Eric Deems on Land Investment & Development

Eric S. Deems leads the Nashville office for Land Advisors Organization and is an established real estate professional with expertise in strategic real estate planning, land brokerage, development, and site selection. A resident of Nashville, he is recognized as a dealmaker and problem solver in the commercial real estate industry for his ability to connect parties with shared objectives as well as his adeptness in navigating complex transactions and guiding clients through acquisitions, public-private partnerships, and joint venture arrangements. Throughout his career he has managed multi-market development projects for multifamily, student housing, and industrial clients. He is also well versed in managing multi-state real estate portfolios and driving growth strategies for entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the United States Postal Service, and several private companies and investment funds. https://landadvisors.com/team/eric-s-deems/

Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com

Key Takeaways:

• Real estate is more political than politics - developing relationships with local officials and understanding the entitlement process is crucial for successful development projects.

• Nashville has experienced rapid growth, leading to challenges with managing growth and infrastructure. Density and mixed-use development are important but face resistance from some community members.

• The entitlement process in Nashville has become much more lengthy and difficult, now taking 15-18 months on average compared to 7 months previously. This poses risks of losing buyers if projects take too long.

• Construction lending is very challenging in the current environment, adding further risks to development projects.

• Reaching out to experts like Eric Deems at Land Advisors Organization can provide valuable insights and data on the Nashville real estate market to help navigate these challenges.

About Your Host:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.

Episode Transcript:

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Are you looking to take the next step toward investing in commercial real estate but don't know where to go? Series central offers a comprehensive education and coaching platform designed to help you get started. Our online courses cover a wide range of topics, from the fundamentals to advanced strategies, ensuring you have the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in this competitive industry. As a member, you'll gain access to our exclusive online community and monthly group coaching calls, providing you with valuable networking opportunities and personalized guidance from experienced professionals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to take your career to the next level, cre Central has the resources you need. Visit www dot cre central.com. To learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor Podcast. Today we are going live with a good buddy of mine Eric demes. I've known Eric since Gosh 2014 2015. In a while, Eric, little known fact sent me my first tenant rep deal in Nashville. It was a staffing company. I had never done that before. And he was like, Hey, Tyler, this is too small for CBRE, do you want it? I was like, hell yeah, that sounds cool. Let's do it out of the park. To go. It was great. And we've been good friends ever since. Eric is a rock star when it comes to commercial real estate brokerage. He's been doing it since 2012. He's been working on land entitlements and stuff since 2011. So a wealth of knowledge when it comes to land investment development, entitlements. Everything that you need to know about wed your

Speaker 1 1:31

It's not rocket science. Well, but a lot of just takes patience and perseverance. Yeah, that's

Tyler Cauble 1:37

Well, that's exactly right. So let's, let's talk about that. Because I mean, a lot of people think that when entitlement investment, all that kind of stuff like it's, it's a totally different beast. And actually, I'm gonna tease that we'll get to that here in a minute. Tell us more about your background. How'd you get started in commercial real estate? Well, yeah, well,

Speaker 1 1:52

that's actually a great way of, of kind of going there. First of all, thank you for having me course. It's good to see you. It's good to be with your listeners and your viewers. So I learned early on that real estate is more political than politics. So when I graduated from undergrad I did undergrad at Belmont University here in Nashville. It's what brought me to town over 17 years now, wow, Nashville has changed. It's a bit of a different side of it. Maybe a little Yeah. fact I remember telling folks then I go, man, I love Nashville. It's a big city with a small town feel. And I tell this to some folks who are either in the music industry or whatnot. And they'd be like, Yeah, but I we remember when and I never really understood that. Until now. When folks who have moved here within the last 60 months, tell me, Wow, Nashville, it's a big city with a small town feel like? Yes, yeah. And I remember. So when I graduated from undergrad, I moved to DC and worked on the Hill. I worked for a US senator, Senator Lamar Alexander here from Tennessee. I lasted about five months, because as it goes, you you can't make much money on the hill, at least not legally. So I was looking at what to do. And I had so many different friends in the political world. And they said, well, actually, here's a job that we think you'd be really good at. And it's for a student housing developer. And they've specifically asked me if I knew anybody with hill or political experience. And so sure enough, I leave from DC and go on my first project, getting a student housing project entitled, and Corvallis or actually Fort Collins, Colorado. The second project was Corvallis, Oregon. So these are places where it's not easy to get things entitled, I think Corvallis, Oregon, which is where Oregon State is located. Okay. They have the same urban growth boundary that they had in the mid 70s when the university was 3000 people now it's over 10 times that and it's still you know, the same boundary and zoning has just gotten prohibitive, which creates supply issues which creates affordability issues. Sound familiar? And so I learned then, kind of the art of making this happen is developing relationships, relationships with depending on which market we were in Durham, New Hampshire, Edmond, Oklahoma, Allendale, Michigan. I was working with a group called campus crest at the time. They were later purchased by Harrison Street. But I got an eye opening experience. Getting to know council members, planning commissioners. And really the key to all this is knowing this planning stuff. If, and and getting to develop those relationships. So I tell folks real estate oftentimes is more political and politics. And these days politics isn't really a well, it's an interesting place. Needless to say.

