Insights from Academia: Real Estate Trends & Career Advice with Dr. Greg Smersh. (S3E10)

The Crossman Conversation CEO Edition brought to you by Advent Health, First Horizon Bank, AvCon, RB Marks Construction, Baker Barrios, and Maynard Nexon. The views and opinions expressed by the guests on the following program do not necessarily represent those of Mark Radio, the Shepherd or its advertisers. Welcome to the Crossman Conversation CEO Edition, offering insights, wisdom, and counsel from the most respected CEOs. Here is the host of the Crossman Conversation CEO Edition, John Crossman. Hello, this is John Crossman and welcome to the Crossman Conversation, the CEO Edition. Today's guest is a good friend of mine going back many years and he is Dr. Grace Smirsh, who is the professor real estate at the University of South Florida. Dr. Smirsh, are you there? I'm here. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing just fine. Thank you. Well, I always interested in getting perspective from a professor like yourself who obviously has access to all kinds of different things you're seeing. Do you want to just tell us sort of starting off your big picture? What are your thoughts on today's real estate market? Well, it's kind of up to tell because there's a lot of things going on, obviously, in the economy. You watch the stock market and get an idea. Thankfully, real estate isn't as volatile. But there's a lot going on with tariffs and the uncertainty, which of course, stock market does not like. And interest rates, which impact real estate, quite a bit, right? I mean, they're pushing 7% on the 30-year fix. So and as you know, they went up pretty quickly here in the last year. And so that, you know, should they go north to seven, then that's going to make it tougher for a lot of real estate. The deals I think tell me about from, you know, home, the residential market to the commercial sectors. So big picture. There is some level uncertainty real estate not as an impacted yet, but could be, depends how long some of this uncertainty goes. How about this insight? As you're talking to the students, your students, and they're looking for work, are they giving feedback like they have found, they're finding jobs or getting job offers. Is there one area that's hiring more than another, or are they also feeling certain that there may be as not as jobs available right now? Does that does that give you an kind of intel on what's happening? Yes, but I would say that their outlook remains pretty positive. Good. The students, students, especially the ones that are motivated, that go out and get internships while they're still in school, are getting job offers. Being housed in a finance department, as most real estate programs are, they, I would say, focus on, you know, financial analyst types of jobs. That's what most of them do, although it's really, as you know, a ton of opportunities from leasing site selection, et cetera, even construction and development. So. And your program has really been rampant up. I mean, I see the posts from the real estate society that you helped create that. And I see them all over social media that are reactive. And so it seems like the program there at USF is going well. Is there things going out there? I would say so. I mean, it's been a tough hall over the last 10 years. In fact, yeah, I started the real estate society in 2015. I think you came to our first meeting, actually, or you were on campus. That sounds like that. Sounds like that somewhere to do, yeah. That's grown tremendously. I mean, right now we have like 700 active members for our meetings. We only get maybe more like 40 students or so, depending on the speaker, some speakers attract bigger crowd. But during that time, I've created a real estate minor. First, it was first a finance concentration. Now real estate minor, actually two minors, one for business students and one for non-business students. So there's the real estate society is open to any student at USF. So we get quite a few students from urban planning and really across campus. You know, it's interesting. I graduated from FSU in 1993 with a BS in real estate. And I it was like 10 years before I started meeting people with degrees in real estate. I mean, I mean, that like the next youngest person in my office, I was 22. They were 31. You just didn't see it. I think that in a praise a lot that time was different. But it really has ballooned up with many more programs and a lot more talent coming into the market. And it seems like it's a lot more mainstream of an area. And I think sometimes students, if they're measuring something else, they might take a real estate course taking it. It's easy and can be kind of surprised that it's a bit more complex than they were thinking. Is that correct? I assure you. So the big, the huge misconception about real estate is that if you say a career in real estate, people say, well, why do I want to say, why would I want to sell houses? In fact, even our previous dean said that. Why do we want students selling houses? They don't understand that there are just a huge number of career opportunities across the board. And I often say that, you know, what makes real estate so interesting is it's got so many different perspectives, if you will. It's got obviously got the financial perspective and is usually housed in the finance department. But there's the legal, transactional side of it. And then if location is important, location, location, location, then, certainly geography is a part of it. And their associated careers. And then the physical component where I started out in construction and architecture and development. So I always tell students that there is literally something for every different personality type. If you're a more of an introvert, you want to just sit in the back office and run Excel or Argus and there's a job for you. If you're a people person that wants to be out working with people every day, there's something for you too. So that's kind of what I think is the neat thing about real estate careers. And what I stress in my class, and that's what's attracted to some of the students to real estate society and to pursuing degrees. You