Agents Building Cashflow

EP 183: Transforming Real Estate with Data and Technology with Bob Knakal

• Bob Knakal

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Bob Knakal, a veteran real estate broker with an unparalleled track record of over 2,329 transactions in New York City, worth approximately $22 billion, shares his journey of building successful brokerages, including Massey Knakal Realty Services, and discusses how technology, data integrity, and formal prospecting plans revolutionize modern real estate brokerage. 

He emphasizes the importance of relationships, client-centric strategies, and adapting to market challenges like distressed office spaces. Dive into this episode to uncover timeless wisdom and innovative strategies from one of NYC’s real estate legends!

Key takeaways to listen to:

  • Leveraging proprietary data to deliver insights that enhance client decisions.
  • Streamlining prospecting and deal execution with advanced technology.
  • Highlighting the critical role of consistent data methodology in market predictions.
  • Tackling challenges of distressed properties with creative solutions.
  • Scaling small brokerage teams with technology to achieve big results.

About Bob Knakal

Bob Knakal has been a broker in NYC since 1984. Over that time, he has brokered the sale of over 2,329 buildings having a market value of approximately $22 billion. For 26 years of those years (1988-2014), he owned and ran Massey Knakal Realty Services which sold more than 3x the number of properties as the #2 firm in NYC from 2001-2014. Running the firm with a Servant Leadership management style, focusing on empowering everyone on the team, intensely training them, and building their self-esteem, led to this overwhelmingly dominant platform. The firm was sold to Cushman & Wakefield in 2014 for $100 million.

The Massey Knakal Legacy is illustrated by the fact that today in the New York City investment sales market, there are 30 companies, or divisions of companies, that are either owned by or run by, folks who learned the business at Massey Knakal. Bob is a prominent thought leader in the commercial real estate business, frequently writing about the market, lecturing on the market, and appearing on podcasts and national television shows on networks like Fox, CNBC, and MSNBC.

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Bob Knakal: [00:00:00] And remarkable to me, the overwhelming majority of brokers do not have a formal prospecting plan. And, you know, prospecting is putting gasoline in the engine of the car. Without a prospecting plan, I don't know how you're able to get business consistently. And I would say, you know, if you've been in the business for a long time, you can certainly make a lot of deals and make a lot of money without having a formal prospecting plan.

But I would bet if you don't have one and you implement one, you're going to two X or three X your earnings. It's that simple. 

Intro: If you're a real estate agent earning 200, 000 a year, and you want to grow your passive income, this show is for you. Learn secrets other agents use and hear from experts in our field who will guide you on your journey to investing in assets like apartment communities, so you can take your commissions and turn them into cash flow.

Here's your host, Randall. Let's dive 

Randal McLeaird: in. All right. Welcome back. Today. We have an awesome guest and Bob Nackel. If you haven't heard of him, you should have. He is [00:01:00] a monster broker in the New York city market. And he's been working in that market since 84 wealth and knowledge, obviously seeing different market cycles up and down.

We had him for a short period of time. So it's a quick hit interview and conversation. But again, he is some of the things that he's working on and how he has gone from running his own shop. In the nineties and growing that to over 250 person team to working with some big names like JLL and leaving that.

And now he's opening his new shop, BKREA. com. Go check it out how it is growing a brokerage back then and now and how they're using technology. To find the best deals and the best information for their clients and customers. It's incredible. So if you're getting something out of the show, please go on rate and review.

It helps us bring on some amazing guests, just like Bob today. And so give us a, a, like a thumbs up and leave a comment. We're reading the comments. If there's something that you would like to hear about or learn about, please leave a comment [00:02:00] there and we will certainly respond to you and hopefully we can get that information on the show.

So let's jump into the conversation. Here we go. Here's Bob. All right, Bob, it is great to have you on the show. I appreciate you taking the time today to talk to us. I know you're very busy. You just said that you're moving into the new house. So you got things going on there and your new brokerage and that sort of thing.

So again, thanks for jumping on. Looking forward to the conversation. 