Tyler Cauble 5:16

That's for sure. I mean, it's it's it's interesting being in commercial real estate and dealing with the politicking side, because it is true. I mean, you've you've basically got to go and lobby, we're going through a rezoning right now on a piece of property. And just to put that in perspective, for those of y'all out there, this is a hotel that we're rezoning to apartments, so should be a no brainer, and a market where we have a housing affordability crisis. Yeah. However, we still have to go through the rigmarole of getting the the aldermen of this specific town to approve that. And we've gotten the support of all of the neighbors, at least all the commercial businesses were working on the support of all the residential neighbors, we're having to basically have them all email, the planning staff. Yeah. Because you can kind of tell that the zoning board, the mayor, and several of the other people on that board have already made up their minds about whether or not this is going to go. Right. And so we're hoping if we can get enough community support, maybe it'll change their minds. But it's, it's wild. It's, it's not necessarily a does this make sense thing? It's just a who's in a good mood today?

Speaker 1 6:28

Yeah, that's unfortunate. I think hopefully, as Nashville continues to attract talent, from so many different sectors, that we continue to attract solution oriented folks to the growth mindset, you know, this kind of abundance mentality of getting things done solving problems, versus just No, this isn't going to happen. Zoning is set. It was 20 years behind when it was put into place. But that doesn't matter.

Tyler Cauble 7:01

We already put all the work into it to put this zoning code into place. We're not changing it. That's right.

Speaker 1 7:05

That's right. That's right. And, look. We're feeling this. So you know, today, in my day to day land brokerage business, we are, you know, I say from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Huntsville, Alabama, Dickson, Tennessee to Cookeville. That's where we primarily are spending our time. And really the 10 County MSA is where nearly all of what we're doing, we'll do some site selection stuff. Occasionally, Blue Oval city has gotten some attention, you know, some of those higher profile projects. But our bread and butter is mostly residential land within the 10 County MSA. So Nashville, Davidson County, Metro Nashville, and the contiguous counties. And there has been so much growth, so much growth in recent years, that there are a lot of growing pains. And unfortunately, some of these municipalities just don't have a playbook for being able to manage the growing pains, effectively. And stripping densities out of existing zoning is not the answer. You know, you want to have density on the corridors, you want to have mixed use and mixed income, kind of within the same nodes and areas so that you don't have all of your apartments on this side of town, all your retail on this side of town, all your single family houses here, that's just going to create a continuous traffic nightmare, which we see in many of our municipalities here in the MSA. So anyway, I can keep talking and talking. I

Tyler Cauble 8:53

don't think anybody wakes up with a dream of like, I would love to have to drive my car 45 miles to the grocery store. You know what I mean? Like, everybody kind of has that, like, what's the idyllic lifestyle? Well, you walk downstairs and you walk outside and there's a there's a cafe on the corner. And you know, all your friends are hanging out there. You know, you hang out with your neighborhood. It's got this community and I mean, you and I are so in alignment when it comes to, you know, urbanism. Yeah. And walkability. I mean, we could have tangents for that for days

Speaker 1 9:22

parking lots of the least efficient and look at how many we still have.

