The CRE Connection · Samy Soussan

00:00 - Samy (Host)
Welcome to the Commercial Real Estate Connection Podcast, the place where we connect with the brightest minds in commercial real estate, uncovering their secrets, strategies and captivating stories. I'm your host, sami Sousan, here to serve as your guide and connector-in-chief on this exciting journey. Together, we'll dive deep into the world of commercial real estate, exploring the ins and outs of this dynamic industry. Our goal is to discover the true power of meaningful connections along the way, so get ready to plug in, engage and elevate your commercial real estate journey. Welcome back to another episode of the Commercial Real Estate Connection podcast.

00:40
Today, I'm joined by Logan Freeman. Logan is a mentor, a top commercial real estate broker, developer and thought leader with over $400 million in closed transactions across all assets multifamily land, retail, industrial. Logan, you are extremely reputable on. I've seen you on LinkedIn. I mean, I think, over 30,000 LinkedIn followers. I don't think I've seen someone with that many followers. You're known for your sharp thinking, strong execution, definitely at the forefront of bringing AI into commercial real estate. I'm excited to dig into that a little bit and it seems that you are really passionate about helping investors and operators gain edge in this market. We're really excited to host you on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, yeah well, I appreciate having me.

01:27 - Logan (Guest)
I'm energized, I'm thriving, I'm focused, I'm here and I'm excited to be here. I was just kind of thanking God before here and I was at an event last night. The event started with 25 minutes of worship. It was pretty wild A business event with seven, eight and nine-figure business owners. One of them got a guitar and started worshiping for 25 minutes and that's how we kicked it up. So we're just kind of coming off that high and also trying to think throughout the day how can I bring the best version of myself into this next conversation? I hope to be able to do just that today.

02:02 - Samy (Host)
I love that. That is actually inspiring. All right, logan, one thing I didn't mention and if it's okay if we could touch on this just for a minute before we dive in ex NFL player for the Raiders. Can you share a bit more about that for just a minute?

02:16 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, you bet you know I mean my whole life growing up really identified as an athlete. You know I didn't have the worst growing up but I didn't have this normal mother-father relationship. My parents didn't sleep in the same room. You could tell there was something going on when I would visit my friends. It was a different feel. My dad was a full Native American from North Carolina. He lived in a one-bedroom house on a tobacco farm with 13 brothers and sisters. They worked the farm. You have that many children. It's going to be tough to give all the kids the attention they need. We all know that some things happen within the tribes and there's a circle of challenges that certain groups go through. My dad definitely had some challenges with addiction to drugs and alcohol. I think I really poured myself into athletics growing up because it was a place where I could let out some anger and have some purpose and direction and I had all this energy that I needed to put in the right realm. I really appreciated sports and athletics. I think it's important for structure.

03:17
I had the opportunity to play college football at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, right outside of Kansas City. I went to a Division II school because I needed a scholarship. I started working when I was 14 years old baling hay and doing dishes at a catering business, and so when the D1 schools called and said, hey, you can walk on and earn your scholarship, I said I appreciate that, but you don't know where I come from. I need to be able to have some money. My family I've seen what debt can do bad debt to families and I don't want to get myself in that position. So I went and played football there, had a really great career and got picked up as an undrafted free agent after my senior season and, you know, went out to camp and, you know, was there for a few weeks and was able to make some cuts and beat some folks out. That was all great. But ultimately my tenure ended pretty quick and I had a decision to make, and I think this happens in all of our lives. You come to a crossroads, a decision point where you have to make a serious decision. How do you do that? Hopefully you have some guidance from either people or a higher power, whoever that is for you.

04:23
It was feeling in my heart that going back and continuing to play football really wasn't what God had in store for me right. And so I went back to school and finished my master's degree and you know, I think that when you get cut from something like that, it was humbling. In football you've got structure, identity, intensity, it's clear what winning looks like, and then suddenly you're out. That sense of purpose, that scoreboard, it's gone. I went through shame, frustration, a loss of identity. I chose to respond by rebuilding, one discipline at a time. I stopped chasing a title and started becoming the kind of man I could be proud of off the field. That was important for me in a big transition in my life. And I went back to school, had to get a job paying for my schooling because I wasn't on scholarship anymore. I was selling aggregated lists, scraped lists off of the internet, making 265 phone calls a day with an old school phone, entering the information into the CRM.

