• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Say hello
Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

  • Podcast
  • Posts
  • In the news
  • Speaking and media
    • About Eve
    • Speaking requests
    • Speaking engagements
    • Press kit
  • Investment opportunities

Community

Permanently affordable.

November 3, 2021

Kimberly Driggins is executive director of the newly created Washington Housing Conservancy. The nonprofit’s mission is aimed at ensuring that moderate to low-income residents are not priced out of their homes. DC is a city where rents are running rampant and this only promises to get worse once Amazon’s HQ2 opens. The Housing Conservancy plans to acquire and own 3,000 units of affordable housing helping to stabilize rents, prevent displacement, create communities and promote opportunity and wealth building.

For Kimberly, this is a challenge worth taking on. She has had a remarkable career in urban planning and public policy, working on and in the cities she loves. And now she is turning her passion and energy to the challenging crisis that is touching so many people – housing. While she has only just begun to craft a fresh approach to this overwhelming problem, it’s clear that she plans to be spectacularly successful. Just two years into the job and Kimberly is making strong progress with her sights on some big milestones.

Kimberly was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard GSD, a White House Fellow, and a recipient of Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship in Public Policy and International Affairs. Her early career as an analyst played out at Enterprise Community Partners, International Economic Development Council, and Ernst and Young. This was followed by roles in city government and as associate director in DC’s office of planning. She also worked for D.C. Public Schools facilitating public-private funding partnerships. Before joining the Housing Conservancy Kimberly worked for the City of Detroit as their director of strategic planning for arts and culture, while also serving as chair of the Gehl Institute’s board of directors (based in NYC).

Insights and Inspirations

  • The Housing Conservancy is working to purchase 3,000 units in high-impact neighborhoods, which are relatively affordable today but in the path of redevelopment.
  • Their goal is $150 million of flexible private capital to preserve apartments with affordable rents. With investor returns capped at 7%.
  • The Housing Conservancy is not just about affordable housing. It’s about community building as well.
  • Kimberly got into being a DJ, Kool Like Dat, in Detroit. She has impressed people with her seamless performances and her ability to read the room.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:12] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Re-Think Real Estate for good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad. Rich or poor. Beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website Rethinkrealestateforgood.Co or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:05] Today, I’m talking with Kimberly Driggins. She’s Executive Director of the newly created Washington Housing Conservancy, tackling the affordable housing crisis with a fresh model. This one is aimed at ensuring that middle income teachers and firefighters are not priced out of their homes. D.C. is a city where rents are running rampant, and this only promises to get worse once Amazon’s HQ2 opens. For Kimberly, this is a challenge worth taking on. And just two years into the job and she’s making strong progress, she has her sights set on some big milestones. If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:13] Hello, Kimberly. I’m really honored to have you with me today and excited to hear about your work.

Kimberly Driggins: [00:02:20] Thank you for having me, Eve. It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Eve: [00:02:24] So you head up a fairly new organization in Washington D.C., the Washington Housing Conservancy. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Why was it formed and how does it work?

Kimberly: [00:02:39] Sure, yes. The Washington Housing Conservancy, we are relatively new, not for profit organization 501c3. And we were created in 2018. And we were created because we saw a gap in the market really refocus on the market rate affordable, also known as NOAH, Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing. We’re focused on preventing residential displacement, stabilizing rents and promoting opportunity for moderate to low-income Washington area residents. Really, the focus of our work, we really work to mitigate displacement and to promote economic mobility. That’s really what we do. And we really felt that in our hot real estate market like D.C., where affordable housing is becoming a scarce resource, thinking about how we can preserve what we already have. This housing stock is the housing stock that is being lost to the market, no matter where you are in the country at the greatest rate. And for, you know, and it’s not the easiest to preserve, but it’s always easier to preserve existing housing as opposed to creating new housing. You need both. We certainly think that you need everything at your disposal, but we’re really focused on this, this product, multifamily housing.

Eve: [00:04:21] Yeah, I think you have, there’s an organization in San Francisco that does something a little bit similar if I’m remembering correctly.

Kimberly: [00:04:30] It’s quite possible, I mean, in hot markets like San Francisco, New York, Boston, I mean, we’ve been fighting this for several years, decades, I would say. I think a lot of listeners that are outside of the DMV don’t really understand how expensive D.C. has gotten over the last 20 – 25 years. And we really are. When you look outside of New York and California and possibly Boston, we’re really in the top five, maybe top three in terms of most expensive markets to live in, especially in the rental market. We’re very much akin to Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn and Brooklyn, New York and the Bay Area in terms of our housing costs. We’re not as high, but we’re trying to really solve a problem before it becomes out of control. With respect to mixed income communities. In those areas that I just named you in Manhattan, you really have a situation where you have unless you’re in a subsidized unit, it’s really the very wealthy, very affluent or low to no income. Because you have the housing subsidy or government subsidized housing, you don’t have a lot of this market rate affordable. I think probably none in the Bay Area, San Francisco specifically. So that’s what we are focused on, and we’re really focused on workforce housing, which is a term that I don’t love. It’s an industry term, but it’s really, it’s people who are, you know, working such as your first responders, your teachers, your lab technicians, hospitality workers, folks that make a “decent living.” You can be making 60 – 75,000. Yet you are extremely rent burdened. That’s not enough to be not rent burdened here in the D.C. area.

Eve: [00:06:42] Just talking about rent burden, so the typical calculation that you do with a tenant is one third of your income should go to rent and utilities, right? So, if you earn $60,000, then you shouldn’t really spend more than $20,000 on rent and utilities. How is that playing out in Washington? Where can someone find rent at $20,000 for a year? At the moment?

Kimberly: [00:07:08] It’s increasingly hard to do, Eve. I mean, that’s the reality. You know, on average and I’m trying to find some statistics, but you know, this is a region where you know, people are severely rent burdened. A cost for, you know, a two-bedroom apartment is well north of 2,000 maybe 2,500 dollars. And I think about 35 percent or so of folks are rent burdened. And you know, I can get you the specifics.

Eve: [00:07:43] I read some really high numbers. Something like 40 percent are paying half their income in rent, some really large number like that.

Kimberly: [00:07:51] It’s actually, yeah, I’m pulling up some of the stats. It’s 50 percent of households are spending more than 30 percent of their earnings on housing in the D.C. region.

Eve: [00:08:00] Wow!

Kimberly: [00:08:02] That’s a lot, that’s half the population.

Eve: [00:08:05] So these are everyday people who really can’t afford to live in the places they’re living in. What happens when Amazon’s HQ2 headquarters opens? Does that get worse?

Kimberly: [00:08:17] Well, you know, I do. I think that it’s known when you have tech companies and organizations like Amazon, when they move into town, the impact. It can be great for the economy, but it definitely creates housing pressure. And you know, to Amazon’s credit, I think that they have looked at what happened in Seattle. Looking at what’s happened in California with Google and Apple and all the others, and really try to do things differently here in the DMV and Nashville. I think that was a main motivation for their housing equity fund, which we were one of their first marquee investments. So, I think overall, the tech sector has actually responded in a way that I wish other corporations and employers would. I think that they’re recognizing their impact on place. Mainly because of what has happened in California and what has happened in Seattle. And so they all have initiatives around housing, affordable housing, housing affordability. You don’t see that. D.C., you know, there’s a lot of other employers and hospitals and universities are your largest employers in D.C. You also have a lot of defense contractors that are based in D.C. So, we don’t actually, tech doesn’t drive industry here. But I hope that the other sectors are listening and thinking and looking at what Amazon and Microsoft and others are doing because we really need the corporate sector to do their part around thinking about solving for the challenges of housing affordability. Because I think it’s everyone’s issue and I think it becomes a workforce issue for many of these companies. If we don’t do something collectively. It can’t just be government. Can’t just be the not-for-profit sector. We all have to be rowing in the same direction. And I haven’t seen that, and I’m hoping that Amazon and Google and others can inspire other corporations to do similar type of investments.

Eve: [00:10:33] So then that brings me to the Washington Housing Initiative. How does that tie into what you’re doing? Why was it formed? What does it do?

Kimberly: [00:10:44] Washington Housing Conservancy, we sit in a larger, broader initiative called the Washington Housing Initiative. Think of it as a three-legged stool. So, the Washington Housing Initiative has three main components. The Washington Housing Conservancy, or WHC, which is what I run. I’m the Executive Director and we are the not-for-profit owner and operator of the real estate that we acquire. In addition to WHC, we have an impact pool. That impact pool provides mezzanine or second debt financing. It’s a social impact investing arm and that’s managed by JBG Smith. And then we have a stakeholder council that we’re establishing this year and that really is looking at policy and advocacy in this NOAH space. There are very few tools in the toolkit to preserve this type of housing stock, and we are really hoping to change the system and really create more mechanisms to allow this to occur. We are disrupting the real estate market. We’re trying to do something that doesn’t want to happen. And we’ve realized that. We compete with the for-profit sector with these properties. In the NOAH space, by and large, the majority of these properties go to value-add investors or developers that are looking to make double digit returns on their investment, as well as add to displacement. They often acquire these properties. There’s a lot of up-side. The rents are low, but the growth trajectory is high, and they often know that, and they will either make substantial improvements that raise rents or just raise rents gradually because there are no affordability covenants on these properties. And so that’s what we’re doing that’s so different is that we’re buying the property. We’re putting affordability covenants, sometimes up to 99 years. Our first project with the Amazon money, it’s a 99-year deal. But more realistic of our typical profile is 20 – 25 years. Sometimes it’s 30 or beyond. It really depends on where we are in the financing terms, but we’re putting affordability covenants on properties that currently don’t have it and maintaining the asset for the long term. We’re not interested in reselling. We refinanced the property. That’s how our investors get paid in the impact pool, not through sell.

Eve: [00:13:28] Mm hmm.

Kimberly: [00:13:29] So did I answer your question there, Eve?

Eve: [00:13:31] Yeah, yeah. So, I think, you know, probably most of us are thinking, you know, to keep something affordable is very difficult with the way finances are structured these days. The capital stack and you’re a nonprofit, which makes it possible for you. But how about that impact pool that you talked about? How does that work? I mean, where does the money come from and what sort of return and how big is that going to grow?

Kimberly: [00:13:58] Sure. So, the impact pool, again, that’s it provides mezzanine financing. I’ll talk about who invests in that in a second, but to give you an example of our capital stack. So, our typical capital stack, it’s a first mortgage from a GSE like a Fannie Freddie. That’s 70 percent. On average, these are averages. The impact pool comes in to provide the mezz debt, and that’s up to 20 percent. And then the conservancy, WHC, what I run, the organization that I run. We provide up to 10 percent equity, so we have real skin in the game. We put money into our deals that’s separate and apart from the mezz debt, from the impact pool. And I think that that’s something that most people don’t really know or fully understand. But what makes us competitive is that mezz debt, because it is below market rate debt. That debt is so the investors, we have, it’s 115 million for the first round for the pool. The fund has closed. We raised that money over the last two years. We started deploying that money early or late last year. And that impact pool, the investors are primarily banks. And banks know, this is impact investing. So, it’s a single digit return to investors. It’s a total of nine percent. It’s seven percent to the investors. There’s a two percent fee that goes to the administrators of the pool. In this case, it’s JBG Smith, so it’s nine percent money.

Eve: [00:15:40] Not bad. It’s not bad.

Kimberly: [00:15:42] It’s not bad. You know, when we structured the fund several years ago, that was what it needed to be. I think if we do a second round, it could be lower in terms of the return. It’s not bad. I know in the social impact world you’re looking typically around five six percent return, so it’s above average for social impact investing and we recognize that. And so again, banks are primarily the investor in that fund, and they have many reasons to invest. Mainly, it fulfills their CRA credits, and it advances the mission around affordable housing. All of them have affordable housing, social impact, economic mobility goals. And you know, the biggies are all in. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, you know, you name it, Trust, which used to be SunTrust, BB&T. So, they are national banks, local banks. We have high net worth individuals that are also in the fund now, you know, as opposed to our money WHC, you know, ours are philanthropic dollars. So, you know, that’s the difference. Banks are rarely donating to us. If they are, it’s really a very small amount, typically. But our biggest donors, we have donors, we have some foundations locally, Marriott, Shatner Foundation, others that are based here. We’re looking to grow. We have a $30 million fundraising goal, the Conservancy does. And we’ve raised over half of what we need to date. We have raised 18.5. So, we’re looking to close that gap in the next 12 to 18 months to be… We feel like that is the number it’ll take to get us to scale and to get us towards self-sufficiency. That’s another key aspect of our model, Eve, is that we are designed to be self-sustaining. We will not always be in a fundraising mode once we get critical mass in terms of the number of units, which is 3,000 for us. You know, our properties do generate some revenue that goes back to the Conservancy to help with our operations. Not a lot, but some because we have market rate units in the portfolio. I mean, that’s part of our criteria selection.

Eve: [00:18:18] Interesting. So you, to sort of break even, 8,000 units…

Kimberly: [00:18:23] 3,000 units

Eve: [00:18:25] 3,000. Okay. That’s a lot.

Kimberly: [00:18:28] Yes, it is.

Eve: [00:18:29] What is scale mean to you then? What sort of the big, hairy, audacious goal?

Kimberly: [00:18:37] I mean. For me, you know, that’s a great question, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that. You know, we want to go as far as we can. I mean, you know, we’re proving the model. We’ve had a breakthrough year this year. I mean, you know, I’ve been on the job two years and this year we’ve acquired our first properties. We have two more that we’re closing on and we have a strong pipeline. And I think that we’ve moved from this is a nice idea and it sounds cool to knowing that it can work. So, we’re past proof of concept, but we’re pre scale. And for me, you know, 3,000 is a starting place. It’s not the endgame. I mean, I definitely think we want to do more. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that we want to keep going. And I also think that as we prove the model, if we can do more in the low-income space, I get this question all the time. You guys are focused on workforce. What about low income? There’s pressure there and it’s the hardest housing to create because of the amount of subsidy that it requires. That’s really true. I mean, I would hope that, you know, if we’re successful beyond my wildest imagination, that we are able to do more at the 30 percent or less AMI. I mean, that’s where the challenges, I mean, are really, really great.

Eve: [00:20:03] Yeah.

Kimberly: [00:20:03] But there’s also a lot of government resources that work to produce housing at that level. Of course, it’s never enough. But you know, we, as I said earlier, all need to all sectors need to step up to solve this crisis, and we are one solution. We’re not the only solution. And I think that if we can make a dent and workforce, we chose this because no one is really, not as many people are paying attention to this demographic. And there’s actually no resources for folks. I mean, and this is personal. I mean, this was me, you know, I chose to live in Washington because it was affordable over 20 years ago. If I was just starting out in my career, I’m not sure if I could afford Washington. I went in, I started my career in the not-for-profit space. I wasn’t making a lot of money and I didn’t have a lot of debt from college and graduate school. So, I was able to follow and work on what I’m passionate about and live in a city that was affordable, and I want more people to be able to do what I was able to do. And you know, right now, it’s really tough in D.C. to be able to do that. You have two and three roommates, or you have two or three jobs to be able to come out of school.

Eve: [00:21:33] Right, right. So where do you find your tenants then? Are they typically the buildings are full, and you keep tenants in place?

