Ex-REPE-GC

10 yrs RE finance- acquisitions and development. $500m+ in MF/office/industrial deals. Market dried up. Now I run jobsites as a GC PM.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

In PE, it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.

In construction it’s about what you know.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

@jamesonhaslam Walked a job with a roofer this week who was wearing them. They were acquired by PE 2 years ago and he said they got meta glasses for all PMs. Also said their estimating app on the iPad records all audio. 😬

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Comments on this post cut deep.

[EB (Derogatory, Respectfully) @EllliotttB]

CRE Reddit is dire

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

@EllliotttB Wait are you saying it’s not that bad? I pivoted to construction like an idiot.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Thought I was fluent in English (my native tongue) until I started working in construction.

Learning new words every day.
Fascia, purlin, lintel, mullion, screed.

Really stepping up my Scrabble game.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

@CaitlinCloud9 -not pretending to run/jog when a car waits for you at a crosswalk to show that you value their time

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

@ThinkAppraiser Hot take

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

If you make $100k/mo buying and running small businesses, why are you trying to hard to get me to buy your book/class?

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Was let go from a vp of finance role for a developer in 2024. Interest rates killed the pipeline, nothing penciled.

Was extremely tempted to tap my
HELOC & buy an HVAC business.

Decided against it and got a job as a PM for a GC instead. The HVAC route would’ve been a disaster.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Conversely, a scrappy A player with ~$200k can get started in the trades and have a decent shot at success. A scrappy A player with ~$200k can do very little in the world of investments (unless he or she has a robust contact list and loves to raise capital).

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

The average mid-level real estate PE guy has a much better income and lifestyle than the average high-level tradesman.

Not particularly close.

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Bought into the “buy a business/go into the trades” rhetoric

Wanted to test it out first. Buying a business is capital intensive and results are not guaranteed.

Originally got into RE investment as a career to learn on someone else’s dime. Why not do the same with the trades?

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

So it’s not just me

[Moses Kagan @moseskagan]

With real estate deals so hard to get done right now, many operators are eyeing the businesses that surround our buildings: property management, construction, repair, and other services we already pay for. Controlling one or more of those services, and the cashflow streams they generate, is an appealing idea.

But is it a good one? Small business entrepreneurship is its own discipline, with its own deal structures, return profiles, and risks. Done wrong, it can distract from your core real estate business and, in extremis, damage your relationships with your partners.

For Reconvene ‘26, we’ve invited two experts on the SMB space to come hash these issues out with our attendees in an off-the-record Breakout.

Jackie Ossin Hirsch is a licensed business broker and founder of Crowne Atlantic Business Brokers, with 28 years of experience and more than 400 transactions since 1998. She focuses on construction, manufacturing, and service businesses in the $750K–$10MM EBIT range, and speaks nationally on business brokerage. Jacob Hall is the Managing Partner of Kando Capital, which makes minority equity investments in lower middle market buyouts, and teaches graduate-level courses in Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition at UT Austin's McCombs School of Business.

Their ~50 minute, off-the-record session will cover:

- The Appeal of Adding a Small Business: Unlike buildings, these businesses are often small enough to buy or build without outside investors, meaning you keep control and all of the cash flow
- The Opportunity Set: The types of businesses that surround real estate (property management, maintenance, HVAC, etc.) and which ones might be particularly good fits
- Fiduciary Duties and Conflicts of Interest: If you own buildings with third-party investors, or manage buildings for third-party owners, what are the implications of starting or buying an ancillary business that serves those buildings?
- Buy vs. Build: The trade-off between acquiring an existing business and starting one from scratch, especially when your own portfolio of buildings could serve as the new company's first customers
- Why Buying is So Appealing: A discussion of the standard price ranges for these kinds of smaller business, and what those prices mean for projected returns
- Structuring an Acquisition: How the standard capital stack works in these deals, and how it impacts both returns and the buyer's likelihood of success

Again, this session is totally off-the-record, so we can fully address all of these issues, including the fiduciary conflicts, with no punches pulled. And it’s not intended to be a lecture: many of you already operate ancillary businesses, and we're asking audience members to come ready to share their own experiences, good and bad.

Does this sound good? Reconvene is three days of conversations like this one, with people who love this business as much as you do.

For more information about joining us in Santa Monica 10/6-10/8, visit https://t.co/cJJy5L9xJk

[Ex-REPE-GC @ExREPEGC]

Working for a family office doing multifamily development, I felt a sort of kinship and closeness to contractors and tradesmen that I thought would be mutual— like we’re all working together to build something.

It’s not reciprocated.