05:24
All I had done up to that point was pour concrete, bale hay, build walls, move bricks, do dishes. I got some business experience and it probably was the best thing that could have happened to me. I not only had a mental transformation, I had a physical transformation and I lost 120 pounds in six months. I went from 335 pounds to 210 pounds quickly. I talk a lot about physical wellness because I went back to rebuilding one discipline at a time. Well, that's something I could control at the time. Right, I couldn't control my father. I couldn't control making those cold calls. Necessarily, that's where I was, that's what I needed to do, but I could control my physical health. And so, you know, I graduate. I graduate with honors. I got my master's degree. I was the youngest franchise consultant that Jimmy Johns had ever hired. I was excited. It's the next chapter. I lost 120 pounds 24 years old.

06:18
Another one of those decision points happens. My father came up to Warrensburg to help me move out of school. You know, move out of the apartment. Right, he had a truck, but you know, he was 6'3", 245 pounds, could hit a golf ball 300 yards and dunk a basketball, and he couldn't walk up the stairs. You know, I knew something was wrong. Three weeks later, my dad died. He died of a stroke, he died of liver cirrhosis and he was gone Three weeks later. You can imagine somebody who was an athlete lost 120 pounds, got a new job, trying to start this new career and then your dad passes away. So it was this period of time. All these things happen and you have to figure out who you are, what you stand for and what's your purpose in life. Thank goodness I have people pushing me in the right direction, but that's a little bit about my story. Sammy, I'll let you ask any questions you want about that pushing me in the right direction, but that's a little bit about my story.

07:05 - Samy (Host)
Sammy, I'll let you ask any questions you want about that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Clearly, you have a strong sense of resilience, a strong sense of discipline all incredible values and something that I tremendously respect and appreciate. So thank you for sharing that story and sorry to hear about your data. I can imagine that that must really have impacted, especially at 24 years old. Yeah, it's not an easy experience to go through. So you had this incredible experience where you leveraged sports to build yourself up. Not only build yourself up, but also your future self and use that discipline to move forward. How do you get into real estate? Walk me through your steps.

07:42 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah Well, I think, like many people, you sort of fall into it a little bit, and that's exactly what happened to me. I moved to Kansas City. I buy a house, I renovate it myself. I was working for Jimmy John's. They ranked all of their franchise consultants from one to 85. At the time this was pre-private equity, when Jimmy still owned the franchise. I went to my boss and I said, hey, I'm top five in the system here. I'm a guy that likes to win. I'm competitive. I can show you Kobe Bryant's Mamba Mentality book right here. Tim Grover's winning Relentless George Mumford's books all of them.

08:17
I love it and he goes hey, you're the youngest guy in the company, you're going to have to put your time and your job. The next job is my job and I looked at what he was doing and I was like here's my two weeks on the phone, right there. No, thank you, I'm out. Didn't know what I was going to do, but I was networking in Kansas City and I wanted to be paid for my performance. So I went into a sales role. I joined a startup company and I started making 265 phone calls a day, you know, and I knew that for two and a half years we have some really good growth and I ended up leaving that company, meeting my wife through that company and going to what I thought was the next step. As a salesperson, I had a six figure salary for a gentleman of my my stature from Jefferson city, missouri, making $5.15 an hour, which, by the way, if you work 40 hours a week, is about $200. Take taxes out, you make $150 in a week. Think about that. That was a big leap. Well, 12 months later, I've realized that I think I'm unemployable. I think God sent me a strong message to say I know you're forcing yourself to be here at this company, but I have different plans for you, I have a different direction for you and I got fired.

09:31
I got fired from a job. The guy leading the sales training at the organization, doing what I thought I could to be successful the night before at 9 o'clock, says be in the office at 6 am. I brought my box with me and I was out. They had brought on a private equity firm and they let many people off. It wasn't just me. But at that point my wife and I didn't have any children and she she called and said hey, how'd it go? I said Well, I was fired and she's like Well, I got your back, check your email when you get home. So I did, and she had already started the LLC which is my holding company now. She's a great woman.

10:08 - Samy (Host)
And that allowed me to get a built in headhunter just for you. That's exactly right.

10:13 - Logan (Guest)
She's been a very, very good support system for me throughout all of these years. I wasn't really sold on real estate at the time yet I did what I know best. I went back to rebuilding and said I've done all this sales training. I've built CRM systems for the companies I've worked at. I grabbed Inc's fastest 5,000 growing company list and I called the first 2,500 of them, landed three full-time sales consulting clients making cold calls, setting up CRM systems, going to Orlando, florida and pitching their products, training their sales people.