Kimberly: [00:21:41] Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, the great thing about our model is when we buy a building, it’s about keeping residents there. We want residents to stay. We don’t need people to move. The mix is what we need for our model to work. The one exception is the Amazon project and Crystal House. Crystal House is a market rate luxury building, right? It wasn’t mixed income, you know, typically, our building profile is Class B Class C buildings that are in very good shape. They don’t require substantial rehab, but they’ve got great bones. They’ve been well cared for. There’s not a lot of deferred maintenance, but it’s just not the, you know, the buildings. And you know, that’s most of the NOAH housing stock is what I’m describing. And so that’s typically our building profile with the Crystal House. That’s market rate luxury. We’re transitioning that building to 75 percent affordable over the next five years. So it’s 20 percent a year and we’re doing that through natural attrition. We don’t need to displace current residents. We want residents to stay. Many of the residents that live in Crystal House qualify for the workforce program, so when their leases are up, we’re asking them if they want to participate. Now, participation in the workforce program, having your rent reduced, you have to we have to income certify. So, this deal was written to LIHTC standards and so we income certify at all of our properties to make sure that you’re qualifying for the workforce units. There’s about 20 percent of those units are 50 percent or less of AMI, but it’s 75 percent. So let me do the math. 825 units, that’s 619 units that will be made affordable for moderate to low-income workers and residents at Crystal House over the next five years. And we were keeping that affordable for 99 years. There’s a 99-year affordability covenant. It’s quite possibly one of the largest NOAH projects in the country, so we’ve been told by some of our national advisors.

Eve: [00:24:05] So, you know, when I listen to this, you know, I also interviewed an architect, who I think is amazing in Australia, who’s tackling this in a completely different way, but exactly the same demographic. The firefighters and teachers who could no longer afford to live in the city. And he found a piece of land next to a railway station with a bike trail that goes all the way into the central business district and built this building, just chipping away at all the cost to make it affordable for that group of people without any marketing. He has a waiting list of 8,000 people.

Kimberly: [00:24:42] Wow.

Eve: [00:24:42] So there’s a part of me that thinks like, this is a global problem, and we’re just like scratching at the surface of it. What is it really going to take to correct this housing crisis that we’re in? Are we ever going to be able to correct it?

Kimberly: [00:25:00] Yeah, that’s the million-dollar question, Eve. I do think it’s a global phenomenon. I have some experience in Europe and Denmark. Copenhagen specifically, I sat on a board there. Europe tends to have social housing, which, you know, they have a larger sort of definition that I think includes sort of this workforce. But I’ve gotten some interest outside of the country. I know that Canada, Toronto. You know, again, another hot market real estate market. And you know, the project that you discussed in Australia. Jennifer Keesmaat, the former Planning Director, she’s now head of a company called Markee Developments. They’re doing exactly the same thing, but they’re doing new construction. And, you know, we talk often. I recommend her. If she hasn’t been on your podcast, she probably has.

Eve: [00:25:54] I love that. I would love that. No.

Kimberly: [00:25:56] I think that what we’re doing is so similar. But her scale is actually larger than mine because it is new construction that they’re doing. But the goal around creating and or preserving workforce housing is is exactly the same and also the ambition around. We have a dual mission. It’s preserving rents and service of promoting economic mobility, and we haven’t even scratched the surface on what that looks like. So we are a mission driven, not for profit. We focus on, you know, how can we promote economic mobility for our residents? And we have a full strategy that we developed last year that we are implementing with all the properties that we acquire. And it’s really exciting. I think that that piece is part of the solution to the question that you raised. Because it’s it’s not just about rents, but it’s also how do you ensure that people have enough income? How do you raise people’s incomes? That’s really the equalizer. And, you know, you know, minimum wage, I mean, it’s going up to 15 hours and I mean, $15 an hour. It was stagnant for I don’t know how many years in the U.S.

Eve: [00:27:19] Yeah.

Kimberly: [00:27:19] So you know, there’s definitely like an income stagnation issue in the U.S. and how do you promote economic mobility, whether that’s, you know, for our residents thinking about what are the resources that our residents need to help them build wealth? Is it, you know, financial literacy? Is it thinking about how do you mitigate the second highest expense, which is daycare in the DMV? Is it thinking about how do we promote entrepreneurship if that’s something that you’re interested in? Is it thinking about workforce development? So, we really have a focus on human capacity and wealth building, and we’re partnering with best-in-class service providers for that. We were very clear about what we do and what we don’t do, but we are very collaborative. We will make the partnerships that we need to, to advance our mission.

Eve: [00:28:20] So you’ve had a really big background, including pretty significant honors like the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard and White House Fellow. And I wonder how you ended up here. You’re clearly very passionate about this. What led you, kind of down this path to equitable housing for everyone?

Kimberly: [00:28:42] You know, it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. You know, I’ve had an amazing career and, you know, I’ve been in urban planning and development my entire career. I started out working at Enterprise. Enterprise Community Partners now, but it was Enterprise Foundation in the mid 90s. And so, this is a bit of a full circle moment for me. I’ve always been someone who was interested in cities. I grew up in the suburbs, so it was very much, you know, I was attracted to cities. But I grew up in the 80s and I saw, you know, cities weren’t the hot places to be that they are now. And there’s a lot of homelessness. There’s a lot of violence, gang violence. There was a lot of drugs. I saw a lot of that when I would go into to New York. When I go into to Philadelphia, when I go down to D.C. And I always wondered why, and I saw it disproportionately impact people of color, African Americans in particular. And I was living a very different life. You know, my parents were first generation. They moved from the city to the suburbs to give my sisters and I a better life. You know, this is really, you know, zip code matters. Where you grow up is a strong determinant of your life outcomes. This is Raj Chetty. But even before he came along, this was the case and my parents understood this and they moved us out. You know, my mom grew up in the toughest part of Baltimore. My dad grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, in the poorest area. And so, you know, they were, you know, they defied expectations and, you know, they instilled in us, you know, the will to give back. Like, you know, do whatever you are passionate about. But make sure that whether it’s in your career or in your personal life, around service, around this world is bigger than you. And too much is given, much is required. And that ethos has driven me and my entire life. My love of cities. I love everything about cities. I love the density. I love the diversity. I love the messiness actually of cities. Cities are complicated and it’s something as an adult, I’ve always chosen to live in a city. I went to graduate school in Chicago, and I’ve made my career in Washington, and I worked in Detroit for three years. So, I like big, messy challenges and problems. But I also look at the entire ecosystem. So, I would say that I’m an urbanist and I’m a city builder. Right now, I’m focused on the challenge of housing and creating equitable housing. But, you know, throughout my career, I’ve gone deep. I’ve thought about how arts and culture, you know, it can be a catalyst for neighborhood change that informs my view on placemaking and making sure residents feel a deep sense of belonging. So, you know, the route, you know, it’s not a dotted line per say, but there is a through line in my career and this it all comes together in this job. And there’s a sense of urgency. I mean, I love working on issues that are of the moment, and there’s nothing more urgent right now in the DMV than really trying to figure this out. And I like innovation. You know, I worked for government for 15 years. I loved local government. I served with honor and duty with local government. But they’re not out of the box.

Eve: [00:32:34] No, no.

Kimberly: [00:32:35] We did some. We did some innovative things. You know, I tried my best. But that’s also what draws me to this job and this role is that we’re not quite sure that it works. We are proving out the model and I think that we are going to be successful. But there is a level of risk and I think that innovation requires risk taking. You really do have to push the envelope. You have to be uncomfortable. You have to move out of your comfort zone. And these are things that I live my life by. I certainly, my career has been defined by taking some level of risk because I think that that’s when you really learn, and I think that you have to fail. I think, you know, innovation part of innovation is failing, but you want to make sure that you course correct, that you’re constantly willing to look at what you’re doing to evaluate, is this working and be able to innovate and move as you go?

Eve: [00:33:47] I love every word you said. So, you have a start-up, it’s pretty, that’s pretty fabulous. That’s a pretty great way to live your life.

Kimberly: [00:33:59] You know, for me, you know, it is, you know, I, you know, I get really excited, I love being the first person to do something. Even when I was in government. Many of the jobs that I had I was the first person to have it. I like startup culture. I like building something from the ground up. You know, it’s deeply rewarding. And I also think I have the personality to think about the next steps. What’s needed, the unknown. You know, this is not work that if you need to know what you’re doing every day, and you need a roadmap, this is not for you. You know, I’m interviewing now to bring on staff and you know, I’m looking for personality traits as well as skills. But this entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinker, you know, that’s where I live, and I try to surround myself around people who have that as well, because you need that in startup culture.

Eve: [00:35:06] Yes, you do. Well, thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this, and I hope I get to talk more to you some other time because there’s a lot of energy there, and that’s pretty wonderful.

Kimberly: [00:35:18] Well, thank you, Eve. I really appreciate you inviting me on to your podcast, and I would love to come back because I feel like I didn’t do justice talking about the social impact work that we’re doing. And I think that your viewers, as well as you would be really interested to kind of get into the details of that work. And I would love to share it with you. You know, at an appropriate time.

Eve: [00:35:43] Awesome. Thank you. That was Kimberly Driggins. Kimberly is a woman of great passion and generosity. She’s had a remarkable career in urban planning and public policy, working on and in the cities she loves. And now she’s turning her passion and energy to the challenging crisis that is touching so many people. Housing. While Kimberly has only just begun to craft a fresh approach to this overwhelming problem, it’s clear that she plans to be spectacularly successful and we’re sure she will be.

Eve: [00:36:44] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website, Rethinkrealestateforgood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Kimberly Driggins and Washington Housing Conservancy

Jamison loves real estate crowdfunding.

October 20, 2021

Jamison Manwaring is the co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Ventures, a remarkable Arizona-based real estate crowdfunding company, focused on value-add multi-family properties.

It’s a real estate company, for sure – they buy, hold and sell property. But the capital plan is innovative, with a growing pool of state residents who are permitted to invest through Arizona intrastate securities law. Nine successful projects later, Jamison is now taking his plan to the national stage with their latest project, a short-stay hotel he wants to repurpose into affordable housing. And he’s raising funds on my crowdfunding platform, SmallChange.co.

Jamison attended business school at the University of Utah where he graduated with a BS in Finance. He was always interested in finance. He loved it enough to become president of the finance club. Even at a young age Jamison’s determination shone through. He wanted to work in New York, at a top finance firm. But those companies have their pick of Ivy league school graduates, which he was not. So every Thursday night he flew the red eye to New York to network. You’ll have to listen in to hear the rest of the story.

Insights and Inspirations

  • Jamison’s determination and stick-to-itness has taken him to Wall Street, and on to con-founding his own successful real estate company.
  • His mission? To let everyone invest in real estate opportunities.
  • Value add real estate projects, with less construction time than ground up, generally mean distributions to investors can start more quickly.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:05] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Re-Think Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts on our website at rethinkrealestateforgood.co or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to.

Eve: [00:00:56] Today, I’m talking with Jamison Manwaring. Jamison is enjoying success as the Co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Ventures, an Arizona based real estate crowdfunding company focused on value-add multi-family properties. Always interested in finance, Jamison went to business school and studied finance. He loved it enough to become President of the Finance Club. Even at a young age, Jamison’s determination shone through. He wanted to work in New York at a top finance firm, but those companies have their pick of Ivy League school graduates, which he was not. So, every Thursday night, he flew the Red Eye to New York to network. But wait, if I tell you what happened next, I’d be a spoiler, so you’ll have to listen in to hear the rest of the story. If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co., where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:14] Hi, Jamison, thanks so much for joining me today.

Jamison Manwaring: [00:02:17] Hey, thanks for having me, I’m happy to be on your podcast straight out of Pittsburgh. I’m here in Phoenix, still in the nineties here and…

Eve: [00:02:27] Oh wow.

Jamison: [00:02:29] Happy we have the technology we can be talking and doing this remotely.

Eve: [00:02:32] Well, I’m in the snow belt, at the moment. It’s in the low 60s here, so that’s a pretty big differential. So, your background is solidly in finance, all the way back to college when you majored in finance. And I want to know what led you to, you know, your early career was with Goldman Sachs and places like that. And I want to know what led you to launch Neighborhood Ventures and your focus on real estate.

Jamison: [00:03:02] Yeah, yeah. Great. Well, you know, I was always an entrepreneur type of person as a kid and did, I had several businesses. My most successful one was either dog walking or picking up, hauling off people’s Christmas trees into the field where the city wanted them to go for for a couple of bucks. That was a big business. And I ended up doing a bunch of telemarketing when I was in high school because you don’t have to have any experience there if you can produce results quickly. So, I started doing telemarketing and by my senior year I had 10 of my friends from school working for me and we were calling doing lead generation for mortgage company, insurance company and and I was just always pulled into business in general and in specifically real estate. My brother was in the mortgage business. My dad’s a real estate broker and has been for a long time. I always loved real estate, especially seeing a project go from what it was right now, but having a vision around what it could be and then seeing that vision come to fruition is really gratifying. And I started a real estate business right out of when I was in my early 20s before I went to college, and it was a for sale by owner business service. People want to sell their homes on their own. And we would help them with that and then charge them a flat fee. And that worked OK for a little while. But I also realized I was I had a lot of limitations when it came to my understanding of business, and even though I thought I knew everything, I clearly didn’t. And when the financial crisis happened and I was living in Phoenix at the time, you know, it really slowed things way down here. And when with real estate and with building and with the real estate market in general. And I hadn’t gone to college university and at that point decided, boy, right now is probably a good time to go to school because there’s not a lot happening economically. So I started in 2008 and I did a year at Arizona State, and then I transferred and finished at University of Utah in Salt Lake City. And when I was there, I realized finance is kind of what what helps you understand what is going on with the business. If you understand the financials, you understand the lifeblood, you’re kind of like the doctor of a company. You can really look at it, see where the problems are, see where the the great things are. See where areas that need focus. And if you can really understand how to give how to analyze a business or a real estate project financially, then then you have a really key skill set. And so that’s why I decided to study finance.

Eve: [00:06:19] Yeah. So you’ve had a kind of a you always had a background in real estate, but still it’s a pretty big leap to go from that to launching a crowdfunding platform. And tell me about that and what made you take that leap?

Jamison: [00:06:34] When I was studying at the University of Utah, I had a lot of friends who had done, a few friends who had done some internships with some investment banks. And as I talked to them, I realized and came to conclude that that would be a great option for me to try to get the experience of working in an investment bank. Most of them are were either going to be in San Francisco for us because we’re more. I was in Utah and then some people even made it all the way to New York. That was a little bit further than than most of us get to and um, I decided to go for that, not just to work on Wall Street, for the the brand or, you know, the status. I was more wanting to really go because I heard how how much they learned about companies, public companies and the markets. And so my junior year of school at University of Utah, I started going out to New York on a redeye flight, JetBlue flight on a Thursday night. I would leave at 11:30 p.m. and I’d arrive in New York at about 5:30 a.m. And then I would go out to the investment banks and try to network with with folks. And because the investment banks, they recruited their core schools, which tend to be the Ivy League schools, they are not recruiting at University of Utah, so we have to go to them. And I did that.

Eve: [00:08:06] That’s pretty intense.

Jamison: [00:08:10] Yeah, it’s, you know, I’d get on that flight and get there at six a.m., grab a little breakfast and then just try to have the most productive Friday that I could. And that usually meant meeting two or three folks face to face. And I would just, I got some some email addresses from some professors who have friends working on Wall Street, former students. Uh, from University of Utah, who maybe later went on and got an MBA at Wharton or Chicago or one of the the schools where a lot of them end up on Wall Street. And I ended up meeting probably half a dozen people, maybe 15 people who would have a 15 20 minute meeting with me. And I just said, Hey, I just want to learn about your business. I’d ask them a few questions about what they do. And it gave an opportunity for for them to get to know me and ask me questions, too. And I was hoping that something would happen, but I didn’t know exactly what would happen, and I made probably half a dozen or eight trips there. I’d stay in a hostel with eight other people snoring. You know that Friday night it was it was miserable. But I was in New York and it was fun. I had never I had never experienced New York, so I would stay there until usually Sunday night and fly back Sunday night and really grew a love for, for all things, New York. And luckily, one of the people who I met he was at Barclays, which bought Lehman Brothers after the financial crash. Barclays is a UK based bank. They came in kind of bailed out Lehman and they were one of the biggest investment banks in the world, and he was there and he helped me get an internship. And he actually he helped me get an interview, and they flew me out from Utah for the interview, for a super day and ended up getting an internship, full time summer internship, the junior year to my senior year. And that’s really what kind of got me into finance in Wall Street.

