With the ongoing COVID pandemic situation, New York real estate investors are sizing up the current real estate market in the Big Apple and surrounding areas. Today’s guest is James Prendamano, CEO of Casandra Properties, Inc., Staten Island’s premier real estate firm. James discusses with Scott Carson how challenging it is to assess where the New York Real Estate market is headed because of difficult legislative processes. There’s been a consistent shift of rights away from the property owner to the tenant on both the residential and commercial side. The question remains: where are the future opportunities for investors in the commercial and residential space? Tune in to find out!

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Challenges And Opportunities: What To Watch Out For In The New York Real Estate Market With James Prendamano

I’m James Prendamano, CEO of Casandra Properties. In this episode, we take a hard look at some of the opportunities that are going to present themselves in 2021 in the market and how to stay flexible enough to make sure you can take advantage of those opportunities.

—

I’m excited about this episode. We have people tuning in across over 130 countries. One of our biggest audiences is up in the New York area. I’ve been looking for somebody who knows that market, who understands what’s going on in that market and has been doing it for a while. Not a flashy man but somebody who’s done quite an amazing job. I’m honored to have our special guest. He’s the CEO for Casandra Properties, a Staten Island premier real estate firm for decades. With his trademark, enthusiasm, creativity and leadership, he shepherds the completion and transformation of projects including major initiatives, reshaping Staten Island’s commercial real estate landscape. He’s also big on the residential side. I was honored to be a guest on his show. When we connected online, I was like, “I got to have him on my show.” I’m honored to have Mr. James Prendamano on. What’s going on, James? How are you doing?

That is some intro, Scott. That’s something I’m willing to live up to. Let’s give it a shot

We’re doing good. It’s 2020. We were chatting about things and how chaotic it can be. We haven’t had anybody in to talk about your market with what’s going on there. Before we dive into that, share a little bit about what you focus on. You could say your bread and butter and how you got to where you’re at now.

 

The answer to that question has changed over the years. Part of what has been a big portion of our success is that we’ve adapted. The company was founded in 1989 by my mom. She specialized in high-end residential homes. Not the best of times to go start a brokerage but she’s a trailblazer mom. She went out there. She owned that luxury market. She started to see an opportunity for land leasing of all things back then on Staten Island. It was almost non-existent. She started to get into the land leasing marketplace. Being a woman in that space at that time on Staten Island was a challenge. She carved out a niche and in many cases, she educated the base out here as to how the land leases work and what the opportunities were there.

Over the years, we’ve gotten involved in all of it. We’ve got a healthy residential component. We’ve got a very strong commercial component. We do a lot of consulting work. We’ve adopted back and forth but our focus for sure has been the large projects, the consulting work, the brokerage, the leasing of the large scale, the more complicated, difficult projects that you’ve seen out here on the borough. We’ve been proud to handle them. We do stuff off Staten Island. Usually, it’s court-appointed work. We did a lot of the Walgreens portfolio work and that type of stuff. Our sweet spot is the larger complex, transactional stuff, big packages, defaulted notes sales, ground-up development. That’s where we hit every note.

That’s why I’m so glad to have you on here. We were talking about some of the bigger stuff out there. You and I talked briefly about this. We expect to see some big things happening in that commercial space, that other larger property space or unique space because of everything that is going on. Do you want to talk about what you’re seeing as opportunities in your neck of the woods?

It’s interesting. There are still opportunities out there but it’s become very difficult to quantify the opportunity in the context of where we are. With the traditional cap rates, it’s very difficult to assess who’s paying, who’s not paying. Even if it’s a completely performing center, which is almost non-existent at this point. Everyone seems to have different issues throughout the tenancy mix. Even if it’s completely performing, what is that going to mean in a year? What is that going to mean in eighteen months as we start to see the second half of the fallout? That’s what I believe and I believe you also agree.