Bob Knakal: Sure thing, Randall. Great to be with you today. 

Randal McLeaird: All right. So what I want to do is kick it off, like we were just talking, I want to talk about, you know, you've done over 23, I don't know where you're at now, 2300 transactions in the New York market, wealth of experience over years and years and years.

So I kind of want to break it down. You went from starting your own shop, working with some of the big names, and then now starting your own shop again. So what is it like growing a brokerage right now today in this market in 2024? And just speak to that a little bit and then we'll kind of jump off from there.

Bob Knakal: Sure. Well, you know, very, very different from when we started Massey Nackel back in 1988. You know, back then, technology was, uh, in its infancy. I mean, back to [00:03:00] 84, when I started, we had no fax machine, no computers on the desk, not even a cell phone. By 88, we had cell phones, which was neat, and a fax machine, but still had no computer on my desk.

And so, you know, the world has changed very dramatically over the last 40 years. And so today we are, we're using technology very, very significantly in starting the new business. But, you know, it's interesting as much as things have changed, they've basically stayed the same as well. In a lot of ways, I mean, this business is all about information and, you know, I've always said the real estate brokerage business is not the real estate business.

It's really the information and relationship business and those fundamentals haven't changed. You have to have good proprietary information and to the extent you have Data that others don't have that is a significant competitive advantage and a differentiator and you have to build relationships with people and, uh, you know, those things are consistent.

Now, the way [00:04:00] that we do those things, the way we gather information, process information. Disseminate information is very, very different based on technology and how we can use technology to make that whole process more efficient and effective. But relationship building is the same as it's always been.

Technology really doesn't help you build relationships. You have to do that the old fashioned way, but very, very excited. And, you know, a lot of people ask me about the difference between working at a big company, working at a small company, or for yourself. And I say, look, there are pros and cons to every single thing.

There are pros to working at a big shop, and a small shop, and medium sized shop, and for, you're working for yourself, working for another company. So I think I, I tell people that try to take advantage of all the positive things that your environment affords you. Try to stay out of the way of the negative things, because there are negative things associated with every one of those platforms as well.

But just try [00:05:00] to do the best you can to increase the probability that you're going to create successful results for your clients. And at the end of the day, it's all about your client and, uh, you know, each of those different types of platforms gives you different ways to help your client achieve their objectives.

Randal McLeaird: Yeah, it's interesting. I've never worked for a big brokerage or anything and been a broker for years and friends of mine have worked at Marcus Millichap and some of these other big names and seeing the pro con work out in real life, you know, it's one of those things like I can go play golf whenever I want, do some things I want to do whenever it's a lifestyle decision.

So certainly pros and cons there, but good advice. So. Again, one of the things that you spoke about in an article or something I was reading was how you can operate as if you have a hundred person, 200 person team with a lot fewer people now, because you have technology that you're implementing, obviously that doesn't take away from the outreach, you know, wearing out the shoe leather, going to buildings, walking properties, that sort of thing.

[00:06:00] But how are you using technology specifically that is allowing you to keep your team size? At a small scale, rather than scaling up to 200 people. 

Bob Knakal: Right. You know, when we sold Massey Nackel, we had 250 people and there were a lot of moving parts and a lot of, uh, headaches associated with that. Not easy to run a brokerage business.

So I have a dozen people now. I think that somewhere between 15 and 20 is probably the ideal size for a boutique shop. And I think based on the way technology is today. Those 15 or 20 people can probably do what it used to take a hundred to do. And that we're using technology in three main ways today.

One is on the prospecting front, make prospecting more broad, more effective. And we're using it on the deal execution front again, the deal execution really is a funneling process and technology helps make that funneling process much [00:07:00] easier, more effective. And then we're using it on the data interpretation front.

And that's really where I think technology is the most exciting, because the data interpretation, data is everything. Look, the better your data is, the better position you can put clients in to make informed decisions. And again, it's all about the client. So if you have great data, you can convey that to a client.