Eve: [00:10:22] It also certainly shows your determination, which you really need for a startup business.

Jamison: [00:10:28] Yes. Yeah, there’s there’s no giving up. It’s just it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve just got to keep going. As you know.

Eve: [00:10:37] I know that feeling really well. Not giving up.

Jamison: [00:10:42] Yeah. One of the things I found is a lot of times right when you’re at your worst and you’re about ready to give up that a lot of times means you’re almost there. So it’s kind of like…

Eve: [00:10:55] Oh, that’s awful.

Jamison: [00:10:56] I feel that so many times. And I was paying for this out of pocket. And luckily, JetBlue had a special, I think it was $129 round trip on that flight. And so I spent about $1,000 in the travel and stayed as cheap as I could. But, you know, had a great experience. And I ended up at Goldman Sachs after college.

Eve: [00:11:19] That’s a testament to your stick-to-itness.

Jamison: [00:11:23] You know, some folks, they might go to Ivy League and go right into a company like that, and those companies are out recruiting them, trying to get them to work there. For me, it was a little different. I had to come in the side door, not the front door, but I was in the door. And then once you’re in there, you know, you’re all equal. It’s it’s a meritocracy. It’s about what can you do? What ideas do you have? And I love that. I love the, you know, it’s kind of a low drama atmosphere. It’s just about what do you do and what can you produce. At that point, once you get the job, it’s not who you know. And I love the fact that I could be from Idaho, you know, going to school in Utah and I’m here on a level playing field and it really motivated me and I was I felt like I was with some of the smartest people I’d ever been around, for sure.

Eve: [00:12:15] That’s a great story.

Jamison: [00:12:18] Yeah, thank you. One of the companies that went public that I worked on their IPO was LifeLock in 2012, and they were based in Arizona. And I had some family in Arizona and I had lived in Arizona for a little while. And when they went public, I was always a little drawn to them because they were one of the few companies in Arizona that’s kind of like a tech company. And long story short, in 2015, they offered me a job to run their investor relations. I had been working with their investors as a Goldman Sachs equity analyst for several years, three years.

Eve: [00:12:58] Oh, okay.

Jamison: [00:12:58] And then they brought me basically from Goldman Sachs into their own into internally. And a year and a half after joining, LifeLock got bought out for three times our share price. From the time I joined. When I joined, it was about eight dollars a share and we ended up getting bought out for twenty-four dollars a share. So that was a good outcome for everybody. And at that point, I had an opportunity to do something new and different, and that kind of leads us to where we are here now with with Neighborhood Ventures and the current company. I had bought a few buildings when I was in New York, including a 10-unit building, renovated it. The buildings weren’t in New York. They were in Idaho where I was from. And I really was drawn back to real estate. Kind of came full circle back to some of my roots and where my family had spent so much time. And so I went from wanting to go to Wall Street, getting to Wall Street, seeing everything that was there and saying, you know, I kind of want to go back to the. tangible assets in real estate.

Eve: [00:14:10] But with a pocket full of different experience, right, that you could apply.

Jamison: [00:14:14] Yes, and realizing that, you know, a lot of people don’t have the opportunity to put money in real estate. They invest it in the market because you can do it from home and you don’t have to manage anything, you don’t have to be a landlord. And a lot of people think, Well, if I’m going to invest in real estate, that means I’m going to have to become a landlord and I’m going to have to get that phone call on a Saturday afternoon that the toilet’s broke. And I don’t want anything to do with that. And that’s kind of when this idea came together, about how can we make real estate more attainable as an asset class for people to own, because I saw an opportunity where it’s very easy to invest in the market, but the market has a lot of downsides. It’s a roller coaster. There’s a lot of risk there. And as I was drawn to real estate, I think a lot of people, other people are too. If we could find ways for them to invest in real estate without them having to become a landlord.

Eve: [00:15:18] Yeah, it’s definitely a more stable investment if you invest in it correctly.

Jamison: [00:15:23] Yes. And there’s REITs and there’s some of these big instruments you can invest with in real estate, but they’re also very Wall Street in many ways because they don’t really, they don’t disclose much about what they’re doing.

Eve: [00:15:37] Yes, that’s right and you don’t have a choice. You don’t have a choice about what you invest in. You’re investing in a big bucket, almost a blind pool of funds that could be invested into something you really hate, quite frankly. So…

Jamison: [00:15:52] Yeah.

Eve: [00:15:52] Yeah.

Jamison: [00:15:52] It’s more of a financial decision where they’re just saying, I want to invest in real estate, let me invest in a REIT. But there’s not that, you know, the thing that’s fun with real estate, just like piggybacking on what you’re saying is, you know where it is, and you see the, you can drive by it and you can touch it and you can… There’s a pride of ownership there that you don’t get when you just own a bond, you know, or something that…

Eve: [00:16:16] Right, especially if it’s in your own city, right? If it’s somewhere where you care about, yeah.

Jamison: [00:16:21] You can drive by it. We have investors now that drive by the assets that they own every month, and they just drive by it. And I think they do it just because it feels good. And you can’t do that with a financial instrument that’s traded on Wall Street. So…

Eve: [00:16:36] Do they send you comments about what you have to fix?

Jamison: [00:16:39] Yeah. And you know what? We think it’s an advantage because we have a couple of hundred owners keeping their eye on it.

Eve: [00:16:48] That’s right.

Jamison: [00:16:51] Our property managers do a great job, so we don’t get that feedback very often. But we’ve gotten it before. And when we say thank you, we’ll get it fixed and happy to have more sets of eyes on things.

Eve: [00:17:01] So just tell me about Neighborhood Ventures. Like, how does it work and why did you develop that? Like after this wanting to get into real estate, looking for something new? Why Neighborhood Ventures and how does it work?

Jamison: [00:17:15] Yeah. So, after I came out of the sale of LifeLock, I wanted to figure out a way to get more people to be able to invest in real estate projects. And I actually wanted to just create a platform similar to what you’ve done at Small Change. And as I dug into it, I realized that is going to be a ton of work. And thankfully. for people like me, there’s people like you that you went out and did that work. And around that same time, I met my now Co-founder John Kobierowski, and he basically convinced me instead of creating a platform, why don’t we just create a company, and I can lead all of the financial aspects of that fundraising. And he would be the real estate expert. He’s been in commercial real estate in Phoenix for 30 years. He’s been an apartment broker, very, very great reputation, and knows this market extremely well. And so, we decided to launch Neighborhood Ventures as a crowdfunding company. So, we raised funds via the Arizona intrastate laws on our first nine projects. $1,000 minimum investment. And I don’t know if I can say that or not. Maybe you can edit that out, but we raised money.

Eve: [00:18:42] No, you can say that. You can say whatever you like about Arizona intrastate.

Jamison: [00:18:46] Yes, we raised funds through the Arizona intrastate crowdfunding laws, $1,000 minimum investment. And in each of our first several projects, we had 100 or 150 investors. The first project we did…

Eve: [00:19:02] Hey, let me just stop for a second for the benefit of our listeners. So, there’s this rule called regulation crowdfunding that lets everyone 18 and over invest, but it took the SEC four and a half years to write it. So, in that four-and-a-half-year period, many states just didn’t want to wait any longer, and Arizona was one of those, and they created their own crowdfunding rules, which are called intrastate, which really only permit Arizona residents to invest. And they sort of bypassed the Federal SEC. It’s kind of like marijuana laws in individual states. Yeah, everyone, sort of, just looked away and said, okay, this has to happen because it’s happening so slowly at the Federal level. Is that a good explanation of it?

Jamison: [00:19:52] Yeah that’s, you hit the nail right on the head. Because it took so long for the SEC to implement The Jobs Act that was passed in 2012. A lot of the states like Arizona, I think we passed our intrastate law in 2015 and it’s nice in some ways, because we our regulator is the corporation commission in Arizona. And then there’s also very various and obvious limitations that we can only raise money in Arizona. So, for us, it gave us a good opportunity to start our business, but we knew at some point that we would need to grow nationally with our investors. But for our first nine projects, they were all in Arizona and all Arizona investors.

Eve: [00:20:41] So what sort of real estate projects do you focus on?

Jamison: [00:20:45] So John’s experience had been in multi-family and specifically in value-add multi-family, in walkable core areas. So, in Phoenix, what has happened in the last 15, 20 years is there had been a mass exodus of the downtown area in the eighties and nineties and moved to the suburbs, and the downtown area was kind of like the place nobody wanted to go. And then in the late nineties, the Arizona Diamondbacks built their stadium right downtown and there was became this energy around downtown. And then millennials and pre-millennial, but the younger folks decided downtown is kind of cool, and I don’t want to live way out in the suburbs where it’s a 45-minute drive in traffic anywhere. And in the 2000s and in the 2010s, we started seeing this urban migration back to these core areas, and we’re still seeing that. And what we do is we find buildings in those core areas that haven’t been renovated for a long time. A lot of them have been owned by the same owners for decades, and they’re just basically cash flowing them, and we’ll go in and fix these, kind of, cool, unique buildings. A lot of them kind of mid-century architecture that has been covered up over the years and not brought out, and we’ll go make them cool again. And people really love to move into a newly renovated building that’s in these core areas. So that’s really been our focus.

Eve: [00:22:22] And what are the limitations for you, like how are you feeling? Well, you know, financing altogether or just the Arizona rules like…

Jamison: [00:22:31] Well, our first project was a small building in Tempe, which is where Arizona State is. So, it’s a great area because there’s a lot of activity there, not only the college, but just in general. And we thought we might raise that. We’re only looking to raise half a million dollars. And we thought we might raise that in the first couple of weeks, and we launched the project on our website. We had done a little bit of PR and marketing before that. And I think the first day we got five or six investors who invested a few thousand dollars, and it became really clear about two or three weeks into it that I think we had hit maybe 100,000, but we had a long ways to go.

Eve: [00:23:15] Yes, it takes a while. Yeah, yeah.

Jamison: [00:23:18] It was our first project. So even though I had a finance background, John had a commercial real estate background, it was our first project and one of the things we committed to do, he and I, was that we wouldn’t call our friends that have deep pockets and have them invest. We want to really build a real business here with organic new investor base. Not just, kind of, call the rich folks and have them write quarter-million-dollar checks. And there’s a lot of people out there that can do that and do do that in real estate. But we wanted to open it up to a broader group of people with a 1,000-dollar minimum investment, and that’s going to take time to build. We knew that, but we didn’t anticipate how long it would take. Long story short, we ended up barely being able to close on time, it took six months to close. We had a friendly seller who gave us a six-month escrow and we literally got our, the 500,000 we needed two or three days before we needed to close. We barely made it.

Eve: [00:24:25] Wow.

Jamison: [00:24:26] We ended up having 103 investors, all Arizona residents, none of whom were our friends, that were juicing the deal. All real folks. It was painful because it was like, what are we doing? Is this really a business? But we wanted to see if there was a business here, if it was…

Eve: [00:24:47] I’m sure it was very gratifying as well.

Jamison: [00:24:49] Yeah, absolutely.

Eve: [00:24:50] A hundred people who want to invest in your project, that’s significant. You know, for first project, it really is.

Jamison: [00:24:57] Yeah. And it took a lot of work and people don’t realize that, you know, raising funds from people for investments is one of the hardest things to do because whether it’s 1,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars, that means a lot to that person. And they’re not getting any product today. They’re not driving out with a new car today. It’s just a promise that we’re going to not only pay that back, but with a nice return and good communication along the way. So, it’s hard. It’s hard and it takes time.

Eve: [00:25:27] It’s very hard. Yeah, I do agree with you.

Jamison: [00:25:29] Yeah.

Eve: [00:25:29] Facebook followers do not become investors.

Jamison: [00:25:32] Right.

Eve: [00:25:34] So I have to ask how many of those investors, original 103, have invested again?

Jamison: [00:25:40] Well, that’s really what’s built our business is those folks. We did another project two or three months later, might have been six months later that about 80 percent of those invested again.

Eve: [00:25:55] And they probably told their friends too, right?

Jamison: [00:25:59] They’ve told their friends to the point now, so we’ve just hit four years, we’ve only been working in Arizona, and we have over 500 investors in Arizona, and we have 1,500 investments, in that period of time. So, those 500 investors on average have invested in three of our projects.

Eve: [00:26:18] Pretty fabulous.

Jamison: [00:26:19] And our average investment is 5,000 dollars. So, some people invest 1,000, some people invest more than that. But it’s hard work. It’s real, it’s education because people before they’re going to place an investment, rightfully so want to feel very comfortable with our team with our strategy. And this isn’t a get rich quick for anybody. It’s slow progress. And then we sold. Now we’ve sold three of our projects, including that first project. And so, it’s gone full cycle. So, our investors have received all their principal back and all their returns. And now we’ve done that on three projects total. And that’s where things really start to click in for people and they start to see that what we’re doing works.

Eve: [00:27:08] That’s a fabulous story. So, what is your latest project?

Jamison: [00:27:15] So one of the things that’s happening in Arizona is that there had always been a lot of migration to Arizona from other states. Mid-West, California, even northeast. On average, Maricopa County, which is basically the Greater Phoenix area. It’s about four or four and a half million, folks. About 100,000 people, 100 to 125,000 people move here every year, so it’s like 10,000 people a month are relocating.

Eve: [00:27:46] That’s a lot of people. Yeah.

Jamison: [00:27:49] And when COVID happened, that accelerated because you had folks in California who were tied to working in and living in the Bay Area, for example, and now they could go, move somewhere else and start working remotely. And maybe that would be a short term. And then it’s kind of turned into more of a hybrid model. And we’re seeing a lot of these companies saying Hey, you want to keep working remotely? Go ahead. Live in Colorado, live in Utah, live in Arizona.” I’m talking about the western states because a lot of that’s from California, but we saw an acceleration in that migration. And so we’ve had a shortage of housing. And in Mesa, which is one of the fastest growing large cities in the country. I think 800,000 people live there close to a million people in Mesa alone, which is a suburb of Phoenix. There’s very little housing available, and we found a deal of a hotel owner who owned 120 unit extended stay hotel. And that meant that all of the units had full kitchens. And we went and looked at the building as a potential conversion to an apartment to meet the growing demand of folks moving here. And it had actually looked and felt like an apartment building already. We did our due diligence. We have a great attorney who’s helping us and helped us with our due diligence, and we purchased the building with the intent to convert it to an apartment where we actually have already started that process with the city and have got a lot of great initial feedback. And so, our current project is this 120-unit hotel to apartment conversion. And the great thing is, it’s not a big, heavy lift when it comes to renovations, and we’ve done some projects that are extensive renovations. It’s really cosmetic. So, we’re going in and updating the carpet and the paint and the fixtures and the appliances. And we don’t have to do plumbing and moving things around to accommodate and turn it into apartment because it was already an extended stay project. There’s 20 studios, 12 two bed two bath and the balance, I think that’s 88 one bedroom one bath, which is a really great mix when it comes to apartments.

Eve: [00:30:28] Yeah, that looks like your biggest project. What’s the total cost, development, purchase price and everything? How big a project is it?

Jamison: [00:30:36] Yeah. So, it’s just over 13 million to purchase, and our renovations are going to end up being about 6,500 per unit.

Eve: [00:30:49] Okay.

Jamison: [00:30:50] Or a total of 800,000 in renovations.

Eve: [00:30:56] Ok. Ok. So then I have to ask, how are you financing this?

Jamison: [00:31:00] Well, yeah, we have some great lender relationships we’ve built over the years. And so, we had a great lender who loved the project. They’re helping us with the purchase, and we’ve already closed on the project about over a month ago. And then they’re also helping finance some of the renovation expenses. And then we’re raising money for the equity, as we have historically in Arizona from Arizona residents. And then this is our first project that we’ve opened up nationally, through the Small Change platform, and we have 25 investors or more now from that platform. And so, we’re between raising money here in Arizona and on the Small Change platform. We’ve already had enough to close on the building a month ago and now just filling out the rest of our financing needs over the next several months as we continue to fundraise on this.

