Steve Rosenberg | Founder and CEO of Greystone

I'm not the person that's going to muscle my way into a transaction. I'm not the person that's going to, you know, spend the hours on the golf course. First of all, I'm not a good golfer and besides that, I just don't have it at that time, but I am going to try to be the person that gently tees up what I think could be the best solution utilizing our balance sheet, our cash, our creativity in such a way that the choice is compelling. I'm not going to be, we're not going to be muscling in, we're going to teet up and have the client make the choice. Hi, this is Matt Sleppen and welcome to Leading Voices in Real Estate. Today's episode is a conversation with Steve Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of Greystone, one of the leading lenders in the multi-family space. This conversation with Steve follows a different path than most of our Leading Voices interviews, although Harkins back to how we started the show back now seven years ago. The show started as discussions of our guests, career journeys and how they built their firms and we pivoted now four years ago when COVID hit to conversations focused more on today's business and challenges instead of career and company stories. I'm happy though that this conversation with Steve took that other turn because Steve's story, how he got Greystone founded and the values that he grew up with are 100% central to the company that Greystone is today. An instructive back to the inception of Leading Voices where we tried through our interviews to give insight into how the heck companies get started evolve and then grow into sustainable successful businesses in different parts of the real estate space. So Steve, thanks for telling your story. And this conversation does emphasize this moment in time when housing is a top agenda item and we have a new administration in Washington that is both wants to lean in on housing just as much as it wants to disrupt. It will disrupt. I think we can count on that, which will cut both ways to both opportunity and thread. And this will be a continuing conversation in the coming months. How do we move that disruption to opportunities for our businesses in the real estate ecosystem? And in the case of this conversation, how this might create positive opportunities to finance and deliver more affordable housing. As Steve and I discussed, he got to be on the field and be ready to take opportunity and equally be ready to protect your turf for that part that goes in challenging directions. A strong business has resilience to be prepared for either side and that's especially important not just in real estate in this rapidly changing landscape on the federal front, but also across the board and business. In that light, our next podcast will be with Jeff DeBoer from the real estate roundtable where we'll be discussing the outlook for real estate with a new administration in Congress. I hope that you enjoy this episode and I hope that you'll share this one with your friends in the business. If you have comments on the show, thoughts for guests or importantly, if you have questions about how ZRG can help you firm through recruiting strong talent for your team, or an advisory work relating to the human capital and business platform of your company, please email me at [email protected]. I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Steve Rosenberg from Greystone. Steve Rosenberg, welcome to Leading Voices in real estate. We are here in your office at Carnegie Tower in New York City. That is beautiful here. We have art in the walls. We have art in the hallway and we have a lot to talk about about your business, about this time in the multi-family business, generally multi-family investments, the multi-family finance world, and your company and your company's role in this space. Thanks Matt. So lots to talk about, lots. Maybe the place to start is if you'd introduce yourself and then your company and then we'll drill down all over the subject. Matt, really thanks for your time. You were really happy to be here. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, as I said earlier, very few people born in Miami Beach, especially in middle aged people. I was one of them and grew up in a Jewish modern orthodox family, went to Jewish day schools. Unfortunately, when I was 18, my father suddenly passed away, which was in devastating blow. My mother, my two sisters and I, we really had no money to speak of as a matter of fact. I remember we couldn't afford the central air conditioning in my home and so we pulled our mattresses into the kitchen and slept on the floor because it was a small air conditioning unit in the kitchen. It was really a tough, very, very tough time and after my father passed away, I ended up at the suggestion of some of the rabbinical leadership in Miami going to Yashiv and just studying the Old Testament for almost the next five years. First in Memphis, Tennessee, then in Brooklyn, it started college, but frankly, didn't have any money to go to college. So wherever I could go for free, I went to try to cobble together at the degree and where did you go to college and then I want to go backwards. I ended up going, taking some courses at Brooklyn College. I got a degree from Turo College, which was kind of then almost beginning to, they just opened their doors a couple of years earlier, now they're really a large university. But anyway, they just opened their doors, so got a degree from there. But what did I learn? I learned to ask questions, I became just an extremely curious person from that. I also learned not to drink anyone's cool, everyone's got, oh, this phrase means this, it means that, and I really asked, I learned how to challenge and that really carried me a lot as we'll get into in the business, like, okay, like everyone is saying, this is what this means. Well, what's the basis for that, right? Is that based in fact, or is that based in opinion? And so what it taught me was definitely discipline, definitely how to challenge, but I realized after a couple of years that this life of just studying wasn't going to be my future. And which is why I started going to college, but I started late, which we'll get to it. My first job was actually, I was already 30. I didn't, because of my time in Yeshua, I never really had a job other than selling coaks in the circus until I was 30, but I did well at that job. Actually, I'll tell you why I was good at it. The way it works when