That’s where the real fallout is going to occur over the next 12 to 18 months. Some are even saying up to 24 months once the market gets to that point where the courts open, the stimulus has run out and folks have decentralized. They’ve up and moved out completely. Is it ten cap? Is it twelve cap? We were excited to get involved in 6 cap deals, 5.5 caps if it was a single-tenant asset. Now it’s 10, 12. Does it make sense anymore? What is it going to look like in the next few years? There are some opportunities, but the majority of the opportunities are still out there. We’re recommending to our clients, pull the trigger if you have to. If you have tax-free exchanges that you’re trying to keep in line or for whatever other reasons you need to move assets, go ahead and do that but keep some powder dry.

We’ve seen that with a lot of the funds there on Wall Street in place. They have been pulling back expecting something to change as the market turns. You are in a unique market, especially legally wise with the foreclosure process being a slow boat to China for the most part if you think about that compared here in Texas where everything’s so fast. That’s the way when you start seeing these national numbers, you got to break it down on a micro basis. Are there any things that you’re looking at with vacancy factors, cap rates, stuff like that? Is there anything that you’re watching as your bell cow or your mark that you’re paying close attention to that shows you when things are changing or things are getting tough?

We have the traditional metrics that we all take a look at. We’ve been through multiple cycles. The market goes up. The market goes down. These things happen. What’s so different this time is technology has disrupted everything we do to an extent that it’s not easy. It certainly is much easier to look at other marketplaces that are outside of New York City where the legislative process isn’t as difficult and not as threatening, where the legal process certainly is not as difficult. With that, folks have begun to decentralize as real estate has decentralized, investors are decentralizing. We don’t know what’s going to happen when the courts reopen. Everyone’s in limbo. Many of the rights have been shifted.

There’s been a consistent shift of rights away from the property owner to the tenant on both the residential and commercial side. Even confessions of judgments they’re throwing out. They’re saying that they’re not going to stand anymore. It’s become very challenging. I don’t want to give your readers bad advice because there are other traditional metrics that we would look at. I do believe that you have to wait and see once everything opens back up, how are these things going to play out? How many people are not coming back to the city proper? Who’s going to backfill that space? I do believe that we’re going to have an opportunity to backfill. There will be new markets that are going to open up. Micro logistics centers and stuff in the end zone is going to continue to explode.

What do you mean by the end zone?

In 1978 was the last time that the Zoning Code was updated in New York. Each piece of property has a zoning classification. You can only build within those classifications. M property, which for a long time languished because nobody was manufacturing up here in New York, you could have picked up end zones for a couple of dollars a foot. As we’re seeing Amazon and the focus on the last mile on a host of different supply chains, micro logistics centers are starting to pop up, storage facilities, cold storage facilities. These distribution centers are coming into the cities in a meaningful way where that market segment is continuing to explode, whereas the residential stuff is certainly pulled back, the retail stuff is pulled back. If you have M property, we’re bullish as we’ve ever been. We think that that’s poised for continued growth for the foreseeable future.

We’re starting to see some things pivot to manufacturing, but also Amazon is looking at coming in and taking over old malls, large retail centers that are vacant that nobody’s going to. They expect 50% of malls across the country are not going to recover. That’s a great opportunity. I even saw a company buy a mall and turn it into a SWAT center for police training because it has different shops and everything to do, live target practice with live rounds in a mall. You got to get a little creative with stuff like that. You hit the nail right on the head there. Manufacturing and those companies are looking to downsize or have a little bit more availability and smaller units like what Blockbuster or Best Buy did initially with the machines in the malls, Blockbuster minis. Having it be a small store versus a big box store.

We’re having a lot of discussions with the administration and the powers that be, centered around precisely that. It’s time for us to reimagine our real estate in every way from top-down. I have to say to that end, the city has been very responsive in this. It pulled together officials from each different arm up here and were brainstorming on what do these assets look like after Corona? How can we reposition? The most important thing that we could be doing up here is pulling back some of those old zoning codes that were put in place in a different time and a different era. If you think about how technology has disrupted every single industry over the last 15 to 20 years, and then you apply it to the zoning, which is what allows us to envision and create real estates in the greatest city in the world. That hasn’t changed much. It’s time that we pull those layers back. We have to start to reimagine what the M zone means, what C zones mean, what the R zones mean. The world is changing. We got to change with it.