Eve: [00:32:01] So, you know, you and I talked about this national push. We must have been talking about it for years. I think before you sort of…

Jamison: [00:32:09] We have, you know, I’ve been following you for a long time. Actually, you didn’t even know, but I was watching what you were doing because you’re one of the early folks in the crowdfunding.

Eve: [00:32:19] Feeling just as much pain as you were, right?

Jamison: [00:32:23] You are definitely feeling more because you’ve been in the mix of it all. And we’re, you know, from our standpoint, so appreciative that you spent a lot of time there where it wasn’t, it was a thankless job, because you had to deal with the three-and-a-half-year wait before the thing was launched and then once it was launched following all the rules correctly, you know, doing anything new as a pioneer is going to be difficult.

Eve: [00:32:50] Yeah. And actually, you know, the interesting thing about Reg CF and is that, you know, we’re regulated by the SEC and members of FINRA. So, you know, they’ve grown up with this as well. So, I don’t want to say their interpretation, but they over the years they focused on different things in the rules. And we have to change things as their opinions have changed. And so, it’s a kind of ever moving target. It is pretty tough. But so what you, like we, were talking about this for years. So this is the goal to go national and to find some alternative investment tools to be able to let people invest in your projects all over the country.

Jamison: [00:33:38] Yeah, that’s right, and I think one of the things that prompted our discussion just to go back to your point was when they did raise the limit to five million.

Eve: [00:33:50] Yes.

Jamison: [00:33:51] It was a million for so long. And so they have improved some of those rules. And I hope that continues to open things up. And the timing worked out well for us because we were now, got to a project where it was our biggest project and we wanted to go outside of Arizona and let folks who wanted to invest in Arizona. All of our projects have been in Arizona so far. We don’t think that will always be the case, but we know the market very, very well. Our projects have done well here. And so, your platform gave us a great opportunity to start building our investor base nationally and with the same idea in mind. You know, these are these are folks who are trying to put a few thousand dollars away. And we will and they’re more comfortable investing in something that is tangible that they can see and that they can understand rather than investing in crypto or something on Wall Street. That’s so far out there.

Eve: [00:34:56] I think the advantage with the value-add is interesting, too, because value-add properties, they might even be cash flowing all along, whereas a brand new ground up project, you have to wait a while for the return. So, what I find interesting about what we do is, you know, some people can’t wait for a return because they’re on a fixed income. So, they’re looking for projects that will sort of provide more continuous cash flow and other people can wait and are more excited by an idea. And it’s just, it’s fascinating to me because you say the word investor, but investor can mean very, very many different things to different people.

Jamison: [00:35:33] That’s a great point. And if you do a ground up project, you could be a few years out before you get any cash flow coming in the door.

Eve: [00:35:40] But the returns might be better. Maybe not. It’s a risk.

Jamison: [00:35:44] Yeah, yeah, but that’s not what we do. So we take an asset that’s already generating cash flow, but that is underperforming. And that’s what we had here with this hotel.

Eve: [00:35:56] Right.

Jamison: [00:35:57] And we did liquidate the building, had everybody move out because we’re doing a renovation. But the renovations are ahead of schedule, and we have, we’ll end up being closed for about two months and then it’s we start generating cash flow again.

Eve: [00:36:12] That’s fantastic.

Jamison: [00:36:13] We’ll start sending distributions in December.

Eve: [00:36:17] Yeah.

Jamison: [00:36:18] From cash flow. So, it’s a…

Eve: [00:36:20] It’s a great model. And then the other thing, you know, while you’re opening up the market to people you don’t know, I know that some of your investors on Small Change have been following you for a while in Arizona and have been frustrated that they haven’t been able to invest in your projects.

Jamison: [00:36:35] Right.

Eve: [00:36:36] And we’re pretty early in the Small Change offering, which is nice that you sort of already started developing your crowd outside those arbitrary borders.

Jamison: [00:36:48] Yeah, that came from word of mouth because, you know, we have a lot of snowbirds in Arizona, people who live elsewhere and then they come here in the winter to golf and enjoy Arizona winters, which are amazing, but they live elsewhere and then they talk to their friends there. And so, we had a lot of folks, kind of a backlog of folks, who wanted to invest and weren’t able to because we were only open to Arizona. So yeah, that’s the great thing about Arizona, and I’ve lived in multiple places, but it’s kind of a bit of a melting pot, and it’s only because we have a lot of part-time residents. We have a lot of people who have just moved here in the last year, and it’s become a really, kind of, eclectic place with a nice southwest and Mexican influence. You know, we’re two hours from the border. I have a property in Mexico that’s an Airbnb property on the beach. That’s a three-hour drive from Phoenix, so I can go to get to the beach in three hours. And then the other thing is, in Phoenix, you’re two hours from Flagstaff to the north, where there’s snow and skiing, so you can live in Phoenix and you can be, you know, three hours from the beach in Mexico, and you can be two hours from the snow in Flagstaff.

Eve: [00:38:02] You know what? That sounds like Australia where I grew up. Sydney. On the beach, you know, two hours to the mountains.

Jamison: [00:38:12] Yes and, no knock against New York, I love New York, but when I was living there, the coolest thing you could do is get out to the Hamptons, which I couldn’t afford, right? So, you know, when you get used to living in the West and you grow up out here and you’re by West Yellowstone, you’re by the Grand Canyon and the trails, it’s tough to not have that in your life. And so, I’m happy to be back out West.

Eve: [00:38:41] So, tell me, you’ve got that building purchase, do you have another one targeted?

Jamison: [00:38:46] We’re basically slated through the end of the year to finish out our existing projects, including mostly this hotel conversion, which should be done by the end of the year. So, we’re always looking for our next project, but we’re not actively making offers on anything just yet. It’ll be a few months before we’re doing that.

Eve: [00:39:07] So one last question and that is, what’s your big, hairy, audacious goal?

Jamison: [00:39:14] That’s a good question, I don’t share that with everybody, but I will share it here, is we want to double our size every year for the next five years. So, we want to double the number of investors that we have. We want to double the number of projects, assets, the funds that we’re raising for projects for the next five years. And that means, you know, that’s kind of easy the first year and maybe the second year, but the third year, now you continue to double that as the numbers get larger, you have to double it. So that’s our goal. The next five years is doubling the business, but ultimately, it’s to bring more people who have never been able to invest in these types of assets into the game. In our early days when we were struggling, we had an open house at one of our projects, right when we had got it renovated and I was kind of like, oh man, I don’t know if this is the business for me. I’d given up a lot of other opportunities to start this, and we went to the open house and there was a man there in a U.S. Postal uniform and I thought is, I went over and talked to him, I wondered, is he an investor? And he immediately said, I’m so appreciative to what you guys are doing, because I never thought I would be able to invest in something like this.

Eve: [00:40:39] Isn’t that fantastic?

Jamison: [00:40:41] I’ve been delivering mail in this neighborhood for 20 years. I saw your flyer and I thought I could actually invest in this. $1000 minimum. And he showed up to the open house before work. You know, they have to work on Saturdays, so it was a Saturday morning. And he just said, I’m so happy to be here and to be able to invest in this, and that gave me, personally, the juice that I needed that day to get through it. This is why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Eve: [00:41:15] Well, I’m really impressed, Jamison, and I hope you’re wildly successful and I can’t wait to see what you do next.

Jamison: [00:41:23] Same to you and thank you for all your support and everything that you’re doing, and we’re all in this together. So, hoping more folks get the opportunity to get involved in these great projects.

Eve: [00:41:42] That was Jamison Manwaring, CEO of Neighborhood Ventures. Jamison’s putting his determination to work, building his innovative company in Arizona. It’s a real estate company, for sure. They buy, hold and sell property. But the capital plan is innovative, with a growing pool of Arizona residents permitted to invest through Arizona intrastate securities law. He’s seen early success, and now he’s taking his plan to the national stage raising funds on my crowdfunding platform, SmallChange.co. We can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Eve: [00:42:35] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at rethinkrealestateforgood.co. You’ll find lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Jamison Manwaring, Neighborhood Ventures

Spacehive.

October 13, 2021

Chris Gourlay is founder of Spacehive, the world’s first crowdfunding platform for projects that improve the civic environment. Spacehive aids local fundraising efforts by matching them with funding sources from civic councils, companies and foundations. Over 45 of them.

What makes Spacehive so unique is that it can positively impact a community far larger than just those who donate on the platform. It has been used by community groups, charities, schools and local businesses, mayors, corporations and foundations – all to collaboratively improve local places, both big and small, momentary and lasting. It has the highest campaign success rate of any crowdfunding platform in the UK. And since the pandemic, the platform has seen a 300% increase in people helping to fund improvements to their local area.

Chris cut his teeth as a journalist at The Sunday Times where he led on coverage of Boris Johnson’s mayoralty and the architecture and planning brief. He also ran international investigations for the award-winning Insight unit. Chris has been interviewed by many TV and radio programmes, newspapers and magazines – Sky News, BBC’s Today programme, WIRED, The New Scientist, The Guardian and more – about the power of technology to transform communities.

Insights and Inspirations

  • 10 years into building his unique civic platform, Chris is not nearly finished.
  • Technology can make everyone a civic change-maker.
  • With communities in the drivers seat, locals can shape their own civic environment, making everyone happy, proud and prosperous.
  • What’s in the name SpaceHive? Take civic and community SPACE, add a good dose of collective effort (like a bee HIVE) enhance it with technology and you have the ability for people to shape their own environments.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:06] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Re-Think Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lot’s worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:00:41] Today, I’m talking with Chris Gourlay, the founder of Spacehive. Chris launched Spacehive, a civic crowdfunding platform, almost a decade ago. It came to him through his work as a journalist where he focused on architecture and planning. He was frustrated by the lack of investment and creativity in public spaces, and so he took a very bold step and launched Spacehive, a crowdfunding platform giving communities the power to shape their own civic environment. And he has succeeded. Spacehive is a testament to Chris’s passion and his vision. The platform claims to have the highest campaign success rate of any crowdfunding platform in the U.K. Hundreds of place-based projects have been created throughout the country, including urban parks, community centers and public gathering spaces. Restorations of historic buildings, collective artist and entrepreneurial hubs. Parking space makeovers. Public WiFi and more. I love what Chris has created, and so will you. If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast or go to Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate to learn about special opportunities for my friends and followers and subscribe if you can. Hello, Chris, I’m such a fan of yours and so happy to get a chance to talk to you today.

Chris Gourlay: [00:02:25] Hey, Eve, great to speak to you again, thank you and likewise been excited to follow what you’ve been doing with Small Change over the years.

Eve: [00:02:33] I think you might have been my inspiration. Some years ago, I remember when you launched Spacehive, how fabulous I thought it was. So, tell us a little bit about Spacehive, which I love.

Chris: [00:02:48] Well, so you know, Spacehive is a crowdfunding platform for projects that improve local places, the civic environment. So this is our streets or green spaces, the community buildings we all share, heritage, sports facilities, all the stuff that kind of makes up our public realm, if you like. And what Spacehive does is to provide a springboard for local people who’ve got ideas for improving that area, to be able to start projects and then attract the money they need to pay for them from friends and neighbors, but also local businesses, the local mayor, the municipality government, big brands, corporations, developers all through the same portal so that these things can get done. And the idea is it makes it much easier for a much wider range of people to be involved in improving that area and local places and local communities benefit as a result.

Eve: [00:03:48] So you started life as a journalist, right? So, I’m wondering how someone with a journalism degree ends up at the helm of Spacehive and I’d love you to take me on the journey.

Chris: [00:04:02] Yeah, sure. Well, I was a journalist, as you say, for four years before I started Spacehive. I worked at the Sunday Times newspaper in London. I covered the architecture and planning beat there and was also the London correspondent. So, I worked with the then mayor, Boris Johnson, who’s actually now prime minister, on various different stories. And that experience at that time there did help to shape my idea. I got to know how local government and civic improvement works with property developer’s eyes and planner’s eyes. But to be honest with you, the kernel of the idea came about 10, 20 years ago. On a trip to Cuba, I met a guy there in Havana, were chatting in the city about his neighborhood, sitting in a park on this little bench, and he was this amazing guy, super enthusiastic about his community and full of ideas for improving things. I mean, Cuba, as you may know, is a place where things the pace of change can be slow, shall we say. And and there’s a lot of beauty and elegance in the built environment because of that. But its civic involvement is not, if you like, the fastest paced in the world. And he was like lamenting various kind of, you know, broken benches, including the one we were sitting on and the state of the park and this ice cream parlor. He wanted to improve nearby. And I remember thinking, wow, this guy is basically a social entrepreneur. He’s full of ideas, and he talked about how difficult it was for him to change things. You know, you have to go through the centralized structure, the party, the state. And it was a pretty sclerotic system and basically not much happened as a result. And I remember thinking at the time it just sort of started sparked this idea, this image in my head of people like him and this idea that in communities all around the world, really, there are people like him, like you and me, if you care about the area and you’ve got ideas for improving things. It struck me that he and others would be willing to to give time and money to make an improvement happen if it was an easy way to do that. But here was the civic environment, which was inadvertently blocking out his ideas and actually blocking out capital because there’s just no way for people to be able to propose a project. There’s no way for people to be able to chip in to make a thing happen easily. And the result was that not much did happen. And of course, if you think about places like the U.K., the United States is not Cuba. You’ve got a thriving civil society. It’s a very different, very different system. But actually, fundamentally when it comes to the civic environment, similar. You know, there’s this system that is very top down and you really, traditionally have to be sort of a municipality or property developer to be able to change things or a seasoned community development professional. So at that time, I didn’t really do much with that thought, but I just it sort of something bothered me about this. It felt like there was this huge untapped opportunity or this creativity, all this energy and goodwill amongst people like him to be able to improve places and the system that just didn’t allow it to happen and unintentionally so. And it was years later when I was a journalist and I think got to know how all this space works better. And an opportunity came up because we had the recession off the back of the 2007 crash in the U.K. and all over the world. And at that point it became pretty clear that if you like the business model, the financial model for the civic environment was in trouble. The ways that municipalities have relied on to pay for playgrounds and high street and street markets, you know, green spaces and so on. Looked like it was going to be in long term decline budgets and people were scratching their heads as to how they’re going to make things work with the crisis. Funding crises which took years to play out and at the same time, everyone was talking about localism, the idea that you should push power down as far as possible to community level. This was a sort of fundamentally good thing for society, but they didn’t really know how a lot of the time. And then we had the rise of Kickstarter in the U.S., and that was the, sort of, first really popular modern crowdfunding platform.

Eve: [00:08:16] Um hmm.

Chris: [00:08:17] And it inspired me because, you know, here was this place where people with entrepreneurial ideas could host projects and kind of act as a springboard for their projects to get off the ground. They could attract capital across the internet, cobbled together all these little contributions to make that project happen and to get ahead. And I remember thinking, is this vehicle or something like it? What we need in the civic environment? And does that solve the Cuba problem? Because I could see how you could have local people who’ve got ideas, you know, if there was a way that they could put forward a project and we knew that that project was viable, we knew it could be delivered and local communities could show their support for it by kind of rallying behind it, pledging small amounts en masse. The sight of that, the spectacle of that of everybody getting behind this idea to start the street market or create a new community garden or whatever it is they wanted to do, that would be so powerful because you’d have these time limited campaigns. It had to happen. Otherwise, it will fall apart. And if you were a mayor or property developer or big supermarket with a bunch of customers in your community and you were looking at something like this and said, Well, here’s this amazing project. People are clearly passionate about it. They’re behind it. They’re actually voting for it with their wallets, and we’ve got an opportunity to make this thing happen. I sort of felt to me that it would be sort of politically irresistible to get behind that if it was affordable for people to do that. And if you could combine those two things channelling the kind of energy of the community behind an idea that somebody wanted was a good idea and a viable, deliverable idea. The money that was needed to actually pay for it, to go ahead. And then the sort of pressure that that created on the state and other kind of institutional players to get behind it, that you could actually make that happen. And on the surface of it, it would look like Kickstarter, you know, crowdfunding platform like any other. But underneath you’d need complex sort of machinery because the civic environment is complex and the experiences that people face are very challenging when it comes to doing projects. So that’s sort of became the exam question for me. And it took many years of working with very lucky to work with people like the mayor of London and other sort of stakeholders in this space to sort of figure out how to make that actually work, you know, how to create that spectacle and make it scalable and durable. And so that was that became our focus with Spacehive to the early years is testing and validating and iteratively building towards that vision.