you sell coaks in the circus, the way it did when I was doing it was that you, there was a really long line of people that you would buy the tray of coke, right? And then you'd go out and sell them and then get back in line, but the line was a really long line, because a lot of people go to the circus. And so you'd waste a lot of time standing in that line. So what I did was when I went and I bought my creative coaks instead of buying one, I bought like four or five, which is almost impossible to carry. So I would buy the four or five somehow miraculously make my way into the stands and find a nice person that was willing to for a free coke, watch my coaks sitting under their chair. Oh my God. And so I was able to probably make four or five times what other people made selling coaks. And so I did so well, I'm surprised I didn't become my career, but it could have, I didn't do so badly. Cash business. Okay. So get us into finance. So anyway, so ended up going to getting a degree from Turo College, I didn't know what to do with myself. So that was another lesson I learned, which is don't make a decision because you don't know what to do. So the one advice that I give to young people that I meet is you have to have a mentor. Right. If you don't have a mentor, someone that can grab you by the neck and basically say like, what are you thinking? Like why are you doing this? So I ended up applying to dental school. And because it was one of the graduate schools that I could go for free because for whatever reason, the government wanted to promote dentistry in the country and have more dentists. And so I ended up applying and got into Penn University of Pennsylvania as dental school, which is really a great school, but that profession really didn't like me so much and I wasn't that good at it. I was a little worse than not good at it. A lot of my pretty stories. I'm still a pretty good dental consultant. So I'm in dental school and I had gotten married on the way when I was 23. I already had two children and halfway through I met someone, one of my neighbors happened to be at Wharton and I said, well, what do you do? Like what are you doing to graduate? He said, well, you know, you can go to an independent banking or consulting. I said, well, that sounds interesting. Like what do they make? And he told me what they could make. And it wasn't a lot of money then, but it was a heck of a lot more than I had ever seen in my life. I said, you know, this might be for me. So my lucky break came from the fact that at Penn, if you're in one graduate school and you apply and are admitted to another graduate school, they don't make you pay for two educations at the same time. So because I was on scholarship and student loans at the dental school, if I was able to go to Wharton at the same time, I wouldn't have to pay for it. So I was able to, did you double to grade? I did, two graduate schools at the same time and two kids at home. And that's what's called a very understanding wife, maybe the most. And so anyway, I ended up graduating dental school when I graduated Wharton and kind of funny. I thought I was so smart because here I was like, wow, who goes to two graduate schools at the same time. And so I sent out 300 resumes like Steve Rosenberg, DMD, MBA, no responses because who's going to hire some idiot that happens to be a dentist and an MBA like, why would they do that? So it was like, I got one interview. That was it from graduating from Wharton, one interview, 300 wasted resumes sent out, right? Because my. That's totally weird. Well, because my arrogance or uberists said to me, geez, no one does that. Like I'm going to put DMD on my, you know, on my resume, on my, you know, my characteristics. And boy, it was out of mistake, goodbye exclusion. If you left that off, exactly, maybe I would have gotten two interviews, right? I could have doubled. But anyway, so I did get a job in one interview, but they did hire me at AG Becker. And I started at AG Becker Paraba, went to, you know, I wasn't. I would not say that I was a model associate, I really wasn't, because I was so eager to catch up. Right. Because I started so late, I was really 30, people were there with me were 24, you know, 23. And so I felt like I need to make, I need to make up for lost time. So I was hungry to learn. And I had a boss at the time who was not the easiest boss to be around because I was orthodox. I really needed to get home to my family by Friday evening at sunset and he had an issue with that. And I remember suggesting to him, there was a whole episode where I was in Baton Rouge and I needed to get back. And he said no, but I just had to leave. Right. There wasn't a negotiation. And the following Monday, when I suggested that maybe I wasn't the best associate for him, I got called in by his boss's boss, who was, I think he was like a six foot, six marine. I remember him saying, you know, Rosenberg, you know, it's nice that you tell us who you want to work for, but that isn't the way it works around here. The way it works around here is we tell you who you're going to work for. And so, but if that doesn't work for you, you know, that same revolving door you came in on, you can leave. And we'll try to create a story as to why you had to leave this job three months after you arrived. So I went home and I realized I was, I just couldn't work for this individual. I came back the next day and I said, let's try to come up with a story, please. Of course, I said, please, because this guy's six, six, and very big. And so he said, okay, go back to your desk. And two hours later, he came out and he said, you know, we decided you must be crazy. But we kind of like crazy around here, but you can't stay in New York. So what you're going to do is you're going to commute to LA. And you're going to go out Sunday afternoon, work in the office, and fly back on the red eye Thursday night. You'll work Friday. You'll be with your family Friday night Saturday and half of Sunday. I said, good. I mean, well, interestingly enough, the office in LA that they assigned me to was their real state finance office. That was my first connection to housing finance right there. And as an orthodox kid, I was, I remember I was, they put me up in the century plaza hotel, which is a nice hotel. And they were in the century plaza tower, I guess, right. And there was a mall that you walk through to get from there to there every single day. I'm walking to the office and all I did was work. That's all