They can make better decisions, get better outcomes, better results. And so the potential power of technology is just remarkable. I mean, AI can do millions of calculations a second, but the challenge for the real estate industry is that most data sets in our industry are not very good. And if you don't have great data with very, very high integrity, no matter how great your algorithms are and your AI models are, it's not going to produce good results.

So one of the things that I like is, you know, I've been a, a statistics guy, my, my whole [00:08:00] career, uh, I've been tracking the market since 1984 and, uh, the methodology that we've used to calculate our data has been consistent for that 40 years. You know, I, I see many different companies, you know, they bring in.

There's huge turnover within their research groups, and if, uh, you know, a new, new research head comes in, they have a different philosophy about the way to do things. And that might not sound like a big deal, but, you know, if you're calculating cap rates, are you using trailing 12 or using forward 12? How are you handling vacancies?

Are you making projections? What are you using to make those projections? What's your stabilized vacancy factor? You know, if you're not doing the calculations the same exact way each time, then the relationship between the data in the data set loses completely its integrity. And as I always say, it's not really the absolute numbers in real estate statistics don't really matter that [00:09:00] much.

It's more whether the numbers are going up and down and how they relate to things. For instance, if I tell you that in Manhattan in 2019, the dollar volume of sales was 26. 3 billion. You really don't know what to think about that number. Until I tell you that at the peak of the market in 2015, it was 57.

4 billion. And in 2010, during the pandemic, it was 11. 1 billion. All of a sudden, the 26. 3 starts to have some feel to it. And so it's really that relationship. Are the numbers going up? Are they going down? To what extent are they going up? Are they going down? And if you haven't used the same methodology every single time, For every data point in the data set, there is no relationship between the numbers.

So for the numbers to be insightful, for statistics to be insightful, and for technology, and namely AI, to be effective in being predictive about what's happening in the market or what might happen in the market, you have to have a [00:10:00] data set that has high integrity. And that's very, very, very rare. In the commercial real estate industry.

Randal McLeaird: So going back from when you started, were you tracking and the data set that you have, were you able to load it into? Your own proprietary AI. And that's what you're using. Cause I know some real estate guys that are doing something along those lines, they're building out their own internal AI. Yeah, 

Bob Knakal: that's what we're doing.

The first data set we're doing has to do with land values in Manhattan. And, um, most companies in New York will tell you that, you know, last year, Manhattan land sold for X dollars per buildable square foot, which is generally the metric that folks use. But blending all types of land together is like me telling you that the average price of a peach, a bowling ball, and a two by four last year was eleven and a half dollars.

Yeah. It's completely meaningless. Yeah. Uh, so we've disaggregated the data into residential rental land, residential condo land, hotel, office, and then a miscellaneous bucket [00:11:00] for education, healthcare, and anything that doesn't fit into the first four buckets. so much. And we have that data going back to 1984.

So we've been working with two data scientists for about a year now, and looking at the fluctuations in each of those buckets, in terms of value, and comparing them to things that you would expect us to compare it to, like within each of those buckets, if it's rental land, for instance, well, let's look at how rents have fluctuated.

Let's look at how occupancies have fluctuated. Let's look at how policy has changed. But then we're also comparing those value fluctuations to a significant bucket of macroeconomic factors, interest rates, inflation, lending rates, S& P 500, Dow Jones, price of gold, price of oil, and consumer 30 different metrics that we're comparing these value fluctuations to.

And we believe that. The model should be able to come up with [00:12:00] predictive information so that in looking at what metric or basket of metrics will be predictive of changes in direction in the market. So maybe it will come out that, you know, if interest rates drop 75 basis points and the price of eggs go up by 15%, the office land market is going to rally in nine months, who knows what it's going to come up with, but it has the capability to do it.

We have a tremendous integrity within our data set. So, you know, we're right on the verge of coming up with conclusions and, uh, really excited to see what it's going to come up with. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah, it is exciting. I mean, I have it down here to ask you, help me understand how you're able to trace the changes in rates to the price of oil to hotel land.