Eve: [00:10:50] So when did you launch? Was it 2010? Is that right?

Chris: [00:10:54] 2012

Eve: [00:10:55] So and how does it work? Like, tell us a little bit about, you know, who comes to the platform and how much they’re generally raise. And I mean, are you regulated? All of those questions.

Chris: [00:11:10] Yeah, it’s not a regulated space. We’re not dealing in repayable finance. So legally speaking, people are making donations, whether they’re pledging £10 or £10,000 towards a project. They didn’t get their money back. They didn’t get a share. What they get is the playground or the high street improvement or the street market or whatever it is. So it’s a different place. Equity crowdfunding, lending, lending platforms. Our typical project is £11,000. So just over $15,000. And you get a very broad range of project types. I mean, the most common category is green space, but not by a huge margin. You know, we’ve had people restoring lidos, you know, old heritage lidos that the community would love to bring them back to life. People can go out and swim and hang out at Community Café. We’ve had people painting murals and spotting opportunities to convert old disused railway lines into public gardens or turning toilet blocks into community restaurants or starting giant water slides down a steep high street. And can, you know, get their swimming costume out and slip down in front of all the shoppers. Or launching festivals, pedestrianizing streets. You know, in some cases, repainting entire high streets give them a lick of paint, a new lease of life, amazing natural nature reserve projects, you know, creating new habitats for wildlife and so on. And then economic type projects, you know, improving trading conditions so street markets can thrive. Or we have an amazing project up north. In York, there is an old medieval town where the business community got together and put snow cannon on top of the roofs and pumped fake snow into the Tudor streets below so that shoppers could pan around and have the authentic white Christmas experience.

Eve: [00:13:04] That’s lovely.

Chris: [00:13:05] All sorts of, you know, weird and wonderful and creative ideas. And I think the bottom line with all of it is, these are things. These are ideas buying for communities. They are generally distinctive to the local area and kind of reflect the character of the community. And you know, they have a wide range of benefits from environmental improvements to the place that they’re delivered in, but also these, sort of, social impacts, you know, making people healthier, happier, less lonely and sort of giving them people a stronger sense of belonging and ownership in their community.

Eve: [00:13:39] Yeah, I think that’s probably the big one, right? That people can point at something and say, I help make that happen. I think that really matters to people.

Chris: [00:13:47] It does. It does. And it’s, you know, you’re right, and it’s an unusual feeling, actually in the kind of civic or region space. Because if you think about like, you know, the traditional, shall we say, ways of the opportunities for the public to be involved in civic change, regeneration, you know, it can be it can feel pretty arm’s length. Maybe you get to respond to a consultation or come and vote on a design for a new building or whatever it happens to be. But generally, I don’t think people feel that they have a hugely powerful voice. And also, things take ages usually to change.

Eve: [00:14:24] They really do, don’t they?

Chris: [00:14:25] That was a huge thing for me was just the ages thing. The fact everyone takes super long time. It’s just not in the public interest. And, you know, Spacehive is not a panacea for that. But there’s a tier of activity that we’ve got relatively small-scale projects, you know, $15,000 up to about $750,000 worth of project where you can get stuff done much faster. And I think for communities, whether you’re creating a project or backing it, the experience is exciting because, you know, you vote for this thing with your wallet, doesn’t matter how much you put towards it. And then a few weeks later, a month later, you get the thing. You know that tangible improvement. It is a visceral experience, actually, and very, very different to your normal involvement in the region space.

Eve: [00:15:09] Well, I think you’ve been pretty ahead of the time because, you know, top-down planning has been the way we’ve been doing it. And so over the last over the last year or two, I’ve been hearing more and more people talking about sort of bottom up community planning and in fact, platforms like Spacehive have been encouraging that to happen for a long time, so it’s interesting to watch. Yeah, yeah, but how does it actually work? Like so they raised 15,000. You are not for profit or for profit?

Chris: [00:15:44] Yeah, well, a for profit company. We are in social business. But yeah, the journey is that… So, the usual route is somebody in a community will generally spot an offer of funding from one of our partners. So we have integrated into the platform lots of different funds, matching funds from different municipalities, foundations and companies. And so say, you say you live in Leicester, where we have the mayor of Leicester offering money to support local crowdfunding campaigns and space from time to time. You would probably hear about a call for new ideas from the mayor, and the mayor would say, Look, I’m offering cash to help people be successful with their local crowdfunding campaigns in Spacehive, and I’d love you to create a project and I think it’s going to help to make the city better. I’m going to back it alongside the crowd. And so people would often come to a kind of online workshop, then to find out a bit more about what the fund is looking for, but also how civic crowdfunding works. And then they come to the platform. They create a project page, which obviously explains what their idea is. They want to spruce up a local playground or paint a mural, or maybe create a statue to somebody that they admire. And what we then do is we match that project based on data like its geography, its projected impact and so on to relevant funds. So you’re likely to get matched to the mayor’s fund, which you heard about, but also others. And then you have an opportunity to pitch your project ideas simultaneously to your community through the platform, but also through to these institutional funds. And sometimes these institutional funds want to know a bit more about your project. They want to know about your financial records or a bit more detail about the impact you think it will have, so you can answer those questions and provide documentation through the platform. We have technology that prevents you having to repeat yourself and shares impact data across different funders. This sort of thing, the various ways in which we try and streamline the experience for people to make it easier.

Eve: [00:17:46] Wow.

Chris: [00:17:47] And when you’re in need of help, you can put out a wish list of things you want to help with, perhaps skills from people who might want to join your team or in-kind contributions. And that helps you to shape your project plan. And at some point they’re going to. People are going to feel ready, and they will then submit their project for verification. We’ve got some experts to look over the project, make sure that it feels deliverable. And of course, that check is crucial because depending on what you’re trying to do, turn a railway line into a park or improve a playground or paint a mural, the kind of permissions you might need to do something like this vary considerably, as you know. So that’s a key check. And once you get the stamp of approval on the back of that check, you’re good to fundraise. And because you then pitched to the community and the institutional funds as you raise, this is how it plays out. Basically, your community back you first, so your friends, your neighbors, etc. get behind your idea, and that kind of creates this visible mandate for the idea. So you have hundreds of people endorsing it effectively and that then triggers the kind of support from the bigger funds. And it’s that handshake, if you like, that takes the project to the finishing line typically and delivers very high success rates. So it’s the combination of the streamlined processes. I think the verification and then this mixture of crowd and institutional money, which gives the platform the highest campaign success rate of any crowdfunding platform in the U.K. And means that people are more likely to succeed when they use Spacehive than fail. And so, you then hit your target and you’re going to deliver your project. And then the final step is you share the impact of what you done as a tool, which allows you to do that. And we then pump out the metrics and the stats and all the lovely press coverage and your pics and videos and so on to everyone who supported your project. And if you’re the community, of course, you’re going to enjoy the mural or the playground.

Eve: [00:19:42] So tell us, like, how much have you raised and how many projects have been on your site and you know…

Chris: [00:19:48] Yeah. So we’ve raised so far 22 million pounds and delivered 1,750 projects.

Eve: [00:19:59] Oh, that’s a lot of projects.

Chris: [00:20:01] Yeah, well. So, in the first years, we had a big focus on the model and we were just testing a handful of projects. We didn’t really have many delivered at all. And then about three years ago, once all the different elements of the model sort of fell into place it really started to scale. And last year, I think partly because of the pandemic, actually, you know, it really started to accelerate. So we had a fourfold increase in projects and we expect to have the same again this year.

Eve: [00:20:27] So wow, that’s fabulous. So finally, success, it takes a while, right?

Chris: [00:20:33] It does.

Eve: [00:20:35] Can you share an example of a notable project that you love that found success on Spacehive? Just a couple of examples.

Chris: [00:20:45] I mean, I’ll give you a couple. There was one we had the other day, actually in London, and there was a big focus coming out of the pandemic at the time on just reimagining local areas. I mean, in the U.K., like countries all over the world, people spend a lot more time in their neighborhood and we’re starting to look at the local high street and just the amenities they might have on their doorstep in a slightly different way. And there was this particular project that felt very, sort of, that moment. And it was an idea that a local group of kind of artists had had. They go around painting murals. They are a collective in East London and they teamed up with this French artist, Camille Walala, and came up with this idea to repaint this entire high street in East London. It was one of these sort of famously drab shopping parades, and it kind of shattered concrete and just not something that lifts the spirit, shall we say, and kind of pretty typical mix of shops, retail units in that area. You know, a little restaurant, Kwik Fit, Engineer’s Workshop and so on. There’s a fairly ordinary high street, but what they saw was the opportunity to give it this really bold lick of paint and just lift the spirits of the neighborhood, really. And it has become probably London’s or certainly one of London’s largest public artworks. I mean, it’s an enormous piece of art which stretches this entire kind of block and is sort of bright cubist kind of colors. And it’s just an amazing thing to look at. And, you know, obviously attracts people to the area, supports local businesses with footfall. But it’s the kind of, I think for a lot of people who saw it, it is sort of a bit of a light bulb moment because, you know, it’s the sort of thing that you can do a lot of places. This is a lick of paint, really. It doesn’t cost you much, about 40,000 pounds that project and you had local people getting behind it businesses, but also the mayor of London and bigger companies and people were very excited about it because they felt like that was an optimistic and simple and effective piece of kind of regeneration that could be replicated in other places.

Eve: [00:23:02] That’s a great project.

Chris: [00:23:05] Yeah. And then I think so thinking about sort of other areas as well. I mean, we’ve had this lovely idea in a little town called Frome, which is in Somerset, and actually there’ve been a few like this. Converting municipal toilet blocks. And in this particular case, they turned it into a community café, and it was about 11,000 pounds and it was obviously comprehensively fitted out, given a proper clean, but became this amazing hub for the community and it was brightly painted. They filled the square outside with tables. They have this tiny little art galleries, you know, you’d sort of peek through the doors, and you could go and look a bit. They would take from the local community, and they had a bar where you could get served, your cappuccino or whatever, and it just became a really, really, well-loved and well visited hub for the community. And again, you’re talking really small amounts of money…

Eve: [00:24:02] 11,000 pounds is not a lot of money.

Chris: [00:24:04] It’s not a lot of money, and that thing has gone from strength to strength, the community as a community business, and it’s just a real asset for the community.

Eve: [00:24:11] That’s fabulous.

Chris: [00:24:11] And it attracted again local people, local businesses. The parish council there put some money and then there was the local celebrity as well. So a nice, nice kind of mix of backers to make it happen.

Eve: [00:24:25] So are there other platforms like Spacehive in the U.K. or anywhere?

Chris: [00:24:30] There were other civic crowdfunding platforms in the world. Yeah, so and since we started, the platforms have popped up in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Brazil and in the U.S. as well, Patronicity up in the northwest.

Eve: [00:24:48] Ah, yes.

Chris: [00:24:49] So, I think the idea is definitely moving around in different places. I mean, the fundamental proposition is civic crowdfunding is that there’s an opportunity for people to have more power to start projects. It makes sense to collaboratively fund stuff. And that is an opportunity that’s obviously not just present in the U.K. A lot of places. In Britain where the only dedicated civic crowdfunding platform, but there are other platforms that of course do projects which are community, nature and so on. But yeah, it’s this specific focus on, how do you, at scale, create a way for people to improve the civic environment with all the complexity and the political and cultural sensitivity that goes with that. And how do you integrate all the different sources of funding that are available for these sorts of projects so that you can have these quite short, focused and successful campaigns? And that’s our particular focus. But other people have different spaces and obviously they overlap.

Eve: [00:25:43] So has Spacehive met your expectations, so far?

Chris: [00:25:47] Not yet. I think it’s met my expectations in the sense of the validation for the idea is stronger than I expected in the sense of in the areas where we’ve deployed it. Communities and actually in particular municipalities and bigger companies of sort of really got behind it with a level of excitement that I didn’t expect to see so quickly. And I don’t know the willingness of government in particular, I suppose, to really quite fundamentally change the way that it works to support this different dynamic, community led, collaboratively funded. That requires sort of fundamental changes to everything from comms to process to governance. And this is why it takes time, of course. But people have been willing to do it, and it’s been amazing working with pioneers in this space, like the mayor of London, mayor of Liverpool, as well as smaller kind of parish councils, developers, foundations and so on to get all this right. So, their willingness to step up and try different things and make changes early on has been an amazing surprise. And I think the other thing that surprised me is just the diversity of projects that people come up with and the diversity of communities that do it. I mean, if you if I’m honest, you know, you harbor a bit of a fear when you launch something like this, you’re just going to get a particular sector of society.

Eve: [00:27:11] Yes.

Chris: [00:27:11] Perhaps a part of society that likes technology.

Eve: [00:27:14] Yes.

Chris: [00:27:14] You know, and the tools. But we haven’t had that at all. And it’s been most successful in communities where there’s just a strong sense of community and whether by coincidence or otherwise, that tends to be in more deprived areas. So it’s been popular everywhere. We know we’ve had it in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in London, places like Mayfair, and also some of the most deprived wards in the country. But it tends to gravitate towards slightly more deprived communities where the strong social capital, where the strong sense of neighborliness.

Eve: [00:27:46] Right, right, right.

Chris: [00:27:47] And that has been hugely exciting for me because it shows the long-term potential of it. And obviously, you know, the social mission of this has been crucial for me. I want this to be an inclusive way of doing things that genuinely gives the widest possible audience of people a chance to feel that they can change the area. So it’s got to be for everyone. And so seeing that diversity has been really exciting to me.

Eve: [00:28:17] So what do you think, I can hear you’re not bored with this business yet, which is amazing. So, what do you think could be better?

Chris: [00:28:26] Well, I think the next milestones on our journey are going to be, so we’ve built these very strong regional hubs, where crowdfunding works well. Places like Liverpool, London, Leicester in the U.K. and so on. And we’ve done that by teaming up with the powers that be, if you like the key stakeholders in that space and then helping them to move over to this model. And chief amongst them are the municipality, but also others, universities, local businesses and so on. And where we’ve done that, we’ve managed to produce this positive experience for change makers. You know, people find it very rewarding. They’re able to get projects done. As I mentioned earlier, you’re more likely to succeed if you get involved in this stuff than fail, and that’s just a huge paradigm shift vs the experience people have before. And then if you’re the municipality, you know, it’s just a very financially efficient and sort of politically attractive way of doing civic improvement. So, I think we’ve shown the potential at regional level and the opportunity now is to kind of replicate those powerful ecosystems of support for local projects at a national level. And so, I think we’re going to get to a point where we start to have national government, where we start to have major national companies, foundations, the big beast funders, if you like. Recognizing the opportunity to move to this collaborative way of funding people powered ideas. Ideas that communities demonstrably want and are getting behind. And I just think that’s a matter of time, and we’ve had amazing conversations with all of these people already, and I think things are moving in that direction. But when we get to that point, it will be exciting because we’ll be able to replicate, if you like, the power of the offer to be able to say to communities, if you’ve got a good, viable, deliverable idea which your community supports, it’s probably going to be successful. We’re probably going to be able to get you the money you need, and it’s probably going to happen. To replicate that offer around the U.K. will be really exciting. And we’re in about 10 percent of communities, at the moment. So, there’s a huge scale up opportunity still ahead of us in that sense. And I think the national ecosystem will be a big milestone. And then the other one is just going to be really pushing on accessibility because although the model is much more inclusive than I think the traditional ways of doing this stuff, that’s always going to be a focus and always going to be a concern and making sure there’s no part of the community, part society that doesn’t feel for whatever reason, that these tools are for them. And so, we’ll want to continue innovating to make sure that everyone feels engaged and involved. And that’s going to be a long, long tail of activity that I’m sure we’ll continue over time.