If you’ve seen a lot of the residential stuff, especially in Staten Island, it starts to skyrocket as people moved out of the city, jumped on the ferry and come across. You’ve seen those prices jump up or days on market probably drop dramatically.

Staten Island has always been known as the forgotten borough. We’re a part of New York City but we’ve always lagged behind. It’s great silver linings. The one takeaway in that perspective is Staten Island has become the chosen borough. We’re the borough of parks. We’ve got some wonderful places out here that folks are waking up and saying, “I can sell my thirteen-foot-wide townhouse in Brooklyn for $1.7 million, $1.8 million. I can come out to Staten Island and buy a beautiful 50 x 100 detached center hall colonial and have my own little nice slice of heaven here. Put $800,000 in the bank or reinvest it into other assets.” We have seen everything you said. Days on market come down. Listing prices are going up. Deals are moving with a healthy velocity. The absorption’s down there. Everything in Staten Island has been trending in the right way. The rest of the city has been tough.

Let’s talk a little about some of your background in the note business. Talk about some of the things that you’ve done in the past. I’m setting it up because I want to ask a follow-up question. Share a little bit some of the things that you’ve done in the past when it comes to the distressed debt side.

In the past, we’ve been a chameleon. We’ve adapted to whatever trend we thought was on the horizon back in 2006. We had come back to the office. I was with a business partner. I’ll never forget it. We looked at each other and we said, “It’s over.” We felt that in 2006, this is done. Real estate reports 2, 3, 4 quarters down the road, especially in New York. A couple of years before the bubble officially burst, we had said, “Let’s start to hone our skills. Let’s whiteboard what we think this is going to look like on the other side.” Defaulted note is where we knew that was headed. There were a lot of banks that were credit card lenders one day, and then they were folding on lending institutions and experts. You could jot down the names on a shortlist that you thought were going to be headed for trouble.

That’s what we did. We started to cultivate relationships with those banks. When it came time to move those notes, we became experts in it. Not on your scale, not anywhere near your scale but for us, especially out here in Staten Island, defaulted note for $20 million, $30 million that wrapped a host of different assets out here in the borough was a big deal. We focused on that for a couple of years. As we saw things starting to change again, it became, “What are we going to do with the product? How are we going to reposition it? Is it going to be long-term cap rate plays? Are we going to do condos or a co-op place and have a disposition plan? Is it going to be a hybrid thereof?” We started to move through that as well.

One thing leads to another. You know what happens. When you’re in the business, you have a way through vertical integration to get involved in different synergistic businesses. Capex Funding is our commercial lending arm. We have a very healthy consulting company with the residential and commercial in the real estate side. We’re doing work in the cost confinement space for companies that are skinning up and property owners that are skinning up. Casandra is the mother ship but as the markets evolve, you evolve with it and vertically integrate where you can.

That leads to the follow-up question. You’re very familiar with a lot of these areas and had been flexible. One biggest thing is those that stick around long-term versus an upward trend that can pivot or find the opportunities ahead of time. You talked about a couple of things there. What do you put in place here for once things shake loose? I don’t want you to give away any secret sauce but if you’ve got some things that you’re keeping your eye on that you think are going to be advantageous there in your neck of the woods, would you mind sharing?

 

What we’re doing at this point on our own portfolio and for our clients is we’re divesting from certain asset classes that have experienced contraction for a number of reasons. Not limited to the traditional metrics. Their legislative threats have become a massive part of our decision tree on everything we do now. The legislation is coming out fast and furious. While it’s all well-intended, sometimes the consequences are so profound that they’re setting the entire asset classes back significantly. We’re looking to move out of some of the multifamily space. We’re looking to move out of some of the retail space. Not all of it but some of it. We’re keeping some of the powder dry. We’re moving into opportunity zones. We’re doing incubators in those buildings where if you could get wrap your head around getting out of trading bricks for bricks, we want to start trading bricks for human capital and talent.