I did. I guess that must have been my upbringing or something. Maybe that comes from studying for five years if you're working hard. Maybe, maybe. I'm not sure, but I was really working, but I learned, I learned a lot, A.G. background that I'm selling themselves to Merrill Lynch, interviewed at Merrill Lynch. They said they had no interest in me. Ended up then having to interview around and a small housing finance firm called Matthews and Wright hired me and I started there. And that was a very creative place and I was able to, again, I was always curious and always trying to think about like why, why, why, why does it have to be this way. And I did pretty well there and left because I thought that I could do this on my own already. So that was kind of a crazy thought at the time, but I don't know. I actually started my own company at that point. This was probably 80, beginning of 85 maybe, beginning of 85 and started my company to do a type of transaction that I had done at Matthews and Wright and was I really equipped to start my own company. No. And this is what our bad news is that no one told me that. So and 85, that's right before the SNL crisis, you start your own company. Correct. And then out of the blue, Dean Wooder Reynolds calls me and says Steve, would you be interested in being the managing director of housing finance at Dean Wooder? So I was like shocked that they would even make that offer to me, like I didn't really feel like I knew anything. But my response was, let me come down, maybe it had your own firm for a year or something period, not even a year, they called. And it's back here in New York. So you're, what's that? It's a New Yorker in LA. Well, no, I was back here in New York doing that. They called the job required me to move down to Atlanta though. So I moved with my family down to Atlanta. Anyway, Atlanta ran, I did run Dean Wooder's housing finance area for the whole country, for 'til 1988, I started Graystone. You started Graystone? And we have to put this in time context, so you do this for two years. And this is from '85 to '88, started Graystone in '88. So '88 is about a year and a half into the SNL crisis. So there's also necessity might cause some of these moves here to start your own thing. No, I think the thing that motivated me, I would have stayed at Dean Wooder, what motivated me was the Dean Wooder was a weekend where Solomon Brothers laid off like 300 people. One of the groups they laid off was real estate finance. So they brought that whole team into Dean Wooder from Solomon Brothers. And I could just tell that they weren't going to, I was going to have new bosses and kind of, you know, and so I approached them and I said, listen, I know that I'm probably not going to end up running real estate finance, right? Those are new people to me. How bad if, take me off of salary, just give me a percentage of the profits I generate for you? That's it. I'm not looking for anything else. And they said no. And so putting my, I didn't know these new people, putting my family's welfare in the hands of people I just didn't know, it just wasn't in my nature. And so I started Graystone really didn't know exactly what I was going to do. I didn't have any money, no capital. I thought I would just do consulting or try to help people solve problems. I wasn't even sure. But right before I left Dean Wooder, I had done a transaction, it was a defaulted property with a hood insured loan that happened to be financed with tax exam bonds. So complex situation. I did it at Dean Wooder, I said, why don't I just, let me just call people that have that situation. Because I think I know how to solve their problem better than other solutions. And so I started doing, I didn't have any money to even open up an office. I was just sitting in the back of my friend's music store. My desk was an unvarnished Home Depot door here in Atlanta, in Atlanta, yeah. And in a retail shopping mall, it sounds like better call Saul. I would have called anybody that would have answered my call, Saul or anybody. But it's, yeah, so that's where I was. And slowly but surely people took my call because I was able to explain things in a simple way. And the structure was complex. And interestingly enough, only two law firms in the country would give the tax opinion, but signed the tax opinion on this structure I was using, it was Ballard Spar out of Philadelphia. And I really owe the existence of Greystone to Rick Ballard, who is no longer with us, unfortunately, but a gem of an individual and Michael Lair and Qutak Rock and Leslie Russell. And they, you know, they were the only two firms. Everyone else, like said, what you're doing is just not right. We want to issue the tax opinion. So I created this solution. And slowly but surely I was able to hire one person, Richard Hayman and then another Barrelock and slowly but surely then we could offer to maybe we were able to rent an office. But the interesting thing was the one city in the country I could not do business in was Atlanta because my fear was that someone would want to come to my office because all I did was I just had a music store you're still in the music store, like they're not going to come to the music store. So and the person I attribute the success of Greystone to in no small part was my travel agent. Because in those days, somehow you know, as people someone I'd call someone they say, wow, that sounds interesting. Can you come out and meet me? Well, I couldn't afford a ticket where, you know, I wanted to travel the next day, but my travel agent, Jackie Field, he was able to, I could make a reservation for six months in advance. So a really cheap ticket and there was a kind of a special ticket or a sticker that they could put on the ticket where I could use it for the next day. I don't know. I don't know how they did it. I still don't know. Creativity once again. Boy, oh boy. And you're still going around the country with looking for where this solution will solve exactly. What I did was call people that had this problem, a property mostly either senior's housing or multifamily that had a HUD insured first mortgage that was funded with tax exempt bonds. Right. Of a certain vintage, were they 80/20 deals? Almost all 80/20 deals. Right. That's right. And that's what I did. And almost for the first 10 years of the company, maybe longer, that's all we did. So how did it then, how and when did it then, in the 10 year story, did it then broaden, did then you come to New