Something that you, you talked about. I'm like, okay, 

Bob Knakal: So, I don't know. Look, we have data sets, right? The price of oil, there's a price of a barrel of oil every single day for the past 40 years. There's a price of gold. These are all definitive [00:13:00] numbers. There's no guesswork involved. So, when we let the models do their thing, where are the correlations?

You know, often you have these macroeconomic things can either be a lead indicator or trailing indicator, but the model should figure it out. And we're going to be really, really curious to see what comes out of it. And importantly, it will enable us to give our clients better insight into where the market is headed.

And that's what everybody wants to know. Everybody knows where the market was. But everybody wants to know where the market's going. And I think we will be positioned to help clients make more informed decisions 

Randal McLeaird: based upon having this additional data. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, again, I think it's incredible in hearing what some of the guys, I know there's a big industrial guy, he has a big podcast that I listened to, but he's at a Dallas and just hearing some of the stuff that they're working on.

And how they have implemented it, not just for the data of properties, but for their workflows. And so if Johnny's supposed to be working on X, Y, [00:14:00] and Z, and they have a meeting and it doesn't actually, you know, are we working towards the goal that we told AI we're working toward? And it'll give them a feedback on, no, you're not working on the most important thing you should be working on today.

So it's incredible. And so one other question I have on this front is. You said two data scientists, right? So my question was, how are you getting to the point to where you have this thing that's able to execute the search function or provide you some of the actual forward looking data that you're looking for for your clients?

And so it sounds like it took quite a bit. You're building a whole system. Yeah, we've 

Bob Knakal: been working on this for three years and what's taking so long, I've been talking about this for a while, but in the Manhattan land market, there's a data set of 2, 417 development site sales that have occurred since 1984.

And we're going through each one of those. To vet each one, and that sample is growing every week, there are new transactions happening. So we're, but we are narrowing in on it. The models [00:15:00] we think are functioning the way we expect them to function. We put dummy data sets into the models just to see that they functioning properly.

And we literally are, uh, hopefully just within a month away from getting it finalized. 

Randal McLeaird: I guess where I'm going with it is knowing how much energy and effort you've put into it. How difficult would it be for a broker in another market to replicate? It's like, I see you, you open shop and you are still cold calling still.

I mean, based, you know, it's like, so, you know, It takes a lot. You have a very deep knowledge base of the New York market that you are building this out in. So I'm just wondering, do you feel like it would be able to be replicated in another market if a broker's listening to this, you know? 

Bob Knakal: Yeah, I think anyone can do it.

You know, I've gotten a lot of traction with my, uh, NACL map room. And anyone can do that. A kid right out of college could replicate it. But it took me 220 hours in the field, and that was at a time where the city was [00:16:00] completely dead, there was no one around. It probably would take between 500 and 1, 000 hours in the field if somebody were to do it today.

But hey, if you want to go do it, go for it. You can do it just like I did. Uh, but then that needed to be followed up with thousands of hours of research, which we've put in. Um, anyone can replicate it. Anybody can do it. It just, you know, I had 22 boxes of old data that I've gone through to weed out all the development site comps and all the information we had, and, you know, we've been tracking the market since the mid eighties and so, and I've kept most, if not all of that.

And a number of the, the old things that were rattling around in those boxes are on a new website. I put together bobknackle. com, which has 40 years of sales history of the New York City marketplace. So, um, yeah, can it be replicated? Absolutely. It just requires a lot of work, a lot of thought. And again, [00:17:00] relying on your own data so that, you know, methodology was the same.

Like for instance, if you have, if you're disaggregating sales in the market into different product types and you have 10 apartments above a store, well, is that an apartment building or is that a mixed use building? Which bucket does it go into? And if you say, well, that's mixed use. Well, the Empire State Building has stores on the ground floor also.