We’re excited about a program through a QOF, Qualified Opportunity Fund. We’re taking some of that gain from those capital events. We’re rebuilding new, better, smarter bricks. We’re also holding a piece back to invest in our incubators to grab some of these younger kids that have unbelievable ideas, spirit and energy. We want to invest in them and their companies, help provide a roof over their head, infrastructure, high-speed internet, mentorship, and capital to give them a chance to grow. We’re also holding back. We’re keeping some of the powder dry as the courts open again and as the deposits are shifting within the banks.

I was on a call. I heard that Wells Fargo was offering $500,000 for a discount of a quarter of a point. If you move $500,000 into their bank, they would discount your mortgage that amount. Don’t quote me on the number but it was something along those lines. What’s happening is the big boys are going, “Bring the deposits in. We’re going to stay whole. We’ll remain solvent and compliant,” but that money’s coming from somewhere. It tends to come from those smaller to mid-cap banks. As those deposits get pulled out, as you are well aware, they fall out of compliance. They have more debt on their books than they can. What happens at that point? They have to get rid of it. That’s where we think there’s going to be a massive amount of opportunity. Not the huge defaulted note markets like it was last time around. In that $2, $3, $5, $8, $9 million range, there’s going to be a massive amount of opportunity.

That’s the biggest price point. That’s opportunity-wise out there, that sub $10 million. With $5 million and below, we see a lot of that. That’s what’s been financed by your traditional banks. The bigger stuff has all been gobbled by Wall Street. It was a change of zeros and ones. I love that trencher stuff. I love what you said about changing a traditional brick-and-mortar aspect. Taking a business and convert it to an executive office or providing a place for people to come individually to have that professional setting where they don’t have to have the whole building leased up. They can do something. You give them the resources. Also investing in what they’re doing. That’s phenomenal. I love that aspect of things. There is so much talent coming out. Technology is changing the way you have to do business these days. I love that stuff. Kudos to you for thinking ahead like that.

You set it up properly in the opportunity zones. Not the income. The income is taxed as any income would be. I would recommend speaking to your opportunity zone experts. There are some wonderful experts out there. If you keep the business in that location or an opportunity zone for ten years, you hit on the next Google, the next Twitter or the next Snapchat, and you sell it for hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s tax-free. Those are investments that are worthwhile. We’re not saying 50% of the portfolio but if you’re trading out of bricks, take 10%, take 20% and invest it there. It’s well worth it.

I want to throw something out there. You talked about legislation and everything that’s going on at the presidential level. We know things don’t change overnight there. If Biden’s got a tax plan that he’s talking about doing away with 1031 exchanges, I don’t think it will go through. You brought something up. We were talking with a 1031 expert. This is very relevant because the price points where you’re at fall into not only on the residential side but also on the commercial side. If you are trying to move something, doing away with a 1031 exchange is going to cause stagnation on a lot of sales.

It’s going to require all of us to start to reinvent how we shelter those gains and go with the opportunity zone. That was one of our avenues. Basis swaps will become popular if they do get rid of the 1031. I hope they don’t. Of all the times in the country’s history, we cannot afford that type of a blow to the industry. That would be ill-timed to take that tool away at this point.

That’s where we think a lot of the deferred sales trust or owner finances had come into play for a lot of those commercial properties to delay those taxes, those long-term or the capital gains taxes that people are going to see. It’s an interesting dumpster fire every year. Even with fires, there’s a fertile ground for a lot of opportunities out there with things going on. You got to be flexible looking at different opportunities there for you. Are you looking at anything outside of your area, any other states, anything like that or you’re trying to stay home in the Empire State?