know, it's funny. At least we don't have a degree per se, but we do have the minor right now at the undergrad level. We're looking at doing graduate program probably MBA with real estate concentration or eventually an MSRE. That's awesome. Well, I'm really grateful for that. You know, for me, I was a person I'd rather be out there talking to people, but all of the financial skillset I learned from Dean Gatzloff and Stacey Cermans and that that crew, some of your contemporaries there, was really helpful to me. Right. So the detail side helped me on the other side. So, you know, it's important that students have a balance of those two. And I'm so grateful what you're doing because we need more and more talent in the industry and to have us at such a huge market. And you played a really critical role in helping getting students interested in the field and into the field and growing the field. So, man, I really just really appreciate your leadership in Tampa. That's also in fact a nationally. So thank you for that. Well, thank you. It's been, I feel like it's been an uphill battle to get people to get administration at least to on my side to promote this. But the student interest is obviously there as is the demand for job. Yeah. Well, that's what it's all about. You know, like, I'm a trustee at two universities and that's the biggest thing in the world is like trying to get kids out of college and into careers. And by the way, real estate, flora, it's a big, big career is out there. Well, listen, Professor, if you mind, which is going to take a quick break if you can hang up for another couple of minutes. I want to have you back to talk about your advice for our students and and how they can become CEOs and best skill sets for that. So hang on for just a minute. We're going to take a quick break and be back here at the Crossbow Conversation. the Oedition. I'd like to thank Maynard Nexon, PC, for being a sponsor of our program. Maynard is a full-service law firm with over 600 lawyers in 24 offices nationally to serve with professional excellence in everything from corporate and business matters to day-to-day legal issues. The Office in Central Florida focuses its practice in real estate, corporate transactions and organization, banking and finance along with trust and estates. To learn more, visit MaynardNexon.com. At Advent Health, we believe wholeness isn't any one field. It's all of them. Laughter to tears and everything in between. So let your hearts overflow, let your spirits dare to hold and let the sun shine through. May you always live in wonder, wondering at this life, and never, ever stop reaching for what makes you feel whole. Learn more at AdventHealth.com/humanspirit. This is John Crossman, and when I am looking to purchase a new property, upgrade one of my existing properties, perform routine maintenance, tenant improvements, or developing a full-scale project. I reach out to my guys at AvCon. They are planners and engineers that can meet all of my needs, and they can meet all your needs too. If you're looking for assistance with site improvements, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and even structural issues, reach out to my friends at AvCon. They are turning today's ideas into tomorrow's reality. Once again, here's John Crossman. All right, we're back here at the Crossman Conversation, the CEO, edition with Dr. Greg Smersh, who is a professor of real estate at the University of South Florida. Has been really influential in the real estate market in Florida, and really I would argue nationally with his passion for real estate, which comes from a background in construction, which I love, which is different from other people's perspective. And a real world practitioner on top of that, and then creating the real estate society, and helping create a minor at USF, and has influenced a lot of students. And Greg, I kind of think that like over these years, you've had students that have come through your class and you thought, man, that one's special. And then now years later, they're CEO or they're entrepreneur, maybe they're arising SVP at a corporation. And then some, you know, not so much, right? So you have that, you know, perspective. So we have a lot of students and young professionals that listen to the show. So from your perspective, as a PhD real estate professor, what are the standout traits that students need to be thinking about that can accelerate them to be the most successful in the industry? Well, I guess number one is motivation, right? Some students, unfortunately, you know, for whatever reason are going to college, maybe their parents pushed them to it, or they feel, you know, their friends are going, they feel like, oh, something I got to do, you know, and they just kind of go through the steps without really getting involved, you know, in different organizations or or their or their classes, you know, and my dad always used to say, at your education, it's the one thing they can never take away from you. You know, you've got it. And I feel a lot of students don't appreciate that at their age, you know, while they're in college. Some do, but again, it's motivation. So it's the ones that are getting involved in organizations, the ones that are getting involved in class, the ones that are asking questions and taking advantage of this opportunity to learn and have all of this, they may not use it in the future, but then again, they met and there for them. So I guess that's my number one recommendation, if you will, is to make the most of your education, get involved in class, get involved in organization, definitely do an internship. And I guess the other thing, I see a lot of students, you know, they see colleges, something, you know, it's on their checklist, okay, I went to college and now I'm going to look for a job. And that's just the worst attitude, right, because people will go out of their way to help students. But once you graduate, you just, you know, just another person on the street. And as a student, they, if they take advantage of that and you don't go to say real estate to study events, afterwards stick around, talk to the speakers, say, I'm not interested in what you