit, perhaps in the United States.
And last week I was just elected vice chairman, which is the number two.
Job. Of this organization. So that's a worldwide organization.
It's worldwide. We have offices in Israel and
Belgium. We're we're admitted to the
United Nations. Really? I'm going to go to these skills
I told you about. I'm going to Paris in March to Unesco
meetings where groups of five of us meet with different UN ambassadors.
Talking about issues that are important to us today.
So all these skill sets come back that I learned from the
brokerage world. You know, because you got to go
into a meeting when you're 24 years old with, you know, a lawyer
in a big law firm and big deals, and, you know, you have to know
how to talk and learn. And everything that I am today is
because of the skill sets that I had, innate but refined from the
brokerage world. Talk a little bit. About why you are involved so
heavily in B'nai B'rith. Is it a religious thing for you
or is it? What is. It? So when I was younger,
in high school, they had a group called B'nai B'rith Youth,
which is sort of like the Boy Scouts, but a little bit older.
And to this day, I have my my best friends are from that group.
When I went to college, I joined Hillel. I was so broke.
I told you in college I actually cooked for them and I got free meals.
That's how I ate through college. Uh, what is Hillel?
Hillel is a division from B'nai B'rith started.
It's now by itself, which is kind of kind of like the Catholic
Center for Catholics at school. It's a place to get together and
meet other Jewish kids. They do charity work,
they have social events, etc.. And then after college,
the neighbor became my client and faithful one day.
I'm in New York who sits next to me, but the president of the
neighborhood. And I said,
what has been able to do today? And he goes, wow,
I can't you know, I'm surprised you don't know what we do.
And he goes, I'll tell you what we do.
Meet me next Tuesday at the corner of 15th and Adam at noon.
So I showed up. What's at 15th and Mass Avenue?
See him? Gets out of a cab to Tunisian
embassy. He says, here's the deal. This is your first diplomatic
meeting. Don't say a word. Just watch. So I went in.
We met the visiting prime minister of Tunisia. We met the ambassador.
They talked about different items. At that time, there was a request to
do something for an Israeli citizen. The request eventually happened,
and I walked out of that meeting, and I was hooked.
International diplomacy. Well, this is a muslim country.
Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's. And we were requesting a relative of
a dignitary of Israel to visit his mother, who still lived in Tunisia.
And the trip was granted. But to make a long story short,
I was hooked after that meeting. And I've been lucky enough to
have been to three meetings with popes now. Really?
Yeah, there's there's see Pope Francis right there.
That was in his office. Uh, Benedict I met in his office.
And then I met one of them at the Rome synagogue.
So we go around the world doing Netanyahu.
Uh, no, I have not met him, interestingly enough.
So many of the Israeli trips I skipped because I've been to
Israel so many times. But but yeah,
it's been fascinating to me. I even met one day, Mubarak,
two weeks before he got overtaken by Mubarak.
He was in the Four Seasons meeting. Believe it or not,
with a group of Jewish leaders. And it was a snowstorm.
And I knew I wanted to meet him. So I ended up checking into a
hotel in Georgetown so I could, you know, with this one foot of snow,
go to the meeting. There was only like eight of us
there, and we had a one hour dialogue back and forth.
And at the end, out of nowhere, Mubarak looks at me and he says,
you stand next to me. You know why he had me stand next
to him? Because I'm five seven. He wasn't that tall. He went.
He went. One of the tall guy standing
next to him. There was a guy in the group
that was like six foot seven. So I regret this day.
I never called the embassy to get the picture because three weeks
later he was no longer there. And you can't call the embassy
now and saying, hey, you got that picture of me and Mubarak.
You know, he was put in jail. So, you know. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
That's amazing. So over the years, what's been your
biggest professional challenge and how did you overcome it?
So my biggest professional challenge we talked about today
was the lack of technology. Yeah. And how I've overcome it is by
having great people help me out all the time.
I won't even tell you how, you know. Put it this way.
A lot of brokers run their own numbers,
but at Cushman we have a guy. That's all he does is run numbers,
and he's the highest level train. So just because I may not have the
skill set to do a very complicated, you know, compilation of seven
different buildings and all their financial structures,
I'll get a summary from him. I am very good at finance,
so I can understand completely. I just don't know how to do the
Excel spreadsheet because every time I push a button,
everything goes wild and crazy. Okay, so you overcome it by
having the right people? Yes. Teamwork. Got it.
What's the most important lesson you've learned about balancing
personal passions with professional responsibilities?
I always. Put first. The professional responsibilities.
The fact that Barnes Morris hired me, Vornado hired me.
Cushman Wakefield hired me. That is a commitment you make that
you will be successful for them. Uh, as you may or may not know,
my salary is zero. I only eat what I kill, as they say.
And I recognize the firm hired me and gave me the opportunity
to work for them. So my number one commitment
outside of my family is to my job. And I always put that first.