Eve: [00:31:03] So this is your baby. And recently you stepped down as CEO. And I’m wondering why and what your role is now?

Chris: [00:31:13] Well, I’ve been running the company for 10 years, and I think for me, the main focus of what I wanted to do was prove that this model worked, and I feel like I got to a natural moment where we had demonstrated the viability of this model. We had a really strong case studies, the kind of core metrics of the company as performance metrics, including that kind of that success rate that I mentioned to you, were tracking along really nicely. And there was a lot of goodwill and a lot of feel-good factor towards what was going on in Spacehive, like the kinds of projects that people are doing and the impact it was having. And I think this is a complex space. The civic environment is not something you can change overnight. And I think like most CEOs, you look at what’s the right moment to hand over its more normal for founding CEOs to do that than to stick the whole hall. And I think for me, I felt there were other people out there who would be better placed than me to lead this second phase of our journey, and we found somebody really fantastic, Misha Dhanak, who’s going to be taking the company forwards and who I’m really excited to work alongside. I think for me, it gives me the opportunity to sort of come back to if you like some of that sort of strategic thinking that kind of fed into getting the business going in the first place. And whilst knowing that I’ve got somebody who’s absolutely focused and really brilliant at the challenges that you’re going to face us as we turn are still relatively small company into a big one and really increase our impact.

Eve: [00:32:53] So then what keeps you up at night, Chris?

Chris: [00:32:58] Well, like every company, you have growing pains and challenges that relate to becoming big. I think though in our space, the thing that I think about a lot is that for Spacehive to be really successful, we’re going to have to remain super thoughtful about the kind of incredibly sensitive and privileged position that we’re in here, as a platform. Sitting at the intersection between what communities want to change in their community and the area, the capital that’s needed to actually make those projects happen, you know, in the range of stakeholders that come together through Spacehive to get behind these projects. It’s a very exciting place to be. But we also have a lot of responsibility to act in a way that promotes the public interest and delivers genuine impact. And I think, you know, we’ve seen in many cases in recent years how technology companies can start with the best of intentions and some sometimes end up causing, shall we say, unwanted side effects, social side effects. So I am very mindful of that, and I want to make sure that that we remain mindful of that as a company. I think Spacehive is overwhelmingly a force for good and has good answers to some of the challenges that people rightly raise about this model, about any new model. And we need to we need to continue to be mindful of those and address them. But you know, as you get big, as you scale and as this becomes a new normal way of doing things. Of course, the sense of responsibility you have to get this right and to act in a proper way that promotes the public good is key.

Eve: [00:34:42] Well, Chris, I can’t wait to see what’s next and I want to say this, the door is always open for a Spacehive Pittsburgh hub. If you get to that point.

Chris: [00:34:54] I would be very delighted.

Eve: [00:34:54] Because it’s a fabulous model, and I think you need to find partners who kind of know the local, I suppose, movers and shakers, right?

Chris: [00:35:06] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I mean, honestly, that it’s something that I’ve always been obviously really excited about doing, expanding space in the U.K. and just, and bringing that kind of model to other communities across the world. We’ve had some amazing conversations and you’ve been part of some of them. We connected at different international conferences and so on with different mayors in different cities and so on. So I think the opportunity is obviously there. But don’t underestimate the importance of really understanding and being sensitive to what is distinctive about these different cultures and countries and making sure that you, that you’re able to adapt and get it right. I want to make sure that as and when we do that, that it’s done right. And so, it may be a little while yet, but ….

Eve: [00:35:58] That’s okay.

Chris: [00:35:59] It would be a wonderful thing.

Eve: [00:36:01] Yes, it would be. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

Chris: [00:36:06] It was lovely to chat. Thanks, Eve.Eve: [00:36:19] That was Chris Gourlay. Spacehive is a testament to Chris’s passion. And it took just 10 years of his life. He has lots more to do. I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years holds. You can find out more about this episode, or others you might have missed, on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Chris Gourlay and Spacehive

From Wall Street to Main Street.

September 22, 2021

Daniel Dus, founder of Shared Estates, has forged a career taking him to the top of his class in the solar industry. But his heart is someplace else –  in the Berkshires.  That’s where he grew up and that’s where he’s building his next act. 

The Berkshires, Massachusetts is rich with travel destinations, and has an amazing inventory of luxury estates dating back to the 1800s. As industry collapsed, so did the use of these estates. Many of them stand dramatically under-utilized today.  And that’s where Daniel and his team come in. They are purchasing, renovating and repositioning the Great Estates of Massachusetts for the sharing economy.

Daniel wants to take luxury estates out of the hands of the 0.1% and into the hands of … well … everyone!. The luxury estates that he and his team restore will still be luxurious, but sustainably carbon neutral and available for middle class families to enjoy. And Daniel is  taking the democratization of these estates one step further by offering the community an opportunity to invest in them through equity crowdfunding. These estates won’t just be owned by the wealthy any longer.

Insights and Inspirations

  • There’s an amazing inventory of luxury estates in the Berkshires. We call them estates, but the Vanderbilts called them weekend cottages.
  • Daniel’s time is repurposing these historic estates in a meaningful way, taking them out of the hands of the 0.1% and into the hands of, well, everyone!
  • You can rent one of Daniel’s shared estates, with luxurious interiors and spectacular grounds, for your next small event – for about the same price as a Holiday Inn.
  • Daniel’s audacious goal is democratize the ownership of these estates as well. Anyone can invest through an equity crowdfunding campaign and be treated just like the 0.1%!.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:06] Hi there, thanks for joining me on Re-Think Real Estate. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad. Rich or poor. Beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone.

Eve: [00:00:40] Today, I’m talking to Daniel Dus, founder of Shared Estates. While Daniel has forged a career taking him to the top of the solar industry, his heart is someplace else, in the Berkshires. That’s where he grew up, and that’s where he’s building his next act. The Berkshires, Massachusetts, is rich with travel destinations and has an amazing inventory of luxury estates dating back to the 1800s. As industry collapsed, so did the use of these estates. Many of them stand dramatically underutilized today, and that’s where Daniel and his team come in. They are purchasing, renovating and repositioning the great estates of Massachusetts for the sharing economy. I’m going to learn a lot from Daniel, and so will you. So listen in.

Eve: [00:01:37] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast or go to Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate to learn about special opportunities for my friends and followers and subscribe if you can. Hello, Daniel, thanks for joining me today.

Daniel Dus: [00:02:06] Eve, thank you for having me.

Eve: [00:02:08] So you’re the president of a solar company, but now you’ve moved onto quite a different area as well. I want to hear about your plan for the historic great estates of Massachusetts.

Daniel: [00:02:21] Yes, and I’m still in solar. So the real estate business is nights and weekends and has been since at least 2014. My plan for the historic estates of the beautiful Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts, and frankly nationally, is to take them often out of the hands of the .1 Percent and bring them to the middle class group travel markets and to make them investment vehicles that anyone can participate in rather than just the .1 percent.

Eve: [00:02:59] That’s a pretty big plan.

Daniel: [00:03:00] Yes, and it has been really, I would say it’s an honor to really shepherd these historic properties. Our first property in this category was built by George Westinghouse, who was actually the first place in the world ever powered by AC electricity. And so, to be the custodian of a property like that and to renovate it, rehabilitate it, that property was actually structurally failed, required hundreds of thousands of pounds of structural materials to preserve it. And it’s really an honor to be able to do that and help play a role in preserving what is, really, just a fascinating part of American history.

Eve: [00:03:38] That is exciting. So like in the Berkshires, you’re starting there. Like, how many great estates are there?

Daniel: [00:03:45] It happened during the Gilded Age, America’s Gilded Age post and pre-war. The wealthiest families, really in the world established what they called Berkshire Cottages in western Massachusetts. And I think Cottage is a bit of a misnomer. These were often 15 plus thousand square foot mansion houses on 40 to 200 plus acres. And these families included JP Morgan, the Chases, the Vanderbilts, of course, Westinghouse, and the list is long. And there were dozens and dozens of these properties. And then in addition to those, sort of, truly great estates, of course, the social circles of the time followed, and many other wealthy families built smaller but still very impressive. And now I would still consider historic properties in the late eighteen early nineteen-hundreds.

Eve: [00:04:44] So what led you to the idea to take them and renovate them, really, for the sharing economy?

Daniel: [00:04:51] Oh, it was just total mistake. It was just all a series of mistakes,Eve, is really, truly what happened. I had bought the George Westinghouse property to use personally for nights, and I was working in Manhattan, and I wanted to spend long weekends in the Berkshires. And so I undertook that renovation with that plan. Unfortunately, I took another role based outside of Philadelphia during renovation, and I just couldn’t use it. It was too far and too expensive for me to maintain. And so I put it into the vacation rental market VRBO, Airbnb, etc.. With the initial hope that it would book at an average of 300, 350 a night, and it would book maybe 20 percent of the time and cover its own mortgage. I thought that would be a huge win. Well, it booked so much in the first four or five days that I had to increase the price three or four times, and it ended up very quickly rising to number one on VRBO, the most booked and most reviewed and most highly reviewed property in Berkshire County out of over 600 properties and was subsequently featured on Netflix’s world’s most amazing vacation rentals. I think it was really a combination of sort of a high-end luxury finish with this amazing history to the property and a focus on small to midsize group travel groups of 10,15 often multigenerational family events. We have lots of 80th birthday parties and 50th wedding anniversaries where grandparents and children and grandchildren and sometimes great grandchildren can enjoy some time together. And so, really just completely fell into the market and then realized that it’s a really compelling market segment.

Eve: [00:06:38] So since then, how many of these estates have you renovated?

Daniel: [00:06:43] After we sold the George Westinghouse property, we acquired it for 340,000. We put roughly 500 K into it. We sold it for 1.3 million. It was cash flowing over 200,000 dollars per year. And when we exited that, I acquired what was originally developed by actor Christopher Reeve, a childhood icon of mine, had an estate in Williamstown, Massachusetts, that hadn’t really been touched since the 80s early 90s and just finished a total renovation of that property. I listed that on VRBO sixty five ish days ago now, and it booked over a quarter million dollars of fully prepaid no cancellation rentals and its first 60 days. So just another testament to the model. We also acquired what was previously senior executive at Mercedes-Benz Estate in the Berkshires, 11,300 square feet on 40 acres. We call that project the Freeman Berkshires, which we listed on Small Change and raised about 890,000 dollars across 141 investors from Wall Street to Main Street. And that property is currently wrapping up renovations, right now. We have deliveries in process to begin rentals here in the next 30 days, which we’re extremely excited about. And then we have under contract the Kemble, which was built for a U.S. Secretary of State in the 1880s and is just a phenomenal roughly 15,000 square foot estate in downtown Lenox, Mass, which is truly the heart of the Berkshires, walking distance to some of the Berkshires’ best arts and restaurant locations, so we’re absolutely excited about the project.

Eve: [00:08:31] So the Kemble Berkshires, tell me a little bit about that building. That’s your current one.

Daniel: [00:08:35] Yes, the Kemble, the current, the owner of the Kemble, he had some rough times in the early days of COVID. The property exceeded 960,000 dollars of revenue pre-COVID, 2019. He really poured his heart and soul into the renovation of two of the four floors of the Kemble to bring them back to just a phenomenal finish. Rooms, their individual rooms often book 350, I think 400 plus dollars per night, and we will focus our renovations on the third floor, which is unfinished. There are four more bedrooms there which would increase the finished room count by 40 percent, and we’ll focus on some upgrades to the basement and also the outside of the property, the grounds. There’s not much or anything in the way of outside amenities. We will add pickle ball court, a pool, pergola, grill area, large patios, sculpture garden, small vineyard, in order for guests to enjoy some of the best views that the Berkshires has to offer off the back patio of the Kemble property. So we’re really excited it’s a short term, I think, raise here, we’re moving pretty quickly, but we’re looking forward to closing and starting renovations and continue the success that the property’s had historically.

Eve: [00:09:57] So can you describe the look and feel of the property when you when you’ll be finished? Because, you know, when I think about great estates, I was thinking about kind of a cloying, dark, gloomy atmosphere which was, you know, popular in the 1800s. But, you know, we’re not there anymore. So what’s it going to look and feel like?

Daniel: [00:10:17] Yeah, absolutely. Great point. And we think that this is actually a key point of differentiation in our finishes. It is currently finished with some dark purples and dark wood stains, and we will dramatically change that. We’re going to do 100 percent interior and exterior paint, and we will significantly lighten up the interior with Scandinavian lime wash floors in public areas to brighten the spaces and really help center on the views through the windows on the back side of the property. And we will finish in a more modern, minimalist manner. We’ll take and really clean up spaces. We will hang very high-end fine art so that folks get a gallery feel while they stay in the property as well. Our other properties have hung artists, including John Lennon, signed by Yoko Ono, Maurice Sendak originals, Jared Pinkney, Caldecott winners, originals. And so we really do like to bring those name brand artists and a mix of local artists, leading artists such as Camille Peters and Amherst Mass, to do sculpture and art to hang as well. And so we definitely want our properties. One of the things we really want is for them to be very accessible. So, in the Freeman Berkshires renovation, we removed all of the very nice and very fancy chandeliers, crystal chandeliers, and we replaced those with hand-blown glass. And we actually toned down many of the finishes because the finishes were so high-end. In fact, some of the floors look like they were a plastic laminate, but they were just factory finished flooring. And so, by actually bringing the finish down, it actually makes them more comfortable and more accessible, I think, to more people. And it makes folks feel comfortable versus feeling intimidated by this sort of historic regal finish that a lot of these properties still have today. So we do aim to bring these to a broader market.

Eve: [00:12:27] When will this one be ready for use?

Daniel: [00:12:29] We will continue booking immediately after closing. The seller has already booked, I think, over $50,000 of rentals post-closing. What we will keep and honor those. I think he’s booked at an average of over 3,500 dollars a night or so, post-closing. And we will work around those scheduled and booked rentals and probably complete renovations in the slowest time of year, which is usually January, February and into March. Our objective will be to have them completed in advance of the summer season next year so that we can change that aesthetic, bring those additional amenities to the property for folks to enjoy in advance of the 2022 season in the Berkshires, which extends really from April all the way into October with the foliage and the change of leaves, etc. So we can’t wait to get it planned and started.

Eve: [00:13:25] Yes. Yeah. So, if I want to stay there, how much is it going to cost and how does it compare to a local hotel?

Daniel: [00:13:33] So that’s really another reason that we feel we’ve been so successful is because the small and medium sized groups that we target end up paying less for these high-end properties with leading amenities than they would for a standard holiday and hotel room in terms of cost per person per night. Because if you’re going to stay in a standard hotel, you for a large family of 15, you may have to book six or seven rooms. And so, we were regularly significantly less than a traditional hotel stay. So we think that it’s that macroeconomic advantage combined with the superiority of the product that results in our properties, regularly booking 250, 270 plus nights a year. So that’s really our focus is to make these properties accessible to investors that otherwise never would have had an opportunity to participate in real estate like this. Make them accessible for rental. And we have to do that by keeping our pricing quite modest.

Eve: [00:14:38] And what are the locals think in Lenox?