Is that a mixed use building or is that an office building? How are you quantifying it? Is there a percentage of retail that above or below determines which bucket it goes in? If you haven't looked at the data consistently over the period of time which you're analyzing it, then it really is a 

Randal McLeaird: meaningless effort.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, let's move into, uh, Again, you're setting up shop, you're, you're growing your brokerage right now, you're getting, uh, getting things going. What strategies, again, tactics that, but again, so you've, you've seen the, the 80s, 90s, you've been in the business for a long time. I [00:18:00] guess, what are some of the tried and true tactics that have worked over time that anyone either starting their brokerage to grow a team or agents looking for more business can implement now to start earning more business?

Bob Knakal: Yeah. Well, I think it's having that proprietary data set so you can convey to people what's happening in the market. So you can answer the most frequently asked question a broker gets, which is how's the market. You can answer that with statistics rather than adjectives, which 99 percent of the brokers in the marketplace will answer with adjectives.

Anyone can do that. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah. 

Bob Knakal: The answer was statistics. you come off as knowing. What is happening in the marketplace. So I think have good data that you're relying on. Make sure you have a formal prospecting plans. Remarkable to me, the overwhelming majority of brokers do not have a formal prospecting plan and, you know, prospecting is putting gasoline in the engine of the car without a, a prospecting plan.

I don't know how you're able to, [00:19:00] uh, To get business consistently. And I would say, you know, if you've been in the business for a long time, you can certainly make a lot of deals and make a lot of money without having a formal prospecting plan. But I would bet if you don't have one and you implement one, you're going to 2x or 3x your earnings.

And it's just, it's that simple. Sorry to cut you off. What's 

Randal McLeaird: a NACL 

Bob Knakal: prospecting plan 

Randal McLeaird: look like? 

Bob Knakal: Well, I have, uh, for instance, let's look at development sites. I sell a lot of development sites. I've identified in Manhattan, uh, south of 96th Street, 649 development site targets that I'm going after. I want to make sure I call all those folks every quarter.

So I've actually prioritized them from number one through 649. And the first day of every quarter I go to number one. I work my way through the list. If I get all the way through it within the quarter, I'll either start at the top again, or go on to a secondary list of folks that I'm prospecting to. And if I only get down to five 43, the first day of the next quarter, I go back to number one.

So I'm making sure I'm hitting all my [00:20:00] top prospects every quarter. And my goal is to connect with a hundred owners a week. Make sure I'm getting in front of them and I write everything down. You know, my, my tech stack or whatever they call it. Here's my tech stack. Nice. , just, you know, a line paper I write every CM is, 

Randal McLeaird: uh, 

Bob Knakal: is on.

Yeah. Yellow pads all over the place. It's very old school, but it works for me. Yeah. Um, so however you track it, whether you track it on your computer and your CRM on paper, whatever, most important thing is to actually make the calls. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah. So, um. 

Bob Knakal: You know, I think that, um, that is a, a key to success. And then the other thing you have to watch out for is the killer of brokerage businesses is overhead.

So you have to be very, very mindful of your expenses. Uh, we're making a lot of deals with folks that, uh, if they're providing services to us and maybe that service costs [00:21:00] 000, we're saying, you know what, provide the service. And if we get the assignment and sell the building, rather than paying you two or 3, 000 upfront, we'll pay you 10, 000.

If we sell the property. Keeps control on overheads, better deal for them, better deal for us. You have to be very thoughtful about the way that you're running the business because overhead is the killer. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. Gives them the incentive and then they're part of the team really. And you're compensating them on, on an actual close.

Okay. So you've got answer stats, have a formal prospecting plan, and then on growing a team, you know, like what are some of the tips if someone's looking to add agents to their team? 

Bob Knakal: It's not just agents you want to add. You want to have support also. You know, I think most people who start a brokerage business.

Our Rainmakers themselves, they're very good at bringing in business. The business has to be executed, so I think when you're growing a team, it's important to figure out what you do best, not what you like most, but what you [00:22:00] do best. What makes you the most valuable to the team, and you should spend as much time as you possibly can doing that thing, and get other folks to do the things to support those efforts.