do, you know, could I come to your office sometime? Chances are they'll take them out to lunch, possibly do an internship. If nothing else, introduce them to other people, start to build a network, which is, as you know, is huge in real estate. Yeah. And I guess that's enough in both of it. That's really helpful. I, when I was at college, I had to take a humanities class, which I was not excited about. And because of my schedule, because I ran track, I, I could only take classes, yeah, predominantly in the morning, this class was only after the afternoon, the afternoon, at night, so I take it at night. So it's in college, I mean, class at night, I was so not looking forward to it. Would you believe I still quote that class? I still, I use examples of that class many times when I'm making a point about real estate. It's not funny. And so what I hear you saying is like, you said, motivation is in the classroom of like leaning in and really trying to think about really understanding it and then find ways to apply it. But then you were also saying that as far as also clubs, like, and it could be their athlete, could be there in a fraternity or sorry, it could be there of just volunteering, but they're leaning in. And I love what you said about how they, they come to us, real estate side of me, they show up early and they stay late and like, like, that good things can happen in that space. Good things can happen in that space. And then you talked about, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, I mean, to me, the most rewarding thing about, about teaching and I never thought it would be a feature, but at least, you know, as a younger person. But the most rewarding thing is hearing from students five, 10 years later that that are successful and and are maybe not, maybe they're not a senior yet, but they're definitely on the way. And and telling me it was your class. They got me excited about this and and let me, you know, down this career path. So to me, that's the, that's the most rewarding thing. You know, I tell students all the time that when you get to graduation, you know, take a moment and send an email to president, university and highlight the people that made impact to you. And as you get into your career, you know, maybe it's on every five year inversory, you know, five, five years out, 10 years out, 15 shot slow down and take time to look back and thank people for what they've done. And I did that with my high school speech teacher and he passed away during COVID. He actually was in a car accident. And his widow actually has me in it come to give his eulogy, which I did. And then a couple years later, she was clean out his desk and found a note I'd written him thanking him for what he'd done. And so that's so true. Like it's it's it's such an important part. And you are playing a huge part, but man, the students take the time to express that appreciation. That's that's it's meaningful. Correct? Absolutely. And then you said to him about internships and then we're going to wrap here in a second. And those are so critical. And I think that one of the things I would want to say students understand this is that you can create an internship. It could be formal, but it also could be something you kind of create. And it doesn't have to be that you intern somebody for three months or whatever. I've had students have just done a lot, much of the little projects for me. And we've called it an internship. And then it's on their resume. And I can say, oh, the student do these things well. So a student can create it if they're leaning in enough. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I always tell my personal story about a construction firm that I wanted to work for. I was at the University of Washington and a keyword construction, and Peter's keyword. I think it's just a keyword construction now. But I reached out to one of the guys, one of the executives there and said, hey, I'm, you know, I'm in the building instruction program. I'm really interested in what you do could I possibly come down to your office. And a couple of months later they said, hey, you know, would you be interested in a job in California? And this was before I even graduated. So I had actually led straight to a job. But the point that I'm making is it could have easily been an internship. Just by reaching out and saying, I'm really interested in what you do. As you know, people love to talk about themselves, most people do. And what they do, what their career is. And so it's a pretty easy ask, I think, a lot of students are afraid to, to make that ask, but if they do, you never know. know where it can lead. And I think that you're going to an internship like you say, a self-created one and if you're if you're motivated, a lot of these internships, of course, turn into into jobs. That's right. And I love what you said there about, Hey, when you're a student, you can ask for stuff that you can't when you're now an associate somewhere. And that's even sure when I linked in, you're connected to be a linked in as a student that can come across really well as opposed to being an associate somewhere. Maybe you're competing with somebody, right? Yeah. Right. It's kind of a funny phenomenon that I've always been fascinated. I mean, if you made a call and said, I'm John Crossman, I'm a student at USF, you get a totally different reaction. You said, you know, I'm John Crossman, I'm looking for a job. Yeah, I'm not a work. So it's a big difference and people you're right, people are willing to help. Yeah. And that's the one thing I encourage students to take advantage of that, the stage in their lives, their role as a student and the, you know, the power that they have to get to catch people's ear and because people will go out of their way to help students, there's just something about that. So, well, you know, I will. Well, listen, um, Professor, thank you so much for being the show. Thanks for your leadership and industry impact and all you're doing impact lives were just so grateful for your role and and hope you come back another time. You go ahead too. Great job to be a John. Great talking to you. We're going to take a quick break and be back