The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Scarcity Through Zoning Sep 30, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about scarcity through zoning. I often have discussions with investors about whether things should be easy or not. If it’s easy, anyone can do it. The barrier to entry is low and eventually the market will become saturated.

We see this regularly in cities like Houston where there are no zoning restrictions. This means you can put anything anywhere, and people do. For the most part, the market forces seem to take care of things and common sense generally prevails. But if you wanted to put a daycare next to an oil refinery you could. If you wanted to build a strip club next to a church, you could.

The good news is that you face very few regulatory barriers. That makes it easy, or at least easier. As long as the municipal utilities district has capacity and commits to serve your property, you can build. As long as your design meets the requirements of the fire Marshall and the building code, you can build. The good news it’s easy, and the bad news is it’s easy.

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**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
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**Y Street Capital:**
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What Does Record Gold Mean? Sep 29, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are looking at what is happening in precious metals and the narrative attached to these recent record setting prices.

This past week gold has hit new all time record highs of just above $3800. Price peaked at $3820 an ounce, surging nearly $40 an ounce in the opening moments of trading on Monday morning. So far gold is up 10% in the last 30 days and up 41% in the past year.

Of course the purists out there will probably argue that gold has not risen. It’s the dollar that has fallen in reference to gold and that gold is the only true historic store of value.

We are seeing similar moves in the other benchmark metals. Silver also hit 14 year highs this week above $47 per ounce as of the time of this recording. That is an increase of 20% for the month and 45% in the past year.

It’s a similar story for platinum and palladium. Platinum is up 18% for the past month and 58% for the past year. Palladium is up 17% in the past month and 27% in the past 12 months.

We know that several things happen in an inflationary environment. Purchasing power for those on fixed income gets wiped out. Savings get wiped out and debt gets wiped out. We can also see asset prices rise unless we are talking about a Venezuelan style inflation where asset prices collapse due to a complete breakdown of the economy.

So in an inflationary environment you don’t want to be the one holding the debt. In fact the people at Morgan Stanley just updated their recommendation for a balanced portfolio. The traditional Wall Street version of the balanced portfolio has been 60% stocks and 40% bonds. They never mention real estate of course because they can’t sell real estate and they don’t make any money if you buy real estate.

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Interior Design with Marcy Sagel Sep 28, 2025

Show notes

Marcy Sagel is based in Baltimore, Maryland where she runs MSA Interiors. Her firm specializes in design of multi-family apartment projects nationwide. She is working at a very high level with some of the most notable developers in the nation. To connect with Marcy, visit https://msainteriors.com/

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**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)
iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)
Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)
LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)
YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)
Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)
Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)
**Y Street Capital:**
Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)
Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)
Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

Investigative Due Diligence with Shane Pogue Sep 27, 2025

Show notes

Shane Pogue is based in Dallas Texas where is specializes in Investigative Due Diligence. He helps investors with their due diligence process. To connect with Shane, reach out to him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-pogue-6b900a11a/

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Centuries Old Technology Is New Again Sep 26, 2025

Show notes

I’d like to invite you to our upcoming Build To Scale Mastermind Nov 9-13 in Tulum Mexico. This exclusive four day event is for you to learn how to scale your business and your life. This is an opportunity for you to spend 4 high quality days with the leadership at Y Street Capital and take your investing business to the next level. To learn more, click HERE.

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On today’s show we are looking at the value of a piece of property that has a rail connection on it.

When it comes to transportation and logistics, rail is significantly less expensive than trucking. Rail costs about $0.02 per ton mile versus about $0.10 per ton mile or more when transporting by truck. For bulk commodities, and for shipping containers rail can be much less expensive.

That means that transporting a 20 foot long shipping a container by truck from Los Angeles to New York would cost about $7,500. By comparison, that same trip by rail would cost about $1,400. The savings are substantial. But once you get the rail car to the destination, you still need to switch from rail to road for the last mile, or perhaps the last few miles. This short haul trip is going to be disproportionately expensive.

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Is Office Demand Coming Back? Sep 25, 2025

Show notes

Join us at the Build To Scale Mastermind in Tulum Mexico on November 9-13. This is an opportunity to spend 4 high quality days with the leadership at Y Street Capital and learn how to scale your business and your life. Click HERE to find out more.

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The office apocalypse has been felt across most major markets worldwide. The impact of the pandemic was to reduce the need for conventional office space. There are still people working from home who were in an office environment in 2019. But slowly, demand for conventional office space is normalizing. We are seeing it in multiple markets.

On today’s show we are going to look at San Francisco. This city took a major hit in office vacancy. Several commercial real estate reports indicate that the peak office vacancy rate in San Francisco was 36.6% in the first quarter of 2024, according to CBRE. We've seen a turnaround in leasing activity with net absorption of 779,919 square feet. Listen to find out who is leasing and why.