York? Yeah. So when did you get an office finally? Yeah. So I think by 1990, we finally had an office in Atlanta and what we did was, again, I do study things and try to understand things. And as it turns out, because we were fixing these properties or refinancings of defaulted loans, I felt like we really got to start a servicing company to service these loans that were kind of teetering, but we were refinancing. Start now, how do I start a service and come? I have no money. Well, there was a lady that happened to be, have a senior person at another servicing company who happened to live in Virginia. So here we are. We already had a remote office in Manassas. And it was like a one person or two person office. So we had a servicing company now. And they knew how to service this special thing, it was something loan, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It was defaulted loans. It was a lot of paperwork. But we found a little, a very interesting loophole in that, and that was that as the servicer of a loan, if that loan was in default for 90 days, you had the unilateral. Or right under the servicing document to pay off the investor, right? And own pay off the, even if the loan was locked out for another 10 years, you could pay off the investor and own the FHA insured loan, not at discount. You paid par plus accrued interest, but you own that loan. And what we were able to do is I, once we found that loophole, I was able to, I approached one of the Japanese banks, it was Dial at the time, and said, I think, I think there's a, I actually think there's a mechanism here for us to, under the fault of loan to, to pay off the investor, even though the interest rate is high. The property can't afford to pay debt service, but you know, even if it can't, the interest rate is much higher than your cost of funds. So how about, give me a credit line and let us go, let me try to get this servicing in because every servicer in the country hated defaulted loans, like there's so much paperwork and servicing companies brag about their efficiency of how little it costs them to service loans on a monthly basis. So servicing companies were almost give it to me for free because they don't want these defaulted loans. And we kind of found a way that like, wow, if we could, if we had, if we had these defaulted loans, we could pay them off at pay the investors off at par and then cut some deal with the, with the borrowers, it's like, okay, you don't have to pay the fall interest rate. Just pay some cost of funds, something over my cost of funds and like, everyone wins. And then the, then Dial was said to me, that sounds great. How about if we give you like an 80% advance rate on your, on our credit line, I said 80 percent. I don't have any money. I need 100% advance rate and they agreed to do that. So all of a sudden, that was like the first big thing, that big change that happened. And as I look at the history of Greystone, it's like, all of a sudden, you're like, you're working, working, working, working and then a big thing and then working, working, working and then another big thing. This was the first big thing. And let's put that first big thing again and time things because I'm guessing we're 95, 96, not even close, I think we're probably maybe 92, something like that. So Dial was also about to be one of the first creative CNBS lenders, so they had a real state team name. That's right. Andy, Andy was the guy who said yes. So they're thinking through this stuff creatively that you, yes, yes, yes. So it jails around this thing and then all of a sudden, like I called other servicers and they were more than happy to give us that servicing. And before you knew it, we had nearly a billion dollars of these loans that couldn't pay the debt service, but could at least pay some spread over our cost of funds. And it was a great relationship. Dial was decided they were going to get out of the real estate business, whatever reason. Dial introduced me to Nomura, Nomura did the same thing and made it even more attractive for us. And so then we started rolling because the spread was significant between what the property can afford, even though it was less than the debt service, right, what the property could afford in our cost of funds. So I want to think through at this point in time, we're now up to the midnight days, so my dialogue comes, Nomura, you're working with Ethan and those people and that's another really creative group. I want to think about how you get out of your niche because you build the business in multi-family lending in this place really, really well, right. But then you have to expand out of that place really well. So talk about that. Well, so now we had this experience with tax exempt bonds, HUD insured mortgages and we were saving HUD literally billions of dollars because had we not created this program, right. If the loan goes into full, most lenders would just assign the loan to HUD. HUD has to foreclose and when you foreclose, the outcome is usually not fantastic. We were actually saving them from having to foreclose. So we've saved the HUD billions and they really liked us. So growing up, even in my house, when people would come to the door, whether or not they'd be asking for handouts or whatever, everyone was treated with kindness, everyone. And it was sometimes with people that they didn't smell that good, they, you know, it's like I kind of cringe at it, but my dad and my mom, they bring them into the house, give them a drink of water, give them some food, but every, it was a lot of kindness in my house. So as Greystone started growing, we were giving people in the community, our profits were meager, but if someone had a need, we weren't going to turn our backs. And so even from the beginning, we were giving close to 50% of our profits and away. And what's really interesting is that, and I don't know the audience, that this will resonate with your audience, but what I would say is I would attribute the success that Greystone had to our philanthropy. I think there's a certain energy of loving people and not expecting anything in return from them that makes the crazy happen. And so even from the beginning of Greystone, we were, you know, giving away 50% of our profits, not to institutions and beautiful institutions like hospitals, university, we weren't doing that. We were, it was always focused on families and dire straits. Our families, like they were going through so much as sick child, something where I don't know