Tyler Cauble 9:26

Mr. Oil parking lot.

Speaker 1 9:30

Get that on a bumper sticker. And not only that, but I attend for a lot of clients. I attend a lot of neighborhood meetings. Because back to my how I learned this business, going into neighborhoods that were adjacent to old church parking lots are old pieces of property that were either owned by the university or owned by churches or other organizations. And they weren't going to be using them. Yeah. I was the one who conducted those neighborhood town halls and You just get the craziest stories. I remember in Fort Collins, Colorado, I had a group of 12 neighbors that were so angry about the foxes that were going to be displaced, that we're living in this, this wet weather conveyance. And it was much bigger than that. And and just like what we're not building in that. And what I really wanted to ask was, well, what about the foxes who lived where your driveway is? How about that? Ya know, do we want to have that conversation? Or, you know, I was at a recent meeting in Wilson County. And somebody had this grand idea for a really beautiful master plan they were working on, I was there in support of them. And a neighbor who moved in three years ago, his backyard opens up to this field. And throughout the Charette, which is where they were showing what they're planning to do. This neighbor kept saying, Well, I just love that view. And I love that. And I said, I just raised my hand. I said, you buy it. This is what I did. I raised my hand. And I said, if I may interrupt the meeting, I am a real estate broker. And if there's an opportunity for us to facilitate a deal right here, I'm happy to take my commission. Sure, are you willing to pay what this is worth? What Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? I said, Well, you You seem to have a lot of attachment to this property that isn't yours. And I think that's the biggest problem is, you know, what's good enough for me is not good enough for the, you see a lot of that in areas where, oh, I got my property approved. Or we don't even have to make it that individual, this owner was able to get their property entitled for x, so that the other neighbor goes down to City Hall or town hall or whatever, and tries to do the same thing. And there's been a shift in sentiment. Well, hold on a second. You know, private property rights here.

Tyler Cauble 11:59

Who's going over there? Why is it negative? Or that's right. And the early ism is so funny.

Speaker 1 12:03

Yes. Yeah. I'm gonna yimby Yeah, no, yes. In my backyard, because

Tyler Cauble 12:07

you understand, like, I mean, look at Nashville. 1015 years ago, the town shut down at 10 o'clock at night. And if you were out past that, you were up to no good. Like, that's

Speaker 1 12:15

right. That's just what I tell folks. When I moved here. If you went to the Gulch, you were doing things you would never tell your mother or your priest,

Tyler Cauble 12:23

or you used to dump the bodies. Now, it's like the highest price per square foot or Nashville. It can also be a train yard dump. That's right. If we didn't believe in density back then. So why is it okay to do density and certain locations, exemplars? It's, it's mind boggling to me? Well, let's, let's get into the the, what investors should keep in mind. Yeah, as they're going through this, because we've got to we've got a fair contingent of our audience here that is interested in some sort of development. Yeah, right, which means you got to acquire land. So that could be flex space development could be ground up retail, could be single tenant net lease, build the suits. If somebody is looking to do one of those projects, what do they need to know about went? How do you do your due diligence on it? What how do you discover these things? Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:13

