BIGGEST RISK with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg
Commercial Real Estate Pro Network
Release Date: 10/14/2025
Commercial Real Estate Pro Network
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis Watts, What is the BIGGEST RISK? Travis Watts I would say, in 25 we talked a lot about market and rates and the discounts, and you know why we're bullish, or why I'm bullish on multifamily, I would say it's more than ever. It's the operator that you're about to invest with. Okay, do they have a lot of distress on their books? Are they losing properties currently? Are they not? Not that any single answer to that is like a red flag and rule them out. But you want to dive a little deeper and make sure that they're dedicated to staying in this...
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Today, my guest is Danielle Ash. Danielle Ash is a partner in the real estate group and co chair of the ground leases practice as well as the impact practice at Adler & Stachenfeld, a law firm based in New York that is solely focused on real estate. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Danielle Ash about Demystifying the Reality of Affordable Housing Returns and Risk Profiles.
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J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Danielle Ash, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Danielle Ash Well, I'm going to give a self serving answer, and then I'm going to give more of an investor based type answer. So the self serving answer, I think, is, you know, people come to me from all different sectors of real estate and at all different parts of their career, from early stage developers, sponsors to, you know, super high net worth sovereign wealth funds, who've been investing for 50 plus years. And I do think one of the biggest mistakes or risks that people face is not having good counsel...
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Today, my guest is Mark Goldfinger. Mark Goldfinger is the General Manager Head of North America at Mindspace, a global flexible workspace provider that redefines the workplace experience for companies of all sizes, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Mark Goldfinger about flexible workspace solutions.
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J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Mark Goldfinger, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Mark Goldfinger I think it's great question. I think in the co working ecosystem, or in the flexible office space, you know, ecosystem, I think one of the biggest risks is landlords starting to take on the opportunity to create their own turnkey sublet solutions for smaller companies, and kind of take business from us. Now, I don't think that they're able to really run the hospitality arm that we are, because that's not their business, and we put a lot of pride into that. But I think that's definitely one thing we...
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Today, my guest is Chris Zona. Chris Zona is a partner at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in New York, and a trial attorney specializing in Complex Commercial Litigation, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Chris Zona about Turning Conflict into Capital Litigation as a Real Estate Investment Tool.
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J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Chris Zona, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Chris Zona Sure. So I think it really fits within what we're talking about. I think the biggest risk for investors that are in this this realm is that you need to be comfortable with taking over a potential non performing note, right? Like there is no way to avoid risk when you're making this sort of play. So what you need to do is kind of, you know, balance minimizing the risk through your diligence process, because you don't want to take on something that you're not ready to you don't want to overextend in...
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Today, my guest is Travis King. Travis is the founder and CEO of Realm, where he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the organization with a particular focus on culture, strategy and investments.
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J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis King, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Travis King It's a great question. It's actually really hard to try to encapsulate it in one thing, so maybe I might give a multifaceted answer, if that's okay with you. One thing I would say that is paramount in real estate, and I alluded to it earlier, is the only real way I know to lose money in real estate is to lever inappropriately. So leverage at the end of the day, that's how you lose control of your properties, right? And that happens. So then I you peel that onion a little bit and say, Okay, well, how...
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Today, my guests are Bill Kannatas and Ben Salzberg with Self Storage Developers. And just a minute, we're going to speak with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg about Self Storage from Dirt to Doors.
info_outlineJ Darrin Gross
I'd like to ask you Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Bill Kanatas
I look at two different risks, one as an investor slash investment, and one is a developer slash development. Um, so if we're talking about the development aspect first, because, as I mentioned earlier, Ben and I spend our money up front first, before we go to the investors looking for their money, we do a lot of work upfront to mitigate that risk, and in any development, nothing ever goes perfect, as much as we think it's going to be great. It's not going to rain tomorrow. We're going to have sunshine for three weeks, and the bulldozers will be out there, and all sudden, we get rain for three weeks, and the holes we just dug flood, right? So you gotta be able to have that in your underwriting. Right? So when I tell somebody it's going to be 10 to 12 months, you know, I underwrite it 14 months, in case we have an additional four months of interest reserve or operational losses. So we try to mitigate all that risk upfront. When you're looking as an investor, slash investment. Then, you know, the advice I always give to my own friends is look at the first let's start with the development team, right? Do they know how to develop you know, whatever it is, is it a Starbucks? Is it self storage? Is it car washes? Make sure you're right with the right development team, or make sure they have experience, obviously. Make sure that you believe in the area. You know. Is there a reason to put one in Bosie, Idaho, or is there one to put it one in Manhattan, you know? Is there a demand for self storage? And then who's operating it? Is it the Bill and Ben show? Or is it, you know, an operator who knows what they're doing? Is it the first time they're operating? Or do they have, you know, billions of dollars of annual revenue in this space? So I think there's various checklists to kind of mitigate that risk. And then at some point you gotta say, I'm all in and and dive in and know that if there is any problems, your partners will communicate that with you, right? Because it's very, very important to always have communication, you know, with your lender, with your investor, with your general contractor, with the village. You know, Benz, an elected official. And when you're working with the communities, you have to perform. You can't tell them one thing and do something else, right? So communication for me is always the best,
Ben Salzberg
And then I agree with you on that bill, you know, making sure the constituents in the area, which are mine and that they're they like what we're building and developing in the community, and to mitigate that risk of any type of Fallout, of people being frustrated, being built self storage in the neighborhood, um, you know, that's that, that risk. And of course, then there's, you know, you want to make sure that the job is insured in case somebody gets hurt, you know. And that goes with you Darrin, you know, you have to, you know, PNC, make sure that it's everybody's covered.
https://self-storagedevelopers.com/