We’re gearing up to operate out of state. The legislative challenges and the courts have become particularly difficult to continue to operate. The taxes were still getting hit. It’s very tough. I understand certainly the reasons behind the shutdowns and the thought process behind it. When you require someone to shut down their business, you hit them with a tax bill, there’s no abatement on the tax bill, you don’t require banks to give forbearance, that becomes difficult to manage. New York is always going to be New York. I do believe that. When it does rebound, it’s going to rebound with an unbelievable ferocity, the likes of which we’ve never seen. It is becoming easier to operate out of state. I met this dynamic guy out of Texas who specializes in defaulted notes. I’m hoping to be doing business with him in the near future. You’re my plan.

You’re doing some things that you’re able to have fun with. You’ve started what you called Capex.

That’s our commercial lending arm. That’s the non-QM field mortgages where we’re doing the financing.

Can you talk a little bit about what you have proven or what you’re seeing as far as what you’re financing?

The big thing is SBA where you have tenants in buildings. Perhaps they hadn’t previously contemplated making the purchase because the rates are so low and the programs have gotten so flexible on SBA. SBA has done an unbelievable job adapting here. We are finding that we’re able to convert renters into owners, which is great. Outside of that, we are still financing deals. We closed the retail deal. It’s challenging, the discount rates that they’re applying to the appraisals and the rent, even for the tenants that are performing. I get it. The traditional metrics are out the window at this point. It becomes difficult. The LTVs becomes so egregious that you have to pull back a bit. The private money is hot as it’s ever been. As the banking restrictions increase and they become less flexible, that need for that private money becomes more relevant. We’re seeing a lot of things happen transactionally. There’s a lot of SBA stuff, some refinance but short of that, the traditional lending metrics have been very difficult.

Where have you seen the LTVs dropping down? We know cap rates had changed and NOI has also affected the true value of a commercial property. It’s different from a residential property or rental property. We all know that’s different. We all knew the banks were getting greedy up in the mid 60%, even 70% range. Are you seeing them down in the 50%, below 60% or even below that?

If you’re not in a space where your tenants are hospitals or medical or you’re not in the M space where you’ve got trucking companies, storage companies, logistic companies, short of those two markets, all of them are down, quite honestly. The LTVs, they’re right where you’re saying 50%, 60%, nobody is excited about 70%, 80% anymore. It’s the thing of the past. It’ll be interesting to see how some of these things shake out and some of these lenders, the CMBS lenders in particular. Some of those programs were so aggressive. Those funds all have this springing power of attorneys where if there’s a default, they are now in control of it. They’re sitting around going, “We don’t want to be in control of all these properties. That’s not how we make money.”

It was a great idea on the front end and not such a good idea now. The whole same thing happened with the banks and default in the real estate. They didn’t want to manage property in vacant homes. They wanted the performing stuff. That’s what all the banks want anyway. That also leads to an opportunity if you can be creative and structure a deal with owner financing, bringing in a private lender maybe in a mezzanine short-term. Short-term is a whole different ballgame. The short term is 2 to 5 years versus 12 months to carry that paper until the market rebounds and you find an opportunity. Having that money sitting on the sidelines ready to spring on a deal makes sense, the ability to get creative if something’s going to make sense or transition.

 

The one biggest thing, I think you’ll agree with this if you’re transitioning, how are they evaluating that property transitioning? We saw an office space convert to self-storage in Downtown Denver. It was an interesting play, 110 units and got bought up for $560,000 with the cap rate. When I looked at the numbers, I was like, “Oh my God.” Talking to the seller, I would think it’s a little tough because it is for office. What we did is we turned it to self-storage and we reached out to all the offices that are closing. They’re all who rented with us. We filled it up in a week with office furniture.