That's a good question. So I have numerous calls, zooms meetings a day, telling the Nashville story talking to people who are either already invested here are sitting on a land or land related assets. It's, I only do RAW uncovered land deals. So I don't do any capital market sales. I don't do any leasing. I do very little buyers rep assignments, we are focused almost exclusively on working with landowners and helping them navigate. And so because of that, I get to become friends and, and get to know nearly all of the homebuilders and most of the multifamily developers love the residential developers. And so the last 24 months had been pretty interesting for trying to get deals done. And so I've been doing a whole lot more zoom calls with private equity groups on the coasts, in Chicago, Boston, New York, California, who are just trying to get a sense and an understanding of Nashville helped me understand why you ally keep saying it's the number one market and the growth and how many multi units are, you know, underway? How long it will take for those to absorb? Yeah, there's, there's a lot right now a lot of concession This happened in that 1718 timeline. It just lasted five months. But I remember when everybody thought the town was burning down and what are we going to do with all these apartments and what you know, by the time we got to the end of 2018, we were crying about supply again? Yeah. So I tell folks, the same thing and that is it. You have not missed Nashville. So don't feel like you have, if you have not come here yet, or you were thinking of coming here in 2011 and 12. And then you were thinking again in 2016, or 17, when everybody was saying we were an extra innings, and then COVID just really drove home. So many of the fundamentals that we're doing right in the state, to attract business, and folks relocating, that it just a market that was probably a little undervalued, was just blown through the roof by people selling and other markets that were high inflation and, you know, really expensive markets coming here, and being able to buy a home twice the size for a third the cost. So sent up our existing supply. And basically, we went through a period and we're still there of seven years of existing supply, resale market, a seven year low of listings. And so every home builder was tasked with bringing new supply. And today we have I think it's in the last I counted 19, national home builders, home builder brands in Middle Tennessee, wow. Which is more than Dallas. Okay, we have about six or seven that are doing that I call them super regionals that are doing really well here in Middle Tennessee. And then we have a handful of, you know, the local folks, actually quite a few of them, who are doing custom semi custom 2 million plus and Williamson County, I mean, we're selling just as many of those as we are anything else. So I tell folks, you have not missed Nashville, in oh eight, we only had three national homebuilders. Now we have 19. There's a lot of pressure in the capital markets that are driving folks to maybe cancel in other markets and double down here, just because of how much supply is needed. Right, you know. And the other thing I would mention is, I got an email yesterday from a group that's wanting to be here. And they said, Yeah, we were looking to come to town. We want to break in within the next 12 to 18 months. And that was such a relief to me. Because somebody people try to come here and they're like, Yeah, we want to get him we're ready to get our first deal and, and they think it's gonna be a walk in the park. They think Nashville is is I still think it's pota. Exactly. They think it's still Country and Western music right. Now it's more country pop in Nashville. But I digress. So I basically say, Yeah, take your time, there, there is no low hanging fruit, anywhere, that's all been picked over. Everything that we're going to look at now. Somebody else has already drempt up ideas, plans, and they couldn't execute on them. So there's an opportunity to jump in, or we're going to go have to create the opportunity by something that is, you know, sitting on some, there's some wetlands or there's topography. I mean, there's took Topo everywhere, in Middle Tennessee. And unlike other parts of the country, when you came here to settle, I think you got 40 acres and a mule. So these are small parcels compared to, you know, going to Florida and being given 100,000 acres. You know, because you were friends of, you know, the king of Spain or something. I don't know if somebody was trying to compare the markets to me the other day, and I'm, I was just impressed at how small the parcels were when people were coming. Yeah. But when you look at it now when we have clients saying, hey, we want 1000 acres, we want 3000 acres, we want to build this massive master plan. Or like, yeah, that's not going to it's not going to happen, we should be happy if we can find five to 800. And that's going to require some assemblage likely, depending on how far you're willing to go. But usually you want to be within you know, 40 to 60 miles of the airport. So we'll see I've thrown a lot out there. So yeah,

Tyler Cauble 19:14

how's how's the process very for for a wind buyer, when the wind is already entitled, like after you put it under contract, what does that process look like compared to you also have to get entitlements?

Speaker 1 19:28

Yeah, so what used to take I mean, for us in Nashville, what used to take seven months and we could show up with either a box of you know, foxes doughnuts, or, you know, or the little chicken minis from Chick fil A, you know, you'd go down to planning pre COVID You just walk in 645, seven o'clock, you'd lean over the edge of the cubicle of the planner that's working on your project, and you get kind of knew what was going to happen. You brought breakfast for everybody. You were friends It was fun. Now, the process is very different. And it's been very different ever since. I mean, in 2020, we had the double punch, right, we had the tornado, which had city workers scrambling to figure that out. I don't think they were even in the offices at that time. And then COVID definitely meant they weren't. So we went from having a place where you could just drive in park, walk in, talk about your plans, get feedback immediately, to having public employees working from home, and trying to get emails responded to. And that has just That problem has just been exacerbated with all of the new growth and the the multiple billions of dollars in new projects approved year after year. I like some of the stuff that the state of Tennessee has put forth with permitting reform. I think that will help us be amazing. Yeah, it's when you have a shot clock, you and I go and submit an application for something, knowing that there's a shot clock now, if 30 days to get a response, and third party review, being able to get you know, somebody who does this day in and day out. You're a civil engineer or landscape architect, to be able to look at me, these are ways that we help solve the real problem, which in our city is affordability. And it's really a supply and demand equation. You know, we have far less supply that we need an interesting stat. Austin, Texas, often described as a competitor appear city as a sister city. Yeah. Sometimes sisters get along, sometimes. 2.4 million people in Austin, Texas, they kind of hit their stride a little ahead of us opportunity for us to learn from those mistakes. Their total inventory of apartments throughout their entire MSA is about 300,000 hours, about 160,000. Austin's

