The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Opportunistic Investing with David Becker Jun 21, 2025

Show notes

David Becker is a principal with Time Equities based in NYC where his firm invests across 38 states and in Canada in multiple asset classes. Today's investment mandate has narrowed to focus more on opportunistic plays in industrial and multi-family.

To connect with David, visit Time Equities

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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)

US LNG Drive Employment And Housing Demand Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

We are building a new apartment building in Ottawa Canada that is focused on meeting the housing needs in one of the hottest areas of Canada’s capital. Projects in Canada are largely insulated from the uncertainty associated with the current US trade war. There is a window to participate in this exciting investment opportunity for accredited investors. This includes investors who reside in the United States. This is not a solicitation for investment. Any investment would be by prospectus only and in compliance with securities regulations. To find out more, visit Y Street Capital where you can learn more about this investment opportunity along with other opportunities in our development pipeline. Click HERE to learn more. If you don't have an account, then register to gain access to the resources on all of our projects.

On today’s show we are looking at the development of LNG facilities and how this is impacting demand for real estate along the Gulf Coast of the US. We are going to look at two main areas on today’s show. We need to put these investments into perspective. Each of them measures in the 10’s of billions of dollars.

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What Drives Energy Investments? Jun 19, 2025

Show notes

Jeff Currie is the Chief Energy Officer at the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s leading private equity firms.

He is the former Global Head of Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs, where he helped to build their commodities business. During his nearly three decades at the firm, he became one of the leading commodity market analysts.

He authored a paper called "The New Joule Order" in March of this year. In that paper he asserts that decisions affecting energy investment are no longer being driven purely by cost or even environmental concerns. Rather, they are being driven by energy security considerations. This affects real estate investors that are making assumptions about energy investments that have regional impact on real estate in those area.

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A Political Setback Jun 18, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about a political setback for one of our projects. If you have been following this show for a while, then you know that we own a large property on the edge of Colorado Springs consisting of 1783 acres. We started developing the master plan for this project a couple of years ago.

The annexation was approved by city council by a vote of 7-2 in both the first and second reading in front of council at the end of January this year.

In April a petition was launched by another developer to oppose our project. The requisite number of signatures were collected on the petition and our annexation was put to a special election which closed yesterday on June 17. The special election resulted in overturning the city council decision to annex the property into the city. The vote was overwhelmingly against our project with more than 81% voting against.

The property is currently going back into the county as a result of this vote. There are a number of options for the project at this point.

I can tell you that we have a well developed plan B and plan C. We are not prepared to publicly announce those plans at this moment. We do have strong partners who see the long term vision for this project and they have the financial strength to see it through until the end. The land is owned free and clear with zero debt. So the holding cost for the land is minimal. This brings inherent safety to the project and the project can withstand a further delay as a result of the election.

The loss of the election is regrettable and disappointing. But it is not a fatal blow to our project, far from it.

Lease or Purchase? Which is Better? Jun 18, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about commercial real estate and whether it is better to lease or to own your own building.

Deciding whether to own your commercial building or lease office space is a significant strategic choice for any business. Both options have distinct financial, operational, and flexibility trade-offs. There are certainly plenty of examples of both business models. The question is, which one should you pick?

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When You Can't Trust What You See Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about artificial intelligence and a few of the implications that are associated with it.

I’m hearing a lot of chatter about how the development of AI will mean losing control of our society and our business. On today’s show I’m going to make the case for maximizing the development of AI capability, but for constraining its use.

But before we can talk about these ideas in the context of AI, it would be useful to talk about these same issues in the real world.

The first issue surrounds the erosion of trust that is reaching epidemic proportions in our society. There was a time when you could believe what you see. With the capability of free AI tools, and for $20 a month you can generate images and videos that are nearly impossible to distinguish from reality. If you can no longer trust what you see, the circle of trust in each of our lives will become smaller and smaller. For some people it will disappear completely.

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What's New In Lending with Anton Mattli Jun 15, 2025

Show notes

Anton Mattli is based in Dallas Texas where he is active in the world of commercial lending, primarily for multi-family apartments. On today's show Anton shares his perspective on how the landscape for lending has changed in recent months.

To connect with Anton, visit peakfinancing.com

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Infill Build To Rent with Daniel Angel Jun 14, 2025

Show notes

Daniel Angel Mehia is based in Atlanta Georgia where he is active in the development of Build To Rent product in a scattered site context, sometimes called infill. The demand for detached rental housing is higher than apartment housing which is currently saturated in many markets.

To connect with Daniel, visit apexinvestments.us

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AI Tools for Real Estate Jun 14, 2025

Show notes

We are doing a mini-series on AI tools in real estate. Some of these tools are the same ones we use in our development company Y. Street Capital. We use these tools in-house and on projects belonging to our consulting clients. If you want to learn more about how our consulting division could help you with your projects, send an email to victor@victorjm.com.

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On yesterday’s show we spoke about land.id. This is a tool that has a ton of capability for evaluating land. On today’s show we’re going to start with another tool called paxiv.ai. This tool started with mapping the state of Utah first and since is mapping out the entire United States. It’s now boasting over 155M properties in its database.

This tool has an AI language model built into it. You can perform searches for example you can ask it to find all of the properties in a particular city that is zoned industrial with a minimum size of 10 acres. It will then give you a list of properties. You can then refine your search to say increase the minimum building height to 40 feet tall.

Once you find the property you are interested in, you can then turn on a whole bunch of layers including traffic counts on roads, soil types, building inventories, housing inventory, presence of fibre optics, water, mineral rights, building permits.; all kinds of different layers.

Predictiv AI has been actively pursuing strategic acquisitions to expand its capabilities. Notably, they've been involved in discussions to acquire Shift Technologies Canada Inc. (an AI-driven fleet management platform) and HouseStack Holdings Inc. (which includes real estate intelligence platforms).

HouseFax Appraiser Pro: Designed for appraisers to streamline the appraisal process with automated report generation and data analysis. (Currently in development).

HouseStack AI Brokerage: An AI-driven brokerage combining technology with "expert guidance" for clients buying, selling, and evaluating real estate transactions.

Propsize AI: A proprietary solution using advanced AI to provide precise property measurements and features for residential properties nationwide.

LiLA AI Assistant: A generative AI assistant providing instant answers on real estate, leveraging a massive 11+ million nationwide property dataset. (Currently in beta development).

Homeselling AI is primarily a tool for agents, enabling them to work more efficiently, provide data-backed insights to their clients, and focus on relationship-building and complex negotiations.

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AI For Due Diligence Jun 14, 2025

Show notes

We are going to do a mini-series on some of the latest AI tools that are specifically tailored for real estate investors. So we will be doing two shows back to back to highlight what is emerging as a new software arms race in property due diligence.

On today’s show we are taking a look at Land.id (formerly MapRight).

This software consolidates data from multiple disparate data sources and allows for the plotting of more than 40 layers of information on top of satellite imagery. This includes survey data, soils reports, topography, zoning, to name just a few.

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**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
- Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)
- 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)

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