So it may be bringing on more brokers. It may be bringing on more support. It may be bringing on more admin. You know, we, as brokers, we have two main assets, knowledge and time. Going to spend your entire life growing your knowledge base, but you can't really make more time. So you have to use time more efficiently and effectively.

And the best way to do that is to. Look at all the things you do. And this is right out of Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan's books. Um, you know, figure out what you do best. Probably 20 percent of the stuff you do every day makes you the majority of your money. The other 80 percent of the stuff, either delegate it to someone else or stop doing it.

And that's the way you create a team, have the support to delegate to and focus on doing the things that are the most highly productive. 

Randal McLeaird: Yep. Great. Oh, there we go. So, all [00:23:00] right, let's talk about, I guess, asset classes that you're most interested in right now. And what do you see transacting in your market the most?

What's the hottest thing? You know, it looked like office is down quite a bit and so some deals are actually happening now. And then you were talking about this is going to be the most turnover you've seen in buildings since 2012 or sometime in that era. 

Bob Knakal: Yeah, I think starting next year, I think the floodgates are starting to open.

I think it will happen right after Labor Day. By the time folks are watching this, probably will be after Labor Day. But I think that we're going to see a lot of activity. We're focusing mainly on land and multifamily transactions, although we're doing a lot of office. Uh, we closed on an office building yesterday, closing another office building today.

And, you know, that market has been very starting to get robust because there's a lot of distress there, but that's an interesting point you bring up that, you know, what differentiates this correction from others is that different product types are performing differently. [00:24:00] Our industrial market is strong.

Unfortunately, it's a very narrow slice of the market. Our retail market is on the upswing the hotel market in New York is on the upswing multifamily is still challenged mainly because the refinance risk is forcing a lot of folks to do things they don't want to do. And then the new construction class a office is doing great, but the.

BNC office class is very challenged. You have buildings that were selling for seven, 800 a square foot that are selling for two and 300 a foot today. And because those buildings are selling at such a low cost basis, those owners are able to compete very, very effectively with the folks who have four or 500 a foot in debt on their properties.

So it's kind of creating a negative feedback loop for those folks and is going to precipitate a lot of activity happening. So, you know, I think it really varies product type to product type in terms of how the market's performing, but I do expect to see that the highest turnover we've ever had in Manhattan and south [00:25:00] of 96th street, there's 27, 649 buildings, the highest turnover we ever had.

Was 4. 3 percent of that stock in 2012 as people were rushing to beat the capital gains tax increase that was embedded in the health care law. And, uh, you know, I think that we could see turnover 5%, 5 percent plus. In 2025 or 2026, or maybe both based on the way the market's functioning today. Mainly 

Randal McLeaird: due to debt, correct?

The debt wall that, yeah. It's not another circumstance or legislation that's causing it in New York, is it? 

Bob Knakal: No, maybe 

Randal McLeaird: not. It 

Bob Knakal: depends. They'll see how the election goes. That could create, you know, if capital gains tax is going to go up significantly, that could create a very significant sell off in the market.

But I think notwithstanding that, You're going to have this dynamic. You have a lot of people with debt that's higher than the value of their property and that debt's at 3 or 3. 5%. Replacement debt today might [00:26:00] be, you know, in the sixes, over seven for certain product types. There's no way out. Yeah, there's no way out.

So it's going to be, um, you know, very interesting to see how things play out. But I do think there's going to be a very, very significant turnover of property ownership in New York City for the next couple 

Randal McLeaird: of years. There's a conference I'm going to. It's Blueprint. And it's all about, you know, Fintech and real estate technology and that sort of thing that's coming on.

And so I'm curious to see what happens. It's coming up in a couple weeks. But are you seeing any major, I guess, headway in the office to multifamily conversion? Because, you know, it's talked about, and I know a buddy of mine is doing one here in San Antonio, but it's not, the floor plates are just challenging.

And so I 

Bob Knakal: think that the BNC office stock in New York City is going to disaggregate into three basic buckets. One will be, they're going to stay office. And while I said new construction class a office is doing relatively well, [00:27:00] every tenant can't pay 250 a square foot. So there has to be a low cost provider.