for a final segment. This is John Crossman and in my career, I've worked for over 30 gears in the commercial real estate industry. And then at time, I work with a lot of vendors and I'll tell you one of the ones that's my favorite is my friends over at RB Mark's construction. They are one of my go-to guys when we need tenant build out, construction services, design build, ground up, and project management, just absolutely one of the most professional best people on there. They're all about on time and under budget. If you have a construction need in central Florida, make sure you check out my good friends, RB Mark's construction. Here's a twist on your typical banking options. What if instead of choosing between a big bank or a small bank, you had one bank that's the best of both. That's first horizon. Big bank muscle with small bank hustle, big bank convenience and small bank connection. When the best of big needs the best of small, you get it all to help you on the road to your horizon. First horizon bank. For more than 30 years, Baker-Farios Architects has been designing places that transform the present and shape the future. Today with offices in Orlando, Tampa, Nashville, Chicago, and Boston, Baker-Farios has grown from central Florida's largest design firm to a nationally recognized company with centers of excellence in compensating multifamily, hospitality, senior living, entertainment, education, healthcare, and landscape architecture to name a few. Baker-Farios is deeply committed to the communities for whom they serve, working together to make a tomorrow a better place. All right, we are back here at the Crossman Conversation CTO edition, the final segment here. My, how are you, sir? Hey, well, really enjoyed this guy. He's very interesting. Listen, you know, I want you to think about being a college professor, right? And there's a lot of professors who are geniuses, they're super bright people, and they do great research and make impact. On one hand, on the other hand, some of them are unrelated, right? Like, they're just so intelligent and they're in their own world, and they're kind of sometimes a nice human. You can't really talk to them, and then they can help and sometimes people are brilliant. You get a guy like Greg Smursch comes along, and he's like a regular guy, right? He's super smart. There's no doubt about that. Very smart. Right. At the same time, he came up through construction, building houses, working with his hands. Like, he's like a normal regular guy who also is super smart. And when you put a guy like that in front of a bunch of 18, 19 years old, you can see how impactful he could be because he can teach on these super complex, important things, and he's relatable. And he's from Florida. Oh, there you go. Well, a PhD there, but you know, that counts. Yeah, that counts. That's certainly counts. That's right. But you know, I'm saying it's like he's, I think he's really got a combination of skill sets there that make him very unique. And then when he was talking about the advice, yeah, motivation, you know, for students like, and that's true for professional Sioux. I look at people who are exceptional to career, and then some of the same people volunteer, and then they're crushing it, volunteering. Like, they have a spirit within them. So, and there are a lot of companies like that. Like people that are involved in the community. So when you're doing that college, you show your balance. I've got a young lady I know that's a Duke University, and she was asking my advice, and like, she's making, you know, basically straight A's at Duke, that's awesome. But she's also doing some social things. I'm like, I like that because it's showing you you're well rounded. So I like that. Part of their well-roundedness comes from the fact that he was a professional out in the state of Washington. You can't get much farther away geographically than that from Florida. So he has a real good national picture on these principles that he teaches. Right. And he's seen it from all different kinds of angles, right? So it's again, it's not just teaching and it's applying it, right? And so I just love that about like, you know, like his perspective from the professor professional listening, looking at these students, like that's the one, that's the one, that's the one. And then when he started talking about playing the student card, that's such a great piece of it. Yeah, it was great. I actually, one of my daughters had a professor that said, "Oh, don't really worry about LinkedIn until you're 25." And she told me she was the only kid in her class that's on LinkedIn. I'm like, "Well, you're right. The professor in this case is less right." And I'm like, "We keep pushing it." Because again, if you're a student and you're a senior and you start connecting with alumni, "Hey, I'm a student at whatever university and I want to connect with you, that's just more appealing." And black people think that way because I think almost student like I'm a bearist, I'm like, he's saying, embrace that. Play the student card. And you might get in with a company like yours as an intern. And boy, that brings a whole bunch of experience. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of great companies out there for sure. And I think the other thing was to talk about with internships like, you know, creating internships. I just want to say this. I also want to note that when he was talking about the market, it was an interesting point for him to say, uncertainty, fluctuation, stock market, real estate is still strong. Yeah, that's right. And to say that his star students are all getting job opportunities. So I hope that that's an endotal, but an encouragement to people as well. So I was thinking about what's going on in the market. Wonderful. As always, Mike Gillen, thanks for being here with me. You're such a great partner. And until next time, this is a Crossman Conversation, the CEO Edition. This has been the Crossman Conversation, CEO Edition, with your host, John Crossman. Tune in next week for another talk with an experienced CEO that will help bring clarity to your business endeavors. The pre-seeding was a mark radio production.