how they got out of bed in the morning. And so that's what we were doing, we were doing it quietly and with as much respect as possible. And so we did this from the beginning of Greystone. Right. From the very beginning, if you have no money, you're in the, you're in the, in the music store. In the music store. In the music store. In the music store. Exactly. We were, we just, we had it, we just couldn't say no. And, you know, the idea of, of course, it makes sense to put money away because it's safe for a rainy day. But the truth is, like I always felt and I still feel today, like what right do I have to save for a rainy day when it's someone else's rainy day today? Right. And was there, from either from the beginning or now, was there a relationship between the business and where you gave those charitable dollars, oftentimes they go to something that is related to housing or the people who live in the housing or the other organization. Absolutely not. Okay. Nothing. Because this is totally unrelated to the business. Like in other words, give to some organization that there's sort of some sort of like it'll help the business by, by doing that zero. And that thought never even occurs to me. Okay. But what I would say though is that, but we've been doing this and I think as a result of that sometimes these outlandish ideas come to me and we try them and they work. Yeah. So if you ask me again, not sure how the audience feels about this, I truly believe that loving people in a somewhat irrational way creates magic. And that's all I can say, you know, it's a, do we work hard here? We do. We work really hard. Or do we try to be creative? We really try to be creative. However, we started with no capital all this time. We never raised any money. I still haven't, because I don't know how to do it. Right? Right. I'm actually a shy person. I don't go to conferences really. You know, I take my hat off to Willie Walker who has his podcast and it's like beautiful. And he's great. He's built a wonderful company. I'm shy. Uh huh. Right. I don't really go to a shy man. Thank you for being on our show. No. It's great. Because it's like I'm pretending this is just a one on one conversation, right? But it's um, yeah. So we never raised money, started with no money. I'm shy, right? And we're given half a way. Yeah. Now, you talked about a strategy for going out of business. I think that's a good one. Star with nothing. Don't raise any capital. Be, you know, a shy person, introverted and give half your profit away. But yeah, notwithstanding that, we just kept growing. And if it doesn't work, you become a dentist. So you're all safe. So I want to go back to the business and I want to talk about the broadening of the business because you're a full-service multi-family lender. Yes. And as a full-service multi-family lender that has servicing in your toolkit that started from the place of doing these 80/20 bond deals as a specialist, you've grown to do any kind of multi-family transaction. Correct. That's correct. And one of the things we talked about before we were taping is we talked about what luxury brands mean and what service means and how you differentiate yourself in your business with your clients. Right. So that's a lot to talk about. Yeah. But I want to think about how you broaden the business outside of just affordable. And then also your service model in a business that is, it's selling money. So it's a commodity business. How do you decommodify your commodity business? It's kind of a commodity business because the experience isn't a commodity business. Right. And the other thing that's not a commodity business is that what can you build around the commodity that you're selling? And so what we've done from the beginning even is we have done things for our clients that no one else was doing. We had to create a bridge loan program to hide, a bridge to hide. I think we were the first ones that ever created that program and that turned out to be a huge opportunity. And so we did that, no one had that before. Bridge to HUD or bridge also to the GSEs. To the, now we expanded that, right now bridge to the GSEs as well as to hide. And so what I would say is that we, those are things we're always looking for. How do we use our balance sheet to supplement the commodity that we're selling, right? As well as how do we go out of our way to help clients, right? And so we're doing the back flips that no one else is doing. And that's why when you and I talked before about why I, I perceive the business that we do as artistic, right, what I meant by that is because I'm not, I'm not the person that's going to muscle my way into a transaction. First of all, I'm not a good golfer and besides that, I just don't have it that time, but, right. But I am going to try to be the person that gently tees up what I think could be the best solution utilizing our balance sheet, our cash, our creativity in such a way that the choice is compelling. I'm not going to be, we're not going to be muscling in, we're going to teed up and have the client make the choice. One thing it seems is though that suite of services and that approach may do really, really, is really natural in middle market because you can love to death and actually augment the staff of the owner that you're dealing with because you can bring wisdom to them that they don't have in a solution toolkit that's broad and bespoke to them. That may be harder with large lines for reach and pension funds and stuff like that. It's a different kind of a business. It's a different kind of a business, but that doesn't mean that you can't be creative with it. Fortunately, now with our alliance, we sold a minority interest in our agency business and servicing to Cushman Wakefield, the third largest global brokerage on the planet. What we see, the institutions want, besides creativity on the financing, they want access to product also. With the alliance with Cushman, we have access to the product as well, and so our plan and what we're doing now is approaching institutions together. It's us, Greystone and Cushman, approaching clients, trying to solve issues for them, especially in a time right now, at that where institutions, many of whom have upside down capital stacks right, loans that are slightly over leveraged. For example, with an institution, to the extent that they need to refinance along where the new senior loan is not going to be large enough to refinance, and they need some pref equity behind, let's say, that