Some of these buildings will be upgraded and we'll stay office. There will be a pool of them that will be converted to residential. The government is providing incentives for that to happen, and it does make sense for a lot of buildings. Other buildings it does not make sense for, physically you just can't do it.

And if you look at the cost of some of these buildings, values are getting so low that even when you layer on demolition costs. These properties are trading for less than land value. So I think a number of buildings will be demolished. That's the third bucket. But you know, very, very interesting to see what's going on in that BNC office sector today.

Randal McLeaird: Okay, we're getting to the end. I'm going to ask you what you're doing with your money and your investments because Part of the show is like agents, grow your cashflow, grow your active income, and then turn around and invest in some either alternative assets that we talk about a lot on the [00:28:00] show, syndications, funds, that sort of thing.

So, Mr. Knackle. 

Bob Knakal: Yeah, what do you do? I gotta tell you, I'm the most boring investor that you'll come across. You know, I feel like I gamble every day when I go into work. I've never gotten a salary check in 40 years, so I'm very, very conservative once I've, I've made money. You know, I've never bought real estate because I always believed it was a conflict of interest.

So I don't buy real estate. I don't buy stocks. I buy basically triple tax free bonds and treasuries. And, you know, very, very boring and conservative with my investments. 

Randal McLeaird: That's fantastic. But, you know, you have your lane. You stay in it. I've had many conversations with some top producers and, you know, I have that question.

I'm like, okay, are you investing in your own asset class that you're selling? And how do you even manage that? And it's always a challenge, sticky situation. So, uh. Yeah. I 

Bob Knakal: mean, I, I always, you know, for the 26 years and 46 days that we owned and ran Massey Nackel every waking moment, I was thinking [00:29:00] about ways to make that company valuable.

Didn't want to think about, you know, my own real estate investments. And then subsequent to that. I just really felt like it was a conflict of interest and I never wanted to answer the question, you know, if you become known as a buyer, you know, if I offer a property to a potential investor, I never wanted to have them ask me the question, Hey, Bob, if this is such a great deal, why aren't you buying it?

And you know, some brokers look, that is just something that's worked for me. I'm not trying to lecture anybody. I know a number of brokers that buy property also, and they've done extraordinarily well. It's just something that doesn't work for me. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah. I mean, I am a broker, but I only do the investing side of the business.

I don't do brokerage, you know, so it is the same thing. We've had these opportunities to list people's properties and it comes back to, you know, if I was going to pay you 40 percent of what I think you could list it for, then it doesn't make sense. Why would you let, you know, so it's one of those things, but yeah.

Well, Hey, Bob, I'm going to let you go. It's been awesome catching up with you. I appreciate you jumping on, sharing your time [00:30:00] with us and your knowledge and information, obviously a wealth of experience. I could ask you a ton of questions, but I want to get you on your way so we can respect your time. So thanks again for jumping on.

Bob Knakal: Randall, great to be with you today. And if anyone has any questions, you can always email me at BK at BKREA. com. Go to BKREA. com or website or bobknuckle. com and, uh, always happy to answer your questions or talk real estate. 

Randal McLeaird: Yeah, definitely. Check out the website. I'm on here looking at your map room and I'm like, this thing is, it's legit.

I had some people in my office yesterday and they were like, you got to get maps all over the place. I jump on your site. You've got, so it's true. It's helpful. So again, thanks for jumping on. Uh, we'll put all your contact info in the show notes. So if people want to reach out to you directly, they certainly can and should do so.

Bob Knakal: Randall, take good care. 

Randal McLeaird: You too. Take care. Bye. Bye. Did you know that 80 percent of the agents we speak with got into real estate in order to gain passive income so they could obtain financial freedom and become work optional? If you want to stay up to date, the best [00:31:00] way is to make sure you're subscribed.

So if you haven't done that, go ahead and do it now. We'll catch you on the next episode.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Randal McLeaird

Host
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Bob Knakal

Guest