Daniel: [00:14:41] Lenox is a long-time hospitality town, and it is the home of Tanglewood, which is the home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the summer. It’s home to a number of other cultural centers. The largest yoga center in North America, Kripalu is there. Shakespeare and company, a variety of leading cultural institutions. And so the Berkshires, I think, has some three million visitors per year, roughly tourist visitors per year, and is, I believe, a majority second homeowners. And so it’s no stranger to the hospitality industry and business. The Kemble is a registered Great Estate Inn which is one of the things that really attracts us to it. And so it has the right to book these rooms and for this use specifically by right, and that’s very important to us. We aim always aim to be extraordinarily good neighbors, so, all of our current properties disallow outside amplified music. We have property managers on call accessible to the public if there are any issues, 24/7 and we have since 2014 had only one incident where someone had a band with amplified outside music against the terms of the lease agreement they’d signed, and we had to shut it down. And the neighbor was not extremely happy with that, but it was shut down within 30 minutes. And so we take it very seriously being a good neighbor and again, our groups, there’s a limit to 30 plus years old for renters. We spend a lot of time and effort targeting and aiming for family renters. And that’s, I think, a really important part of our being a good neighbor too.

Eve: [00:16:29] And what about community programming? Are you planning anything like that?

Daniel: [00:16:35] Yes, every one of our properties donates one percent of net income to a local charity. So, the Freeman Berkshires project will donate one percent to the Freeman Center, which fights to end the cycle of domestic violence and the Kemble Inn will provide one percent of net income to the Lenox Library system, in order to support its various community programs, which are among the best in Lenox. And so that’s also a big part of what we do. We, on our properties often install large gardens, fruits, vegetable gardens and provide a property to table ingredients for dining experience. Whatever is left over in terms of production is donated to local charities. So, we participate in the local community in a variety of ways. We also are developing a proprietary software application specifically to connect the local community to our renters, the local community, businesses, and service providers. So if our renters want to book a massage, they can go directly to the property app and find sort of hand-selected massage therapists to come to property. Photographers, wedding planners. There’s a whole laundry list of phenomenal services available in the Berkshires. Leadership, programming can all be done at our properties in order to have just a phenomenal experience base stay if that’s what guests are looking for and they often are. And that’s also really important to us to drive value to the local economy.

Eve: [00:18:11] Ok, well, now I’m going to get back to the actual project because I’ve seen a photo of this building and it is big and fancy. So how much do you expect this project to cost?

Daniel: [00:18:22] The renovation plan is just under a million dollars. We are acquiring this property out of a foreclosure process. And so the prior owner, I forget, I think he had about 4.5 million invested in this property in the extensive renovations he’s already conducted, so the bones of the property are phenomenal. The mechanical systems are phenomenal. Two of the four floors are beautifully finished and require only aesthetic updates. And then the third floor is where we’ll do some limited structural new bathrooms, tile, glass, and hardwood floors and refinish those floors. The majority of our renovation is in aesthetics and amenities, adding the pool, pergola, grill areas, et cetera. Delivering games, delivering a library, delivering other things that guests can experience while they’re there. Virtual reality headsets and gaming rooms so the renovation is just under a million dollars, is what we have planned right now. And again, really, we’re especially excited about this because that is really focused entirely almost entirely on aesthetic updates.

Eve: [00:19:38] But it has to be tough financing the whole project because, you know, this is not a very traditional project. So how do banks view it and how are you? I know a piece of this is crowdfunding, but how do you finance the rest of it?

Daniel: [00:19:52] That’s exactly right. And when I said that Shared Estates was based on a series of sort of happenstance and in some cases, mistakes. Our plan for our original project was to use traditional bank financing, which we then found was not available for this segment of vacation rentals, which is to be fair to traditional banks, quite a new segment. Airbnb, VRBO and similar platforms have taken around a third of the global hotel industry over the past just five to ten years. And so it’s still a new segment when you look at things in terms of a traditional bank. And so, we ended up turning to Small Change to help solve this problem and to raise a significant portion of the capital through equity crowdfunding. And then what we found happened on our first raise was that many of our historic renters invested because they really understood the value of these properties and what we were bringing to them. And we had a lot of investors then become renters and asked to book the property. We have some families who have requested to book properties year after year. We’ve had families stay with us for four or five plus years in a row, and we found that the equity crowdfunding process, it allowed us to expand on our mission to bring these estates to the middle class and in a new way for them to actually participate in our last project, the Freeman Berkshires, investors actually owned membership interest in the LLC, which fully owns the property. And you can imagine we’ve had the local town librarian invest. I think local truck drivers invest. We’ve had folks from Wall Street, major banks invest. It completely levels the playing field, and everyone’s investment is treated on the exact same terms. And so it’s now become very core to our plan DNA to really help finance these projects by acting through real estate syndication to acquire them and for the benefits of the cash flow from these properties to go to an investor base that is really a new option.

Eve: [00:22:13] So you’re democratizing the use of the building and you’re also democratizing the ownership.

Daniel: [00:22:19] Yes, exactly. Yep.

Eve: [00:22:21] Pretty fabulous. Yeah. Do you think you’ll have different investors this time around?

Daniel: [00:22:25] Yeah. Every property, I think, will speak differently to different folks. We already have, I think a different investor set teed up for the current offering. We will have some, quite a few larger check sizes in this raise. The total raised value is larger than our our past one and so lends itself well to larger family offices and some more institutional investors. But we do have multiple smaller investors as well. And so I think this property is going to speak to relatively wide range of folks. Folks that are interested in its history and preserving its history, folks who are interested purely for economic reasons and the cash flow potential. The passive past cash flow potential from real estate investing. And I think there are folks who are very compelled by the model, generally both Small Change’s model as well as Shared Estates’ model. And so I think it’s going to be a pretty diverse set. Certainly, we’ve had national, international investors invest in our projects. The broader the better, as far as we’re concerned and also a lot of local community folks, we’ve got a huge focus on telling the story of the local community, the folks who really drive the economic engine in the towns where we operate. We have a series on our website called In Their Own Words, where we interview local business leaders and professional service providers that really help our guests have extraordinary experiences in the Berkshires. This leading cultural destination, so it’s a key part now of what we do.

Eve: [00:24:12] So then shifting to the big picture, what are your goals for the company? Shared Estates, on the whole.

Daniel: [00:24:18] The initial goal was to establish one hundred bedrooms in the Berkshires in these historic properties in the vacation rental market. And as we’ve worked through that goal, there’s been an increasing amount of interest from the financing community, from our partners and from the public in expanding our offering. And so our thesis is and has always been that rural real estate was undervalued vis-a-vis urban real estate. And we launched remember pre-COVID, and we believed pre-COVID that the work from home revolution was real and that it would bring folks out of the cities into beautiful rural American locations and that those locations were underserved in terms of development, developer’s investment, et cetera. And so we have a real focus on any property that can be developed to provide extraordinary experiences within a two hour drive of a major metropolitan area. Because if you want to get a group of 15 or 20 folks together in downtown Manhattan, your only option is a hotel. Or if you can find a rental where you can all sleep, then it’s going to be, I don’t know, 10,000 plus dollars a night. It’s going to be economically prohibitive because those properties would be so expensive. On average, Manhattan real estate can easily be 2,000 plus dollars a square foot. In the Berkshires we acquired a luxury estate for 126, I think dollars per square foot, so the talking less than 10 percent. So we believe that the macroeconomic potential of that arbitrage will continue to drive a lot of vacationers to these properties. And now with COVID, everything just dramatically accelerated. And that’s why our vision has expanded is because COVID accelerated the work from home revolution. Real estate properties are up significantly. Our last property, the Freeman Berkshires, we acquired for 1.6 million. Zillow’s estimated value today without it being refinished, is 3 million dollars, I believe. So, just the market has already sort of risen…

Eve: [00:26:36] Changed a lot. Yeah, interesting.

Daniel: [00:26:37] We believe it continues. There’s very little inventory of sort of gorgeous rural. And when we say rural, we’re still in towns that to me, feel somewhat suburban ish. But are, you know, within rural communities, very bucolic.

Eve: [00:26:52] Yes, yeah. So, I’ve got to ask this question because I’ve gotten to know you and I know you don’t sit still for long, but do you have the next building in sight yet?

Daniel: [00:27:01] We certainly do. We have our hearts set on another historic property. And, you know, we can’t talk about it yet. We actually did have it under agreement briefly. And so we were very excited to sort of work through this process. And I think in addition to that, we do have offers prepared for land acquisition and to execute some new construction because what we find is that folks really enjoy massive open floor plans, with very wide open spaces and that there’s very little inventory like that in rural America. The Westinghouse property kind of felt sort of like a massive open barn, right? And people really loved it. So we’ll likely do some new construction with this market focus in mind as well here in the near term.

Eve: [00:27:55] Ok, so one more question I’d like to know what your big, hairy, audacious goal is?

Daniel: [00:28:01] Well, in solar. Right now, I’m president of a company with a utility focus that is number three in commercial and industrial solar and my goal and our goal here is to be number one in that space. In real estate? My goal is actually to be a phenomenal fiduciary for the investor base that we kind of curate through these processes. Being a fiduciary is also an honor, right? So, when you’re investing other people’s money and acting in that capacity, it’s a lot of responsibility, right?

Eve: [00:28:01] It is, yes.

Daniel: [00:28:49] My audacious goal is really to deliver returns that the market historically has never delivered, right? S&P 500, I forget if it’s seven or eight percent or something historic returns, or maybe even a little less. You know, we want to consistently deliver returns. Honestly, my personal goal is over 30 percent. You know, we often state goals lower than that and investing, you never know. Things happen. Issues arise. You know, we are doing a lot of construction and permitting and other things. But yeah, audacious goal is to smoke the S&P 500, year after year and deliver over 25 percent. Really, over 30 percent returns to our investors, which I think is just would be phenomenal from what I consider a low-risk asset class like real estate.

Eve: [00:29:38] Well, thank you very much, Daniel. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. I don’t have a big enough family here to come and rent one of your estates. I wish I did. I’m going to have to think about how to get 15 to 20 people together to enjoy one of them soon.

Daniel: [00:29:51] Oh, we have tons of friend groups too. We have knitting groups. We’ve had a lot of yoga groups. We’ve had all kinds of groups of friends, college friends, industry friends. So you can keep that in mind.

Eve: [00:30:08] I will, thank you so much. I’m looking forward to seeing more.

Daniel: [00:30:12] Thanks, Eve. Keep it up.

Eve: [00:30:20] That was Daniel Dus. He wants to take luxury estates out of the hands of the 0.1 percent and into the hands of, well, everyone. The luxury estates that he restores will still be luxurious, but carbon neutral and available for middle class families to enjoy. And Daniel is taking the democratization of these estates one step further by offering the community an opportunity to invest in them. These estates won’t just be owned by the wealthy any longer.

Eve: [00:31:06] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at EvePicker.com or you can support us at Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate for the price of a cup of coffee. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Images courtesy of Daniel Dus, Shared Estates

Homage to Sutro Baths.

September 15, 2021

Anne Nickel Cannady was born and raised in Minnesota but has lived an international life. Over the past 20 years she has worked in brand strategy, culture, innovation and immersive experience design with start-ups and leading brands including Starbucks, Avalon Bay, Choice Hotels, Royal Caribbean, and Honda to name just a few. And she’s lived all over the world in London, Cape Town, Detroit, New York, and now San Francisco.

After leaving college in North Carolina, Ann dove into a marketing and HR career in London working with a variety of organizations. Her skillset expanded into workplace culture. By 2010 she was working in the U.S., first at the consultancy Kantar, then as an independent consultant. She joined the PayPal community for six years, becoming Head of Culture, followed by her most recent job as Head of Employee Experience at Fastly.

Now Anne is challenging herself with a project called Alchemy Springs that brings all her skills to play … and more. The plan is ambitious – a social community bath house. The building is ambitious – the transformation of an historic warehouse into a biophilic wonderland. The location is ambitious – a neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification. And the financing is ambitious – she’s raising funds through an equity crowdfunding raise in order to let anyone over the age of 18 invest.

We can’t wait to see how it turns out. 

Insights and Inspirations

  • Biophilic design incorporates natural lighting, ventilation and landscape features in order to create more productive and healthy spaces.
  • Anne envisions Alchemy Springs as a modern urban oasis. Winding ‘riverbaths’ and lush surroundings will define it. Blazing steam saunas, frigid cold plunges, a starscape moon bath, an outdoor sun bath, greenhouse and gardens will be built for all to enjoy.
  • Anne is based in the Bay Area. But it feels as if she could live anywhere.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad. Rich or poor. Beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors. Those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. When I’m not hosting this show, I’m running my real estate crowdfunding platform, SmallChange.co, where you’ll find impact real estate investment opportunities open to everyone. Or you can learn more about me and catch up on some podcasts at my website, rethinkrealestateforgood.co.

Eve: [00:01:11] Today I’m talking with Anne Nickel Cannady. Anne was born and raised in Minnesota, but she’s lived an international life. Over the past 20 years, she has worked in brand strategy, culture, innovation, and immersive experience design with startups and leading brands, including Starbucks, AvalonBay, Choice Hotels, Royal Caribbean and Honda, to name just a few. She’s lived all over the world – in London, Cape Town, Detroit, New York, and now San Francisco. Anne is challenging herself with a project that brings all her skills to play and more. The plan is ambitious – a social community bathhouse. She plans to transform an historic warehouse into a biophilic wonderland. The location is ambitious – a neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification. And the financing is ambitious – she’s raising funds through crowdfunding on my funding platform, Small Change. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:02:19] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast or go to patreon.com/rethinkrealestate to support this podcast. For the price of a cup of coffee.

Eve: [00:02:41] Hi, Anne, I’m just really pleased to have you with me today.

Anne Nickel Cannady: [00:02:45] Thanks, Eve. It’s great to be here.

Eve: [00:02:47] You’ve had some really interesting titles like Head of Culture at PayPal and head of Employee Experience at Fastly. But now you’ve moved on to a very different project. And I’d really love you to tell us about Alchemy Springs.

Anne: [00:03:01] Sure. It’s interesting because while I’ve held a lot of different roles, they sort of have all come together for all the skills that I needed to bring this new sort of project to life. But Alchemy Springs came about because in San Francisco, there was a huge community built around some of the hot springs that were, you know, within a couple of hours outside of the city, and one, in particular, burned down in a wildfire several years back. And everyone really missed that community, a community that would gather and be up there. You could, you know, spend the night. There was all these events. And at the same time, we started seeing this rise and this kind of model of these urban bathhouses popping up across the country, so there was one called the Schvitz in Detroit, there’s one, Banya 5, in Seattle. And, all of these really started to bring this community together. You know, for example, I was shocked to learn that, you know, members of the one in Seattle would go four to five days a week. And this whole community was even extended beyond the bathhouse into their local community as a sort of a friendship circle and mentorship circle. So, we looked around at San Francisco, and while we do have a number of spas and sort of bathhouse spas, none of them were quite hitting the mark.

Anne: [00:04:26] There was only one real communal one where you could be social. Most spas, where you really went to kind of check out on your own, not just sort of connect with people. And the one social one that there was, a sort of Russian style banya, it’s a little bit more like a sort of a glorified locker room experience, right? And, you know, maybe wasn’t designed with the guest experience in mind. And so, we really saw this opportunity. And on top of that, San Francisco has this rich history in Sutro Baths. And we met with SF Heritage, who introduced us to the gentleman who wrote one of the famous books on Sutro Baths. And we wanted to learn what the story was behind it, why the mayor at the time wanted to build this grand structure. It was sort of 1894, and it was huge. It was right out over the waters. And at the time, it was quite innovative. He built these almost like little windows, hatches, that would open and close to allow the waters to come in…

Eve: [00:05:37] Oh beautiful, yeah.

Anne: [00:05:37] Yeah. And then he would heat them to different temperatures and all this. And he was inspired by sort of the grand European bathhouses, right? And back then, people were working six days a week and they only had one day off. So, he wanted to find a way that people could socialize with friends or family, but also do something restorative because they only had one day off. And, you know, hydrothermal bathing and all the properties of that, the health properties, he decided to build Sutro Baths. And it really was a place for everybody. So, everyone could have access to this grand experience. And he had gardens, and there was places for, you know, the police and fire department to meet. And it really was a

Eve: [00:06:19] Community gathering place. Yeah.