new agency loan. There are all sorts of things. The best thing we can do is get around the table with an institution, with a client, whether or not they're institutional or a middle market, and just understand the problem, brainstorm and come up with a solution. In terms of flexibility, because we're a privately owned company, and we're not driven by the quarterly reports, we just have the ability to look longer-term, and maybe I have to take a loss on this one to be able to solve this problem for a client. Maybe I just need to take a loss on this loan by a loan that I know I'll have to trade it at discount. Maybe I'll have to do that, but if that creates a long-term relationship, I have the ability to do that, and other larger, maybe publicly traded companies just don't. Let's think a little bit about the relationship with Cushman and Wakefields. I want to think of you in the competitive environment that you exist, Cushman and Wakefield brings you an investment sales alliance, and other organizations, CB, Walker and Don Lop, you mentioned Willie before, have both investment sales, and they have mortgage banking in the same shop. The alliance of that is powerful, although sometimes you get one good, one bad, and that's a dangerous thing too, but talk about what that alliance brings to you as a team, and I also want to think about what your workforce is of loan producers, because I have lots of friends who do that for a living, and I've always admired and thought of myself. I've admired them and thought of myself and my business as a recruiter very much as a GSC lending guy, right? I think it's the same business in many ways, very consultive, say anything else. Yeah, totally. Talk about the Cushman alliance and the competitive market, and how that relates to how you're running the business right now. Yeah, so what I would say is that one great potential that we have with Cushman is that they have some really talented multi-family investment sales professionals. For Greystone, when those professionals were selling a multi-family property, they didn't have anybody next to them to be able to go on property tours and to meet the clients and to offer financing as a lender, and all of a sudden that whole world has opened up to us, and that we had never really done before. Most of Greystone's business before was refinancing. It wasn't acquisition financing, so all of a sudden that corner of the market now opened up for us. At the same time, especially during a period of time, which still exists today, where before the investment sales professionals were talking to clients when there was something to sell. But now, all of a sudden, the action may not be as much on the sales side as help me out of this debt problem. I bought a property, I used floating rate acquisition financing that was very aggressively underwritten, I'm under water. What can you do for me? And so that opportunity to engage with clients that may not be buying today, may not be selling, but have a problem, I think that's a great opportunity for us to engage with customer investment sales. Yes, so without investment sales person, without you, they don't have much to talk about with people. They don't do a BOV. That's exactly right. That's better than a BOV. They don't have anything to talk about. Let's talk about a problem. They bring them one of your folks. That's right. Yeah. I want to think in the time remaining about a couple of different subjects. I want to talk about what it's like running an organization like this with loan producers, again, I talked about this has been one of the businesses that I love and respect. And then I want to talk about the overall environment for a minute. Sure. And talk about loan producers, what does it look like to run a team of 20, 30 of these people? It's maddening and beautiful. Okay. It's both. It's a, this is a, it's a very entrepreneurial group of individuals. Yeah. And what's interesting, Matt, and you sort of touched on it before, what I do see is that those that thrive in the middle market may not be the ones that thrive in the institutional market. Right. It's sort of a different mindset. And so that's sort of interesting. The market has also gotten very frothy in terms of, the, you know, the commissions that these originators, loan originators, loan officers make. And so it's gotten very competitive as well. And we definitely see a lot of movement, you know, from one firm to another. And we didn't see it so much until, I don't know, several, a couple of years ago. So market downturn, there's a time for musical chairs, people who can afford to musical chair themselves, and you could afford to get them in a downturn. I think that's exactly right. And even though on the investment sales side, musical chairs seems to be like just the way the game is played. Right. I think it's more of, it's newer on the, on the debt side. And but that's interesting, but that also creates opportunities because our products, our product set and the way we use our balance sheet and our cash will enable you to do deals that otherwise you wouldn't have gotten. And to, so that's, that's our strategy. Uh-huh. Makes sense. And for a shy, strategic, high quality person thinking about artistic delivery of services, that leading a team of those people may be an unnatural thing. It's just, it's, it's, it sounds contradictory almost to some of the things you've talked about. And I know some of these people. Yeah. Yeah. And they don't have any of those attributes. Yeah. As some do, and some don't. Right. But the truth is, Matt, it's, uh, I've said this a lot and I'm not about as to say it. I don't think I could really ever interview for the job I have now. Uh-huh. I'm not the natural CEO. I do love people. I love our people. Yeah. And there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. And so they do feel cared for and love. No, I don't think there's any question about that. But I would say that in terms of managing an organization, I don't know that I'm the best at that. I got to surround myself. And I think I have with people that, um, that do a much better job at that than I do. And really, unfortunately, the person who is the soul of Greystone that was, who had been working with me for over 30 years, Kurt Pollock just recently passed away. Sorry. So we're still, as a firm, we're grieving, and I'm personally grieving, Kurt was really the soul of the company and he was just never stopped working and just loving, caring, smart, everything