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How To Reduce Construction Cost Sep 24, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about how to reduce the cost of construction. Is it worth your time to look for savings in a construction project, or should you just accept that things cost more? On one of our projects we have been going through a value engineering exercise. This is where you look closely at the design specifications and find ways to save money in the project without compromising the end product.

You can sometimes face escalating costs because of the assumptions being made in the project. Our team has been meeting twice a week, and sometimes three times a week to pull cost out of this one particular project.

I’m going to show you a few ways in which we are saving money on a large scale. What I’m going to share are real life examples from one of our development projects.

We saved nearly $1M in the budget in about an hour of work.

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Another Talent Exodus From The US Sep 23, 2025

Show notes

On today show, we are talking about the impact of the newly announced $100,000 fee associated with the H1B visa to the United States.

According to my research, historically the United States had admitted 65,000 H1 B visas per year with an additional 20,000 visa for those holding advanced US degrees.

Anytime there is a major policy shift. The marketplace will adapt and find a new way to optimize the allocation of talent. Silicon Valley was cited as one of the Main reasons for the policy change.

The tech industry has seen significant layoffs over the past year. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook have all released tens of thousands over the past year.

The policy change will probably see some of those laid off workers getting rehired and those international workers covered by a visa, now a very expensive visa, being sent home to their country of origin.

The largest user of H1B visas is Amazon with over 14,600 visa holders. At $100,000 a year each, this would cost an additional $1.4B in fees to the US government. I personally would be surprise if any company would just roll over and pay for an additional $1.4B in fees.

The top users are Amazon, TCS from India with about 5500, Microsoft with a little over 5100, Meta with about 5100.

Even Walmart has about 2400. I would bet that Walmart would move those positions to their software design center in Toronto or Ottawa and save $239M dollars with zero loss of productivity.

When I ran an engineering organization, we did not use the H1B Visa program to import labour per se. We used the program to bring a few people from some of the remote design centres and immerse them in the culture in our Sunnyvale office so that they could in turn cross pollinate the culture across the organization. It gave that individual a foreign expat assignment and at the same time improved the cohesiveness between the different design centres around the world. They would later return to their remote design centre.

I personally believe that the use of the H1B Visa will drop to nearly zero with the imposition of this new policy. That means another 100,000 people in high paying jobs will likely leave the US. These people will probably continue to work for the same company from their country of origin, if they are an individual contributor. If they are in a managerial role, then the relationship gets more complicated. I truly can’t think of too many companies that will be willing to pay that $100,000 fee for the visa.

This year 2025 was the first year in which US population has shrunk in almost 100 years.

Shrinking population means a shrinking economy, especially when you consider that 70% of the GDP is based on consumption.

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A Seismic Shift In Healthcare Sep 22, 2025

Show notes

There is a seismic shift—not in real estate, but in a sector that will fundamentally reshape how we think about how health care services are delivered.

That in turn will have an impact on the needs for real estate in a health care setting.

Family medicine has evolved. When I was a child, the family doctor was a self employed professional. Their office had one name on the door, and behind the waiting room was a sliding glass window for the receptionist, who often also doubled as the doctor’s assistant. That model is completely obsolete and has been replaced by the family health team clinic which has several owners, numerous associates, nurses, a nurse practitioner, and even other services like a dietitian, a blood lab, an imaging lab. All of these things under one roof in the name of efficiency. Increasingly, these clinics are not owner operated, but instead are associated with a larger healthcare provider.

But just like technology has disrupted retail and media, it’s now coming for healthcare.

The first wave was simple telehealth—video calls with your doctor. This was multiplied out of necessity during the pandemic. That was a good start. It saved a trip for a quick follow-up or a prescription refill. But it is limited.

The game changer is the technology that brings diagnostic equipment to the patient. Some health care systems have already adopted the technology. Somewhere between 60-80% of office visits can be handled by telehealth, augmented with the diagnostic equipment.

The change is coming, and it is clear as day. Commercial real estate has taken a beating since the pandemic. Medical office has been one of the remaining segments of stability in the office market. I can’t tell you how quickly the technology will penetrate the market. I predict that within the next five years, today’s existing technology will achieve sufficient market penetration that we will see a significant reduction in medical office footprints.

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Non Food Franchising with Jon Ostenson Sep 21, 2025

Show notes

Jon Ostenson is based in Atlanta, Georgia where he specializes in brokering business. On today's show we are talking about businesses the break the franchising stereotype. Many are complementary to real estate investments. To connect with Jon and to learn more, visit https://franbridgeconsulting.com/

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