Anne: [00:06:21] Yeah. A very iconic piece of San Francisco history. So, all of those ingredients together, we thought, this is it. You know, we’ve got to build this in San Francisco. And when the pandemic hit, it only became more important than ever to reconnect the city, which has lost a lot of people, we’ve gotten a lot of new people coming in, but we miss our community. So, it’s kind of perfect timing.

Eve: [00:06:45] Well, what happened to the Sutro Baths?

Anne: [00:06:48] The Sutro Baths actually, there was one point in time it ended up being converted into an ice rink, of all things.

Eve: [00:06:55] Interesting.

Anne: [00:06:57] Yeah. And then it burned down. Gosh, I want to say in the maybe 50s. Yeah, 50s, or early 60s. It burned down. And so now, today, out near Land’s End in San Francisco, there’s these beautiful ruins. I mean, it’s kind of an iconic, you know, tourist destination now right on the cliff side where you can go when you can see a lot of the old cement structures of the different pools.

Eve: [00:07:28] Oh, wow.

Anne: [00:07:28] So it’s, yeah, pretty amazing.

Eve: [00:07:28] You know where I grew up in Australia and they always had rock pools in the ocean, like on the ocean’s edge. Sort of reminds me of the sutro baths but a little bit less grand. They were fabulous places to go and bathe, really fabulous. So, like, where’s your sutro baths? Where’s Alchemy Springs going to be located?

Anne: [00:07:49] Yeah. So, Alchemy Springs is in a neighborhood, kind of the blending of two different neighborhoods. Technically, it’s lower Nob Hill area or sort of upper Tenderloin, right? So they call this neighborhood the Tendernob in San Francisco. And it’s a great up and coming area, right? You know, I think below the Tenderloin has really gone through somewhat of a gentrification. You know, the neighborhood can be a little bit rough, but it’s also been an opportunity for a lot of hospitality, sort of, restaurants and retail to come in. So, a lot of the coolest new bars and restaurants are sort of popping up around there. And then Nob Hill is a great more slightly more higher end neighborhood, tons of residentials, new developments, and then some hotels as well. And it’s about 10- to 15-minute walk west of Union Square, which is obviously sort of the tourist capital for San Francisco with all the hotels

Eve: [00:08:48] And what does the building look like that you’ve chosen?

Anne: [00:08:52] The building’s beautiful. It took us a while to find a building. We looked at so many different buildings, but this one is a 1919 masonry warehouse. A beautiful brick, gorgeous thick wood timber beams. It’s kind of two and a half stories. So, there’s a ground floor and then sort of the mezzanine above which we’re actually going to be raising the roof to create a sort of proper second floor there. And then there’s this basement level, which right now is sort of being used as a parking garage. But we’ll do some excavation and sort of turn that into the baths floor. But the thing that’s super exciting is that it has a 2500 square foot parking lot out back. So our concept has been able to translate into sort of an indoor outdoor flow in this space and being inspired by nature, which Alchemy Springs is, we can bring a lot of those elements, you know, both indoors and outdoors. So, we’re super excited.

Eve: [00:09:50] I’ve seen some renderings of this. It looks pretty fabulous. But maybe you could describe like what the building will contain or what you’re hoping it’ll contain when you, when it’s complete.

Anne: [00:10:00] Sure. I’ll walk you through the guest experience. It’s probably the best. So, from the street level, on Post Street, you’ll see a small retail boutique and there’ll be an entrance into the bathhouse. It’s going to be quite an inspiring grand entrance in that there’s a sort of giant living wall and double storey ceilings right as you walk in, A beautiful sort of rock carved desk area to sit with your friends or family that you’re waiting to go to the baths with. And you’ll check in. And then in the middle of this building is this gorgeous atrium that runs all three levels, with giant skylights at the top that just bring tons of natural light in. And there’s also tons of natural light from the back of this warehouse building. There’s beautiful, most of the walls are windows in the back, so tons of natural light. You’ll get your towel and your, you know, your robe and your slippers, and you’ll walk on either side of this atrium back to the locker rooms. And in addition to male and female, we also have gender neutral locker room and changing room. That was really important to us.

Anne: [00:11:01] So you’ll change and go downstairs to the bath floor. So, you can overlook the baths through the atrium from that locker room floor. But on the baths floor, we’ve got a series of different thermal pools at different temperatures that sort of wind along a path as if it was a river sort of built into these different platforms for accessibility and A.D.A. But we’ll have, on one end is what we’re calling the moon pool, which is going to be, sort of, you know, body temperature, sort of mild in temperature waters with a higher salt content, so it won’t quite be a flotation tank, but you will feel a little more buoyant in those waters, with a sort of domed ceiling above it that drops down a bit with lights and stars. And then lights in the pool as well with some sound. And then around this, the moon pool, and this is one of my favorite things that Lundberg Design, our Architect, has designed. We have a rain shower curtain. So, it almost creates a cave-like experience around the moon pool.

Eve: [00:12:14] Oh, fabulous!

Anne: [00:12:14] Yeah, I’m excited for that one. And then we have a mineral pool, which will be, kind of, mimicking the natural hot springs healing waters with all the minerals, which, you know, are very good for you. We’ll have then a sun pool, which is our warm pool. It’s not the hottest, but it’s warm. The sun pool, and that will be directly across from the cold plunge, which is kind of on this, you know, bath house circuit. You always want to move between the different contrasts of, you know, warm to cold or hot to cold. And then outside, we have a massage pool, which will be a lot of different water jets, maybe some different textures inside, rocks and things that you can sit on to sort of get that massage and that’ll be outdoors in a greenhouse. So that’s the pool part. We also have thermal rooms. So, we have a Himalayan salt cave. Think of it like a Finnish style dry sauna, but with Himalayan salt bricks and a kind of a salt nebulizer that brings amazing detoxification qualities. And then we have a snow shower. So, when you step outside of the hot salt cave, you can take a shower of snow to cool off before you get back in the bath. And then we also have an herbal infusion steam room, which we’ll do with different herbs that have, you know, different healing properties at different times of the day. So, waking up, relaxing,

Eve: [00:13:45] It sounds fabulous, so I want to move to like the financing. And when do you expect to open the doors?

Anne: [00:13:52] We expect the process from closing the capital to opening doors to take about three years. And so right now, we’re looking at probably September of 2024.

Eve: [00:14:03] And how long has it taken you to get to this point?

Anne: [00:14:07] Oh, gosh, there’s been a lot of stops and starts. It’s taken probably just shy of three years.

Eve: [00:14:17] So this is like a five-year project from inception to opening the doors. It’s a long time.

Anne: [00:14:23] Yeah, I think it’s taken many twists and turns. It started as something small. But as we looked into the business model for bathhouses, it made sense for us to actually do something on a bigger scale. Doing something on a bigger scale allows you to have both, sort of, drop ins for not non-members will say or tourists or anyone that wants to come in, but also have enough capacity to cater for members, because building that membership base in the community was really important to us and the bathhouses that exist today, they can’t really do memberships because their capacity is so small and you wouldn’t want members showing up and not being able to get in.

Eve: [00:15:07] Oh, well, I’m going to come back to that. But I do have to ask, so how much is this going to cost to build?

Anne: [00:15:14] Yeah. So right now, the total project cost is about 20 million. And the last sort of six months has been a pretty heavy and detailed due diligence process. My developer, Michael Jarne, has been an absolute gift to the team. He’s got a lot of experience in this. And there’s always that trade off of, how much do you spend upfront to minimize the risk. And, you know, he’s more on the side of, you know, this is a big project and, you know, somewhat unknown concepts in cities. So, we’ve taken the route of, hey let’s spend more and make sure we’re really clear on what this is going to take financially. And, also, you know, that we can do this concept in this space with the city. So, we’re feeling good about that.

Eve: [00:16:05] And then usual concept equals probably no bank interested? Is that right?

Anne: [00:16:13] I think the banks, you know, typically will want to see operating income, right? So, we’ve reached out to some lenders. We have a fantastic relationship with a bank here in San Francisco, does a lot of real estate stuff, and we’ve tested the waters for them of when in our sort of timeline, we might be able to to leverage that. And now most likely, that would be after we open doors. Right now, it looks like a very sort of good net operating income. And so, we would likely be able to get a loan off of that, you know, within the first few years.

Eve: [00:16:49] So, full disclosure, you’ve listed this project on Small Change as a crowdfunding raise for the first phase of it. So, that’s a pretty bold move in amongst all of this. Lots of bold moves here.

Anne: [00:17:06] Yeah, I mean, it felt right. You know, the essence of the Alchemy brand is positive transformation. And that ties back to this idea of alchemy, right? And, you know, we want our space to be a place where people feel transformed, right? But that’s also important to us as a company for our employees, right? We want this to to have improved people’s lives, right? So, there’s things we have, like we’re paying more than minimum wage and giving health care benefits to people that work, you know, I think it’s 30 hours a week, not 40. But the other side of that is that we want to make sure we’re positively transforming the community that we’re in. And so, for us, part of that was allowing San Francisco, or anyone, to own a piece of Alchemy. If it’s for the community, why should the community not benefit from us being here.

Eve: [00:18:07] I love that idea. So, I’m also going to ask you about, this is sort of an edge neighborhood, right? Between a pretty rough one, slightly rough, I don’t know, changing, and one that’s more established. And I’m just wondering how you’re planning to include that community in this space. And, you know, how that will work. I mean, if you’re really going to emulate that mayor’s desire to have a place for community, how does it look there?

Anne: [00:18:38] Yeah, there’s a few things that we’re exploring. And obviously, you know, it’s early days – we’re three years out. But there’s a couple of things. So, built in, right now, we have some sort of basic community programming of offering up our space before we open. So, our opening hours are 10:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. But there is an opportunity to give our back gardens. You know, we’ve got a sort of a Zen meditation garden and a back dining patio. We could absolutely offer that up to the community to host free events. We have a round-up at purchase, which we want to partner with local community groups and give guests the option to sort of round-up and donate to some groups that align with our sort of mission and vision and values. And then the third thing, which, it’s early days but I’m quite excited to pursue this opportunity, is almost sort of kitty corner to us. At the intersection of Post and Hyde, is at-risk Youth Navigation Center that’s just being developed. It was just rented by the city for 20 years. And when I learned about this, I spoke with one of our advisors, who’s the president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and he said, you know, these centers have more bark than bite. And usually, neighbors are afraid that they’re coming into their neighborhood. But a big light bulb went off for me, that this was, actually, an incredible opportunity for us to partner with a group like that and provide job training, apprenticeships, you know, training these these at-risk youth in service industries. So, I’m incredibly excited to pursue that. And I think we could be a sort of model business citizen for how we embrace and support those centers popping up in our neighborhoods.

Eve: [00:20:32] Yeah, I’m sure you’re going to find lots of other opportunities too as you move along. You’ve barely started, right? What about some of the challenges you’ve been confronted with? You said lots of twists and turns. I think finding a building sounded like a really big challenge,

Anne: [00:20:47] Having been new to this, a few years ago, you know, there’s always this chicken or egg scenario you run into, which is, you can’t raise money without the space and you can’t get the space without the money. So, it’s this dance of timing and, you know, unfortunately, we’ve just missed out on some spaces when some of the, you know, initial capital couldn’t come through. So that was certainly one. And then another one was obviously Covid. There was a lot of initial sort of knee-jerk reaction to anything in hospitality and, you know, bath houses. And, you know, is that safe and clean? And, you know, from that standpoint we’re really lucky in that, you know, all of these spas and bath houses have had to convert a lot of their amenities and their procedures around hygiene to now meet new standards. Well, we can design from the beginning, so in a way, we’re three years out, right? So, you know, knock on wood, hopefully we’ll be out of this by then. So that was another major twist and turn. And then the other one on a on a personal level, which, you know, has deep meaning for me in this project, is a dedication to my mother who passed. And she passed away two years ago now, and she passed from cancer. It was her fourth one. She beat three different stage one cancers prior to that across ten years. But from her first cancer onwards, when she’d find out, she would go to Esalin, this beautiful retreat center in Big Sur, and she really found her acceptance and peace in nature. And that was absolutely a huge inspiration for Alchemy Springs and this sort of element of bringing nature indoors. And so, I promised her that she would have her own little heart shaped rock in our gardens and it would be one of her resting places for her ashes. So there has been nothing insurmountable. I have had the most incredible determination to make this happen in her honor so, from a personal standpoint, that was another setback. But also, what has super-charged me to bring this to life.

Eve: [00:23:07] I’m sure she’d be super proud of you.

Anne: [00:23:09] Yeah.

Eve: [00:23:10] So Alchemy Springs is a big new beginning for you. Right? But what’s your big hairy, audacious goal?

Anne: [00:23:18] Wow, what’s my big, hairy, audacious goal? I mean, I would love for Alchemy Springs to just be the first flagship location of a bunch of Alchemys across the country and to use this brand and these spaces as one of many ways to bring the community together around social bathing. So, there’s, you know, different communities out there for the spa industry and sort of the business end, but there are people across the country that are really into this ritual and little micro communities, you know, in all these cities, but we’re not all coming together as one. And so, another grand vision of ours is to pull this community together, you know, online and kind of connect the global bathing community across the U.S., maybe even internationally, so.

Eve: [00:24:14] That’s a pretty big goal.

Anne: [00:24:16] Yeah.

Eve: [00:24:18] Well, my goal is to come out there in three years and try it. So, that’s my goal.

Anne: [00:24:22] I know, I keep saying, phew, with this ride, I’m going to need it at the end of it. So,

[00:24:28] Yes, that’s right

[00:24:28] …selfish reasons. I’m going to need a spa at the end of this.

Eve: [00:24:33] Well, thanks so much, Anne. It sounds like a fantastic project. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Anne: [00:24:40] Thank you. We’re really excited and we’re thrilled to be raising money on Small Change. And I just can’t wait to see how it goes.

Eve: [00:24:48] Me, too. Bye.

Anne: [00:24:50] Bye. Thank you.

Eve: [00:24:56] That was Anne Nickel Cannady. Anne is challenging herself with a project that brings all her skills to play and more. The plan is ambitious – a social community bathhouse. The building is ambitious – the transformation of an historic warehouse into a biophilic wonderland. The location is ambitious – a neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification. And the financing is ambitious – she’s raising funds through crowdfunding on my funding platform, SmallChange.co. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Eve: [00:25:40] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at rethinkrealestateforgood.co, or you can support us at patreon.com/rethinkrealestate for the price of a cup of coffee. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Anne Nickel Cannady

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

sign up here

APPLY TO BE A PODCAST GUEST

More to See

(no title)

February 22, 2025

Bellevue Montgomery

February 11, 2025

West Lombard

January 28, 2025

FOLLOW

  • LinkedIn
  • RSS

Tag Cloud

Affordable housing Climate Community Creative economy Crowdfunding Design Development Environment Equity Finance FinTech Gentrification Impact Investing Mobility Offering Opportunity zones PropTech Technology Visionary Zoning

Footer

©rethinkrealestateforgood.co. The information contained on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this website is intended as investment, legal, tax or accounting strategy or advice, or constitutes an offer to sell, solicit or buy securities.
 
Any projections discussed or made may not be accurate and do not guarantee a specific outcome. All projections or investments are subject to risk due to uncertainty and change, including the risk of loss, and past performance is not indicative of future results. You should make independent decisions and seek independent advice regarding investments or strategies mentioned on this website.

Recent

  • The Mulberry
  • Mount Vernon Plaza
  • The Seven
  • Real estate and women.
  • Oculis Domes.

Search

Categories

Climate Community Crowdfunding Development Equity Fintech Investing Mobility Proptech Visionary

 

Copyright © 2026 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in