Tyler Cauble 22:07

getting rocked right now, though, and their apartment, I mean, have you have you seen some of the deals that are trading some of that stuff trading for like 75% or? So

Speaker 1 22:16

we're seeing some bank stuff pop up? From some clients telling us that kind of exciting? Yeah, I mean, it's an optimum, right. We, as a broker, we work when there's change, right. And, you know, it's creating opportunity. My point in saying that is we need to double our total inventory. Just to keep up with a sister city. It's crazy. of apartments, right. And that's total. That's not just the new stuff that's under construction, which is expected to absorb in the next.

Tyler Cauble 22:46

And that's true for the Austin MSA to four. So it was like two, one. Yeah. So we're almost almost there. And that's half the amount of

Speaker 1 22:54

about half total. And so, you know, and not to mention, you combine that with the fact that our urban core, our downtown, we didn't even have a residential zoning code. Until the late 90s. I believe when Tony G.

Tyler Cauble 23:07

It was illegal. Yeah. You were not allowed to build residential units there. That didn't even make sense. It does have your 1960s 50s racist sounds right.

Speaker 1 23:18

Yeah, we times have changed quickly, here in the US, to say the least. So.

Tyler Cauble 23:27

So what's that time? So

Speaker 1 23:28

the timeline, the press, I say what took seven months, we need to now take 15 to 18. I just think you have to, I just I'm trying to give the worst case scenario to try to be as conservative as possible on the front end. Because from the end of a May of 22, to the beginning of November of 22. I had nine figures of in contract, multi deals evaporate, because interest rates went up 50% Well, I mean, there was no killed several deals.

Tyler Cauble 24:02

The crazy thing to me is like as as nuts as 1518 months sounds, it took me almost two years to get renovation permits on my hotel down the street.

Speaker 1 24:11

Right. Right. So it's and you and you for talking to a West coaster. There used to be five or six years. Yeah. It may take five years. I mean, we have one client, it's taking them. Well, this is probably an outlier, but it taking them 20 years to finally get the entitlements because of the wetland.

Tyler Cauble 24:28

How do you all your operasi but yeah, do you don't

Speaker 1 24:31

right? It's just it's not, it can't be done. So we have many, many clients who are selling properties on the West Coast and deploying capital in four to seven different markets, Nashville being one of them. And you know, when I moved to town, there were pockets of our MSA that you just wouldn't think of going going to or let alone buying a house and now How you can get a $700,000 townhome in these places, places that, you know I would have never dreamed of going.

Tyler Cauble 25:08

I mean, here we are on Dickerson Pike, you will ever have come over here 10 years ago Dickerson

Speaker 1 25:12

Trinity lane, exactly what I have in mind. I mean, East

Tyler Cauble 25:17

Trinity Lane was one of the worst roads in the city. That's right. And now it's actually one of the most redeveloped parts. That's Rushville.