I’m glad you brought that deal up because that’s a perfect example of what we’re dealing with up here. There had been multiple deals that we were involved in. Some that closed and some that died. I’ll explain why. They were taking these buildings where the tenancy wasn’t there anymore. They were converting them into self-storage. Big returns, they take that. They sell it on the secondary market. You get wonderful money at the end of the day. In the 2020 budget, the governor caught the ICAP for self-storage buildings. There’s no longer tax abatement available. When there was this offering product in the office spaces, the vacancies are up again. I’ve been talking about the decentralization of real estate for years.

In comes self-storage, people reinvent themselves, it’s great. This is a nice, easy transition. Deal starts to happen. Governor pulls it out of the budget. Deals start dying all over the place because the taxes here are so egregious. You can’t make them work anymore. If there’s ever been an opportunity or a time when I would call upon the legislature that continues to focus on pulling some of those things back and allowing the market to find its own level, when you tweak those little things and you turn those dials because it looks good on the balance sheet, you can recapture that tax base, the impact is so profound. It’s 10X, 20X more devastating when the deal never happens. The buildings lay fallow. There’s no one paying taxes. Nobody is paying their employees. Those employees are not going out and eating. All of those things that the waterfall is immense on a transaction like that. It’s tough.

Speaking of tough, I’ve got a buddy who’s taking smaller 200 units or less hotels and converting them into multifamily in areas that need affordable housing. That’s my next question for you. The hotel has been dramatically affected up in New York City and all over the place. Are you seeing maybe some of those opportunities when things pop up where distressed hotels or stuff being closed a little bit more so?

Without a doubt, some of the hotels made deals with the city. They’re handling the homeless population. They’ve been able to stay solvent during the shutdown in that manner. Those who either elected not to participate or were not able to participate for a number of different reasons, they’re in trouble. It’s a great example of repurposing real estate. With the complexities of the zoning here, it’s not as simple as down in San Antonio or some other districts. It is a very long difficult process to try and operate outside of the prescribed zoning. That is an immediate need that has to get addressed where there’s an emergency panel. I sit on the mayor’s advisory group to address these kinds of things. I’m hopeful that we can get to some resolution there. Flexible zoning and emergency zoning is an absolute must to help the city rebound.

One of the things that you’ve done in 2020 too is to launch your podcast. I love what you’re doing with the podcast. If you’re reading this, you could not see the megawatt bulb that went off with James smiling talking about the podcast. Let’s talk a little about that. You’re doing a great job not only in marketing but your social media stuff is second to none. Let’s talk about the podcast. What made you decide to launch one and your focus with that?

This is very far out of my comfort zone. I’ve always been a head-down guy, just go to work and put 14, 15, 16 hours in a day, grind it out. I never worked on this side of the business. We began with business coaching. We began forcing ourselves to get out of our comfort zones quite honestly. Peter, my CMO for the company who had previously worked for Apple said, “There’s a whole other side of this thing here. Real estate is as much about marketing now as it is about being a deal-maker. Maybe more about marketing than it is about being a deal-maker.” We had made the commitment. When COVID hit, everything was delivered. We said, “Let’s go in and finish the studio up. Let’s get it ready to go.”

It became for us a personal thing. We needed to give the folks a platform to communicate. A lot of frustration, a lot of stories in the local business community that we needed to get out. It took off more than I ever thought it would, never mind much faster than it I thought it would. I give full credit to Peter Gambino, our CMO. He’s a brilliant guy who has changed how we do things here. It became personal. It was a way for us to help connect the dots, to give an audience to folks who otherwise didn’t have it, to get that message out there and to communicate. There’s nothing more important than communication.

That’s one of the biggest things that we found in 2020 being so unique. One thing is the need for us to touch base. Sometimes we get so bogged down in our day-to-day working at our desk. We can’t meet in person and share a beer or a cup of coffee. You can share one hour or 30 minutes online and have that personal interaction. With the venting side, I agree with that. Sometimes people need a place to vent their frustration, how they’re feeling to express and realize that they’re not alone these days more so than anything else.