that you'd want in human being. It's funny, though, because when you think about the leadership role, you're thinking about management, administration, you're thinking about culture, you're thinking about all the products you have to put on the table, you're thinking about behaviors and training, all of those things are in the mix there. That's right. The stickiness of your people. That's right. That's right. That's right. For us, for people to go from place to place. Yeah. So all of those have to be delivered, but you can only set the tone and inspiration for that as the CEO. You can't sit in every one of those things every day. What I would say is you can't sit in every one of those things every day by the same token. I'm not sure that I believe in the concept. Just get the right people at the table and empower them to go. I'm not sure over time that may be true, but I think that for me, at this point in my career and with the changes that we have to make as a result of curts, not being with us, I need to be very involved in the individual deals, in the individual culture changing, in the wheat. I'll do the best I can at that, but right now, as we are identifying the individuals that are going to pick up this role, and at the same time, recruiting, and I'm still involved very much in individual transactions, new products, how to support ourselves, people. Now you wonder why I don't have time to golf, right? I wouldn't golf. That doesn't make sense. It's a long sport. I'll ask you a rude question about the same subject, because you're probably around around age here, I think of age all the time, and I am around. I'm getting close to the 709 in a couple of years, right? So it's on my mind all the time. And the question is, what do I want to spend my time doing? What's succession from who I am from a work standpoint? But then you're choosing your battles more carefully, in preparing that you may not be there one day, or you're only going to be there half the time. So all of those have to be in your mind as you do this thing. Totally. That's exactly what's on my mind. But the goodness is, I feel like I'm working just as hard as I did. I think when I was 20. And I feel like I'm just as competitive and motivated as I was at 20. I told someone the story just the other day, I was one of my sons, I have six kids. And I was one of my sons who were on vacation, we were horseback riding, and the person that was leading the group, I was just talking to him, he says, "Oh yeah, when I'm not doing this, I train like thoroughbreds." And I said, "Wow, that's pretty interesting, thoroughbreds." And I said, "Let me ask you a question. Maybe when you get them up in the morning to go out to the track, is it like me?" It's like, "I don't really want to get out of bed." He said, "Not really," he says, "a true thoroughbred is only happy when they're running." And I think that's the culture of Greystone. I think I'm only happy when I'm in the game where I'm competing, and I do want to win. But God forbid, if a competitor says to me, "Steve, I'm going to lose my job, if I don't win this deal, I'll probably walk away." So I don't, because I do love people. And so, the thing that gets me up in the morning, yes, I'm competitive, all of those things, but thousands of people were touching every single day. How amazing that an individual with a company, we're touching thousands of people, and these people, I don't know how they get out of bed in the morning, so what is better in life than that? That's the definition of success. And if I can model that, how fortunate for everyone. Good for you. So let's change this subject before we end. I want to talk about this moment in time. And so, there's a confluence of three things I'll pick here, hopefully I'm going to get the right three. One is for the first time in my career, housing is the front page issue. So, on the times again, today, another thing about looking at a deal on the upper west side and the deal in Brooklyn, the got one, got approved the other, did. Housing is top front page news, and was front page news in the last election. Number two is affordable housing. Housing affordability, not affordable housing, because it used to be affordable housing. Now it's housing affordability. So that's common number one. Common number two is for the first time we have heads of the two agencies, Fannie and Freddie, we have Priscilla and Diana, who are both comes from our industry. They're both friends from our industry. We know them. So the two agencies are run by people who care about our business and understand our business, not your single family. And then the third thing is we have a new president who's going to want to make a name from himself. So the state's part of his DNA kind of question about it. So, stuff's going to happen, put this in perspective for where the business goes and we're coming out of a recession of transactions in our business. So, talk about all those things. Yeah. Well, number one, I think the agencies, this is exactly their time to shine. It is. Right. When banks are backing up because they've got a bunch of over leveraged loans on their books and the regulators are kind of breathing down there, their necks. So this is exactly where the agencies step up and provide liquidity to the market. Like so, how wonderful that we have a Fannie, a Freddie, and a HUD. And they may get privatized in this industry. And if they do, my sense is that we never want the agencies to be driven by political issues at all. So, to the extent that they got privatized, I think the world, the country housing will be in a better place. Yep. Right. They shouldn't be moved around and flipped around every time a new administration comes in. It's like, "Oh, now the priorities are different." So, no question about that. By the same token, they, you know, if they, like as the agencies now, have made affordability, right, mission critical. Yep. And so, all of most lenders, graced on for sure, like, "Oh, you want affordable housing? It's like we're pulling out the stops to make that, make that happen." What we want to do is we want to build out the tax credits indication alongside our agency of affordable business. So, in terms of the one thing that we know about this incoming administration is it'll be disruptive, right? And disruption can be dangerous, but it can be really, really good. And I'm looking forward to creativity, I'm looking forward to an environment where people listen to ideas, like new ideas. And