Speaker 1 25:24

And look at all that. Yeah, all of the and rooftops do that. And I think a lot of times, I go to these neighborhood meetings, and they're like, we want our corner pub, or you know, we want our coffee shop or our bagel place. And I'm like, well, if I'm looking at land use policy here, we could add 3000 units within this 70 acre spread. And you know, some of their hairs, the hair catches on fire heads explode 3000 units, what

Speaker 2 25:51

are we going to do? We don't have the infrastructure we don't have well,

Speaker 1 25:54

that's backwards because you put the development in and then the infrastructure comes and you need the rooftops and the density and the unit counts to be able to justify this. Charlotte Park is going through this right now. It was Nashville. You know, the vintage shaft team has done a great job on breezeblock. And Benji's bagels is right there. Becca and Nico, great proprietors their New York bagel she, you know, Culinary Institute of America, and he was finance guy, Wells Fargo. And they quit. He quit that job. And they're putting everything they've got into Benji's bagels, wouldn't you know there's a line out the door most days and go to the neighborhood meetings over there? Like, why they're doing so? Well, I'm like, exactly, let's, let's allow more density to happen on the Robertson corridor, that's where it should happen. Well, the road can't support it, it's only a two, maybe with for three lines. Well, that's not going to happen until it can be justified. And so that back to the relationships and understanding entitlements and all of that stuff, it's it's knowing. It's knowing first of all, you got to know, the zoning code. And we are blessed with a lot of great civil engineers, and landscape architects and folks in that industry, who've been around a while and know it. We also know that a lot of it's outdated. Nashville next. You know, that was, you know, it is what it is, but he's great.

Tyler Cauble 27:26

When it came it was they put a lot of work into it. That's right. That's the thing is like, you can't here's the problem I have with municipalities and how they go about changing zonings changing policies. They spend, I mean, it's bureaucracy, right? So they spent a lot of time to get one page changed. That's one thing changed. And then everybody that's on that committee is sick of it. Yeah, I don't want to deal with it anymore. So a year later, like, here's the thing, no zoning, no policy can blanket apply to everything. There's gonna be one exception. Yeah. And, you know, that's like, that's what we're dealing with on this hotel. Like, there's one thing that it's like, it's pretty obvious this should be a an exception to the rule. Yeah. And these people get so caught up in well, we spent two years redoing this, I don't want to I don't want to give you a variance. I will. But it's not right. You can't have that for every case.

Speaker 1 28:19

Flexibility is important. And it allows the city to kind of breathe and ebb and flow with where the market is. You know, Well,

Tyler Cauble 28:30

Eric, what's what's next for wed? I mean, it's it's obviously tough today, considering the interest rate environment and construction costs. But

Speaker 1 28:38

I think that's the big one is, is construction, by the way you mentioned it's it, even though pricing has come down. We've gotten GMP s back that are seven, nine 11%, down from the end of 22 into 23. That's still not enough to get it done. Because now, the construction lending environment is so tough. So it's going to take more patients to get things done. Also, joint ventures where landowners can contribute their land into making things happen, and I work with landowners all the time. Who are getting unsolicited offers, they're getting beat up, that slow down a bit. A lot of the flippers have had to go back to the nine to five if you've got W tubes. Yeah, they couldn't make it. That's fine. I mean, I had a mentor who told me, he said, Eric, when the beautiful people start showing up today up and Uli start saving your cash. And we've had beautiful people showing up for a long time with really fancy ideas. $3,500 plans you know, and you're you ask them well, what have you done? What have you developed? Oh, well, I am a developer. Look at this and,

Tyler Cauble 29:57

and you know what my favorite is who I was to Talk about this when you are walking into the office is the Djinns. Ears. Yeah, that have never done a deal. Right? But they call themselves a developer. Yep. Or they call themselves a syndicator. Like, just because you want to be that I get it, you know, fake it till you make it. Yeah. But you can't call yourself a developer if you've only thought about developing real estate. Yeah, and I think a lot of that going on top.