Without a doubt, we’re all in this boat together. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new business. We’ve been here since 1989. We’ve been through the 9/11 and the ’08 crash, Superstorm Sandy, which was devastating for Staten Island. We’ve been through the stress tests. At the moment, you feel like you need to connect. That’s been something that we take a lot of pride in. We’ve been connecting our peers with an audience they otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. It’s been a great experience for us.

What’s been the biggest surprise for you?

How much I enjoy it, quite honestly. I promise you, it was so far out of my comfort zone. I felt how am I going to get on and talk for an hour? How am I going to carry a broadcast in that way? I’ve fallen in love with it. I enjoy the podcast so much. I look forward to them every week. Anytime I have an opportunity to come on a show like this, we’re so appreciative to be able to connect and get that message out. My biggest surprise is how all of us fallen in love with it. It’s a wonderful tool for us.

Let’s take away from the business. Let’s go a little personal. What do you do at night besides hiding elves on the shelves for your kids? What are you doing to relax a little bit when everything is going so crazy?

I enjoy the country. I enjoyed getting out and fly-fish. That’s my passion. I enjoy getting out and touch with nature. We’ve got a place up in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. I don’t get there often but when I do, I’m reconnecting with the earth. We’ve got cows, chickens and goats. That’s my thing. For me, that’s it. We joke around that a lot of families like to go during their downtime, they put their feet in the sand and relax. Not us. We like to get in the mud and play with the animals. I don’t know. There’s something so therapeutic about it for us. The whole family enjoys it.

There’s something to be said about different animals. Getting a little dirt under your fingernails and getting dirty. For those that haven’t experienced it, there’s something to be said about that. There’s an energy that flows in the ground. I live in North Austin, Texas. We’ve got a very big backyard but we’ve turned it into our own tropical forest. It’s a nice thing. Every morning, first thing, we get up. We go outside, walking, enjoying it, trying to step away from all the negativity in the news that’s taking place out there. With everything that’s going on in the media, what would you say? I want to know your opinion. You probably have a strong opinion.

 

With what we see, I won’t say on all the networks, how accurate do you think the reporting that is going on up in your neck of the woods is? Let’s talk about COVID. New York City was hit hard initially. I’ve got friends who are head nurses in ER rooms saying they’ve got a lot of empty beds. They’ve only seen a few cases there. Do you think the media is over exaggerating the situation up in New York? The boat that came and the big ship that left that didn’t use and stuff like that. Do you think it’s overblown over that neck of the woods?

Somehow, somewhere along the way, thankfully, we dodged the big bullet here. If this was as fatal as we had originally thought it was, good Lord, we’re not prepared. I understand the hesitation and the desire for the powers to make sure we don’t get to a critical mass issue in our hospitals. For as many cases, I can tell you about folks who I knew who got sick. I can tell you about cases where people had no clue they had it. They threw all of these testing efforts and we find out that they did have it with zero symptoms. It’s a wicked bug. We all have to do our part. I do think that there comes a point where the cure surpasses the ailment. That’s not meant to be disrespectful to anyone who’s lost anyone through COVID, but there is another side to this. For those of us who have dedicated our lives to our businesses. Folks think, “James, you may be a greedy business owner talking that way.”

We have so many people who depend on us, so many families who depend on us. It’s not us. It’s our extended family. It’s been difficult to keep the wheels turning in New York, to begin with. It’s a very expensive place to operate. When you layer something like this on top of it and forced closures, it’s tough. Toning down the level of reporting probably would serve us all well. We’re all so connected, Scott. Any critical information, we can access immediately through a host of different mediums. Toning it down and stepping that rhetoric down would serve us all well at this point. Not only because it’s been over-reported but it’s created COVID fatigue. There are a lot of folks that have let their guard down, even with the basic safety things that we all should follow because they are exhausted on it. It’s on every channel. It’s on every app. It’s so in your face that people are tired of it at this point. That’s dangerous. We have to stay vigilant. We would all be served well if things got toned down a bit.

What’s your favorite New York sports team? I always love asking this question. You can pick a couple if you need to.