Uh, but like I said in the beginning of this, the greatest
thing about commercial real estate, it's God's gift to people with ADHD.
Okay. We work on a project. We need a break.
We need to go to the next project. The next project.
And because of that, the hobby and the passions and the
work can magically flow together. I just always prioritize the work.
That's great. So if you could go back and give
your 25 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?
The advice would be Warren Buffett. Advice Is live within your means.
Invest and make sure you you join many charitable boards.
It's it's it's there's so many brokers that I actually feel
sorry for during Covid. Who ended up let's say they're in
their 30s. The prototypical broker. They had a few good years,
joined the country club, you know, put their kids in
private school and Covid hit. I don't know, you know, how quick
can you quit a country club and how quick can you put your kids back
into Montgomery County schools? You know, they they were living
beyond their means because they, you know, and and this industry we've
had, John, you've been in this, what, close to 45 years.
We've had some real punches in our stomach. We sure have.
If you were a Virginia broker during the tech bust,
if you were during the RTC days, the banking crisis is Covid.
In some ways, it's like the. Stock market crisis, the.
Global financial crisis. You know, you you always need to
live lower than what you make. Be thankful,
put away and save for the future. I know a broker right now that's,
you know, in my age and I'm like, you know, why aren't you thinking
of retiring or slowing down? And I think he's got seven more
years of paying his forced divorce settlement.
You know, and, you know, it's a, you know, make sure you're,
you're you're financially set. Um, and keep busy. Be happy.
Well, I think, you know, you just the point you just made
is not just financially set, but your personal life is in control to.
100%, 100%. To some extent, yes, yes. So what are your life priorities
among family work and giving back? I would say they're very balanced.
I'm now a grandfather. Great granddaughters. Thank you.
They live in Atlanta and it's hard to describe in words being a
grandfather. It's very exciting. And especially when they come here
and visit me in the Hot Wheels Museum. Oh, but the kids love it.
You know what I mean? How old are you? 1 in 3.
And let me tell you, they just love it.
You know, I'm saving every pink hot wheel for my two granddaughters.
Except the really expensive one. I'll still keep that one.
Um, but, yeah, I'm in. What I'm doing right now is I am
in the ninth inning of a 36 year real estate career, and I'm pushing
my charitable work and outside volunteer work to a higher level
by realizing I'm 63 years old. This is an opportunity to run for
election, to be with Ben Abraham. And I decided now's the time.
And and that's going to take some time and the hobby.
So I'm kind of I feel like I'm in a really great balance right
now that I still can produce, I still can have a passion for
Hot Wheels and I can give back. So and I'm a grandfather and I
have great kids. So it's. So you'll just hand your book of
business to your colleagues, your team.
So I basically I have eventually I have all my listings I have
partners on. And the listing side, I'll slow down
much faster than the tenant side. I can envision myself seven years
from now, somebody calling me up and saying, A friend, I need space,
you know, I'm gonna, you know, hopefully still do the deal.
But I will always bring a partner in because you don't know what's
changed, what's happened in, you know, and I and I always said
the best way to be a best broker is to be the best broker for that
client to solve the solution. So if I ever felt I didn't know a
trend or something, there's so many great brokers you can bring in.
Well, my final question is if you could put a message on a billboard on
the Capitol Beltway for millions to see, what would it say and why?
It would probably be close to what I would say is my thank you.
Thank you for being able to touch, You know, the number of 3000,
you know, is a lot. You know, thank you for me being
part of so many organizations that I was involved with and
touched because everyone was just an amazing experience.
Everyone was kind of like dating somebody new.
You know, when you're when you get a new client or you find you
find somebody space or you solve negotiations, it would be. Thank you.
Uh, I'm moved by something that I saw years ago.
Edward S Gordon was probably one of the greatest real estate brokers
in the history of the world. And a week after he died,
or maybe even less than a week, there was a full page ad in the New
York Times that said, thank you. And it was Edward S Gordon that
he knew he was going to die, and he had an ad in the newspaper.
And I told my wife that, you know, I haven't done it yet, but I will
probably do something like that. Just thank you for the
opportunity because it made my life so fulfilling.
Uh, working in a city that I'm multi-generation and helping so many
people. That's great. That's awesome. Anything else you'd like to say,
Bruce, before we turn off the mic here? Well, I.
Was just going to say thank you for all these great questions,
but maybe I shouldn't. Thank you. I should thank Mr. Chap.
I'm just kidding, you know. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Uh, thank you for an opportunity to reminisce today about something
you've been doing for 36 years. Uh, I've seen the list of people
you've you've done podcast with. And I humbly say, uh, I must
have just barely made that list. But thank you very much.
I'm honored to be part of your podcast.
And thank you for what you do for the Washington area.
Thank you. Very much. And listeners, another one in the
books. So thank you for listening. Have a great night.