Speaker 1 30:20

I think there's a lot of that. Well, first of all, you know, you think of real estate is a lot of sales and marketing. And it's a lot of, you know, trying to get the deal closed and make it happen. We try to lean on the word. And so I run the land advisors office, right land advisors, organization, we really lean on that word advisor. Because as brokers we know, we come across people all the time, who are so focused on a commission, that they lose sight of what actually needs to happen to make the deal and get it done the right way. And so when your fiduciary is to a seller, or a buyer or a client, you really want to take that long term approach, realizing it may be 18 months before I get paid. But I'm too young to do it any other way. You and I are both too young. We're going to be here for decades, as we're doing this. So we might as well do it right and keep our reputations intact. It's a very small world, not only Nashville, but in commercial real estate as a whole, very tiny. So I can't afford to not speak truth to somebody when they have a grand idea. That's never going to happen. That's exactly and so a lot of folks that had grand ideas or that weren't real. You know, I had a client in the office the other day, they said, ducks are decoys. Is this a duck or a decoy? We've had a lot of decoys. Yeah, ducks are decoy ducks are decoys, because decoys? You waste a lot of time and money on decoys. We filtered through a bunch of those, I think you have, I know you have groups that were thinking this higher for longer rate environment wasn't going to be as long as it's going to be. And so you're starting to see more and more negotiation power emerge, and folks willing to be flexible. And part of that, as I mentioned earlier is is the joint venture. A lot of buyers don't want that, you know, because they want, you know, they want to have full and total control. But in Middle Tennessee, the land market is owned, mostly privately, you looking at Atlanta, it's a lot of broker and investor controlled here in Nashville's MSA, it's still privately held by families or individuals, whether it's been 10 years or 110 years, right. So when they were at their $24 million price in 2022, they're still there and maybe above it today. And they're not going to come off of it. I mean, every single deal that I had that he that evaporated and 22 We tried to renegotiate not on time, but just on reduction in pricing. You know, whether it be five or 15% and every single one of them, Eric, thank you, but we'll still be here.

Tyler Cauble 33:07

Yeah. Get out of my office.

Speaker 1 33:08

Yeah. Are you sure? I think it may be four to six higher value of money. Yeah, right. Like we could 1031 you out of this and we could go down to you know, Louis County or I mean, Lewisburg, Marshall County, yeah. Or go to Murray County and Columbia and go to the path of progress. I tell folks, I chase sewer capacity for a living, right. That's what I do as a land broker. So let's go further out. Let's find those places where things are growing too. And let's just be ready. And so that, you know, it's never a dull moment. I drink gallons and gallons of coffee until people come up with my ideas.

Tyler Cauble 33:48

Right. That's it. I love it. Well, guys, look, Eric is a good friend of mine. He is a wizard when it comes to land investment. I've got my own brokerage. And I still call Eric to help us out with some stuff. So Eric, that being said, if somebody listening wants to reach out to you find out more about land advisors organization. Yep. How do they find you?

Speaker 1 34:09

Yeah, the easiest way is email EDMS at land advisors.com. We live and breathe data. So you're really good at that. It's crazy. You we have more data than than just about any well then anybody in the land business for sure. We've got 30 offices. I say it's in the smile belt, you know, where everybody still smiles from California, the Carolinas, but I opened the Nashville office a little over two and a half years ago. But our market insights which come out quarterly, just has a bunch of data permit data, you know, what's happening on the multifamily side on the residential side, how that's the economic trends of employment rates, and then we do mapping. I mean, we have cartographers on staff. So here's the entire Nashville MSA which with every city Single subdivision outlined. So we also have this digitally. So when I'm on Zoom, I can pull it up via zoom, I have this conference so always happy to be a resource for you. Land advisors.com/research I believe is where you can find the market insights for Nashville and all the other markets. And then you can shoot me an email anytime. It's easiest way for me to track my to do list of following up with folks. So they EDMS Atlanta advisors.com Yeah,

Tyler Cauble 35:27

EDMS, Atlanta advisors.com. They are amazing insights. I love that data. It is some of the best data. And unlike some other sources of data in the commercial real estate industry, it is accurate.

Unknown Speaker 35:38

Other data is trust, but verify. Yeah.

Tyler Cauble 35:41

That's exactly that's it. Well, Eric, thanks so much for being with us, man. Appreciate you taking the time, guys. Thank you for listening. Reach out to Eric if you need anything, and we'll see y'all in the next one. Are you looking to take the next step toward investing in commercial real estate but don't know where to go? Series central offers a comprehensive education and coaching platform designed to help you get started. Our online courses cover a wide range of topics from the fundamentals to advanced strategies, ensuring you have the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in this competitive industry. As a member, you'll gain access to our exclusive online community and monthly group coaching calls, providing you with valuable networking opportunities and personalized guidance from experienced professionals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to take your career to the next level. Cre Central has the resources you need. Visit www.cre central.com To learn more