That is very tough for me. I’m a diehard Giants fan and I’m a diehard Yankees fan. Those are my two top teams without a doubt.

It might be interesting to see who wins the NFC East in 2020 with 4 or 5 wins. The Giants are in the first place.

This coach Joe Judge comes in, first-year head coach. A veteran is giving him a hard time, Golden Tate. He goes and he sends him down to the practice squad. To me, that’s leadership. It’s this market with the media frenzy when something like that happens. I love everything that he’s doing. I’ll take another losing season if that’s the way the team is headed. I love it.

James, what’s the best way for our audience to reach out to you to find out more about what you’re doing or listen to the podcast? What’s the best way for people to get ahold of you?

You could find everything through our website, www.CasandraProperties.com. Also email, I am accessible at James@CasandraProperties.com. I’m always available. I’m happy to get on and chat. I love chatting with you. You’ve got a way about you that brings out the best in the Casandra Properties family. This has been great.

I appreciate that same here. It’s always nice to get on the phone and Zoom here with somebody. You said something impactful. People don’t realize how many people that entrepreneurs and business owners affect not only our employees but our vendors, their family, our clients and our tenants. We are our own GDP affecting so many more things out there. People don’t realize that there are a lot of difficult decisions that we have to make that keep us up at night. It’s one of the best things I have found about the practice. Being able to connect with like-minded individuals who were also facing those things and who are putting in those 14 and 16 hour days when nobody else thinks, “You’re probably working 6 or 7. Have a bottle of Scotch and a good cigar.” That’s not the case a lot of times.

You would have a hard time quantifying how many times I’ve disappointed my wife. I’ve missed an event. I wasn’t there for something that I should have and promised I would be. Those are the things you don’t hear about on our side of the table that are difficult to quantify, and why we get so passionate when there’s a situation like this where there’s forced shutdowns and these types of things. We’ve put so much of our life into our business. It’s an emotional process.

Behind us, there are very powerful women and strong women who allow us to do what we do and keep us on track. That’s why the holidays is a great time to spend time with the family, show the loved ones that we love them, respect them and go from there. I’m sure you’ve got big plans for the holidays.

With the restrictions, it’s tough. My wife has been an unbelievable partner for me over the years. Beyond allowed me, she’s encouraging me to go out, get it and do what I do. We’re looking forward to some quiet time around the holidays with the kids and the family. Get ready to jump on into 2021. It’s going to be a ride.

James, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for being honest and delivering to our audience out there. I highly encourage you to check out the Casandra Properties website, his podcast. Listen to his guests. Go over and give him a five-star review as well and hit the subscribe button. It’s one of the ones that I subscribed to. I love listening to it. It’s always educational and something to take away from as well. James, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Stay safe.

That’s going to wrap it up for this episode of the show. One thing you’ll take away from James is the reason and the necessity to be flexible in your investments, in what you’re looking at. Looking to the future, not just staying stagnant and where you’re at but looking at opportunities in the market, in the future, in people and figuring out a way to pivot that. Keeps the powder dry as he liked to say so you’ve got the opportunity to pull the trigger and take advantage of an amazing deal or jump into a deal that maybe you don’t see very often. Go out. Take some action. We’ll see you all at the top.

 Important Links:

• Casandra Properties
• Capex Funding
• podcast – Casandra Properties Podcast
• James@CasandraProperties.com

About James Prendamano

James Prendamano is the CEO for Casandra Properties, Inc., Staten Island’s premier real-estate firm. For nearly three decades, with his trademark enthusiasm, creativity, and leadership, James has shepherded the completion of transformative projects, including major initiatives reshaping Staten Island’s commercial real estate landscape.

 

 

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

• WeCloseNotes.com
• The Note Closers Show Facebook
• The Note Closers Show Twitter
• Scott Carson LinkedIn
• The Note Closers Show YouTube
• The Note Closers Show Vimeo
• The Note Closers Show Instagram
• We Close Notes Pinterest