I'm hoping that that is exactly what is going to happen. So, excited about the disruption, excited about the potential privatization, really excited about the leaders at the agencies, and we're in an environment now where, you know, we think that prefectivity is going to be really, really important in this higher interest rate environment. You know, everyone's been saying for such a long time that it's like, "Let's just wait until interest rates come down." Like, all of a sudden, the talk about interest rates coming down, they started coming down and all of a sudden they went back up. It's like, well, it could be interest rates are here to stay for a while, which means prefectivity is going to be that much more important. And when rates finally stabilize and we know they're stable, then transactions can happen again, right? You just don't want to be the smuck who does it six months before rates go down to points, then you're doing a bad deal. That's exactly right, but loans are maturing. Yep. And so, there's a wall of maturities that are coming towards us, and those loans will have to get refinanced. Now, there may be some kicking the can down, you know, down the road a bit, which it kind of has been happening, but I think that between the regulators and the banks, I don't think that that is going to continue. So one of the themes in the conversation, and you're comment about administration, Fannie Freddie privatization, there will be disruption, and it's interesting if you throw all the bulls on the air, if it's 52 card pickup, you want the tools and the team to be ready to make the order of things that come back, profitable and positive for your business, and all of our businesses, because it could go in the opposite direction, too, if you're not ready. If you're not ready. I think you're not very ready for that. I think the idea is our job is to be ready, regardless of how things go. Yeah. Right? And that's my job. It isn't really to predict or interest rates are going, market's going, I need to be ready either way, and that's why we do have a CNBS program. Sometimes the agencies aren't there, and so we, you know, we've got to find alternatives. So we have a, so we actually created a relationship with a large bank where because the agencies so much want affordable projects, there are a lot of market rate projects that are left out in the cold, right? So what we did was we created a relationship with a bank and we need more banks, but where we'll underwrite agency quality loans, but they're not affordable, but agency quality and what we'll do is the bank has given us the runway to put those loans on its balance sheet as long as we, based on takes a first loss. Okay, well, how many other agency lenders are putting their balance sheet on the line with that first loss agreement? That's what we're doing. You get strength to do that. That's right. Yeah. Right. So last question on leading voices is always your advice for a young person entering the real estate business. And we've talked about more advice through this conversation than on most of our podcasts. So be really curious kind of your thoughts on it. The biggest problem I had, which I don't want young people to have, is number one, find a mentor, find someone to talk to. I ended up in dental school because I didn't have anyone to talk to. Find someone that doesn't have a dog in the fight, usually it's not your parents. Sure, you can talk to your parents, but it's usually not. They have agendas, but find someone that will grab you by the collar and say, you know, why are you thinking that? That really challenges you. But I'm going to give you one more. I know you only asked for one piece of advice, but I'm going to give you one more. Make sure that when you, the job that you take out of school is in an environment that cares about you, right, that you're not a cog in the wheel. And that's there to be taken advantage of. And when they are interviewing you, you interview them. They must give you your five-year trajectory, like, what can I do? What does my five-year horizon look like? They've got to tell you that you've got to understand what your day is going to look like. Just landing the job, unless you're terribly desperate, that's not the game. Lending job in a place that's going to have people feed or talk to, that's going to care about you as an individual, not just as a cog in their wheel to make them, to make their money. And make sure that you have to feel like you're not the supplicants to them, right? It's an even playing field, and they are honored, they will be honored to have you as an employee. It's interesting, in recruiting, we work with people mid and upper-level career, right? And one of the things we always talk about, something you just said, and none of our other guests have brought up the subject, but you said interview them. Right. And one of the things we have our candidates do is they're interviewing, it's an equal relationship here. So, you're buying and you're selling, you're interviewing the company even mid-career or late-career that you're going to go make a change, you want to know you want to be part of their family, too. That's right. And it's a big deal, at all points of the curve, particularly at an early stage. No question. No question. And firms that are just going to kind of use you up, and then, you know, depending on how they're feeling, well, we'd rather just bring someone else in, because we feel like it. It's just, that's not the right place to go. Understood. Great advice. Thank you very much for this conversation. Matt, it's been fun. Thanks for allowing me to talk about the things that are important. That's great. Thank you. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Please remember, if you're enjoying leading voices to share an episode with a friend or get them to subscribe. If they're podcast wary and not sure how to find and subscribe on their phone, go ahead and take their phone in your hand and subscribe for that. And add another few of your favorite podcasts to their list to get them started. They'll thank you for it. You can also find episodes of the show on our website, which you could find at zrgpartners.com/leadingvoices. And if you have comments or discussion about this episode, or leading voices in general, if you're seeking help in real estate human capital solutions, recruiting or consulting, especially, please contact me at [email protected]. Thanks for being a listener to leading voices. [BLANK_AUDIO]