10:43
One of my tours had landed a $50 million fund to buy single family homes for the BRRR strategy buy, renovate, rent out, refinance. They were doing it at scale. I launched this sales consulting company and I'm doing 12 homes a month for this fund. And I'm cold, I'm door knocking, I'm doing any, I'm Craigslisting it. I mean I'm, I'm hustling, I'm in the snow with boots making cash offers.

11:08
Six months in, my wife looked at me and one of her strengths well, talents that she has cultivated into a strength is strategic and mine is more like discipline and focus achiever, competition, learner and input. I just kind of pick a direction and go. She said it's great what you've been able to accomplish, but all you do is complain about this consulting and all you do is talk about real estate, and so I dissolved the sales consulting company. I finished that fund up about 200 plus homes and we were the sixth group in the country to go through a Corvus portfolio refinance. We pulled out 85% of the investor equity. They were still cash flowing.

11:46
I asked them to walk me through how they did that, and that's when I started to figure out other strategies within this real estate game that you can implement. I moved my license and I started doing commercial and multifamily. I was still doing brokerage but also starting to acquire some properties. And then that really ramped up right around the COVID period of time when people couldn't travel. We were here local in a good market and debt was 0% and basis were low before they skyrocketed, and so we were able to acquire quite a bit of real estate throughout that. So that's kind of my journey into the real estate sector from the W-2 job. I was forcefully entered into that through being fired from my last W-2 job.

12:24 - Samy (Host)
What a blessing in disguise, right? That's right, yeah. So now you end up in real estate. What does that start looking like for you? You begin as a broker and then doing some acquisitions. What does your day-to-day look like for Logan?

12:43 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, we are still owners, managers of around 600,000 square feet of commercial space. We have between 500 and 1,000 units. I am highly focused on development opportunities in the flex industrial space, as well as utilizing interesting municipality tools and mechanisms to create attainable housing in really great areas, which is a very difficult task to do. And so that's from the passionate project standpoint. My day-to-day really is I create markets for properties that don't have them or people don't know how to do it. I don't just list properties, I launch them as a product. There's a story behind every project and I utilize digital marketing, artificial intelligence and social media to get eyeballs and create that market.

13:25
I position properties, whether that be development opportunities, a sales process or a leasing process for a property owner. We bring those relationships and opportunities to those property owners. Additionally, we do a lot of portfolio performance audits right and so broker opinion of values pretty easy to do these days, pretty quick to do If an agent or a broker is taking more than seven days, and it's a straightforward deal. We try to go a little deeper and really say, if you have a portfolio of properties or a property, we are trying to say this is what needs to happen to position the property in three, six, nine months. We look at hold sale, refinance analysis, return on equity and then we give them an idea of what trading into new capital markets might look like. In the market they're looking to enter from an exchange standpoint I guess it's commercial real estate but it doesn't feel like that on a day-to-day basis.

14:24
Every single day I've got something from looking at a 500-acre beef processing plant to looking at farms, to looking at medical office buildings where I'm doing investment-grade energy audits to figure out how to reposition the properties, to understanding utility usage, looking at roofs and working with municipalities on reinvestment, housing, incentive districts and trying to figure out all of these different components. And I think what I do is take disaggregated information sets and I bring them together to create opportunities. I kind of call it manufacturing opportunity out of thin air. I truly think that's my skill set. Day-to-day is never the same, except for my morning routine. That's about all I have as a normal day for me. From five o'clock to nine o'clock is mine, and that is structured very diligently every single day.

15:16 - Samy (Host)
That's great and I'm sure that helps you launch your day properly. Once we start it right, you'll be able to continue right, absolutely, logan. You mentioned how there was some mentorship that helped shape your path and got you through some tough personal moments. Were there any key mentors or turning points that pushed you forward?

15:34 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely. I do believe that mentors are put in your life for a specific period of time and it doesn't need to be your mentor forever. I've had mentors in books. I would call Tim Grover a mentor of mine. I would call Ed Milet a mentor of mine. I would call Kobe Bryant a mentor of mine. What first started in books and audios, cds Zig Ziglar, jim Rohn, tony Robbins I had the CDs that I would listen to, and then I started to see that maybe there's people in my life that are living a life that I would want to live. Maybe I should ask them to meet with me, and so I started to do that. These things just kind of developed naturally. I've had mentors in the faith space a spiritual director, mentors in the business side real estate, business, entrepreneurship. I have mentors in the health space, not just physical health but mental health. I pay a licensed counselor on a monthly basis to see how's Logan doing. My wife calls me a robot quite a bit.

16:36
Logan, wake up, logan, do this. No emotion. And I really got into my feelings and my emotions and I've gotten raw and real and that's been. That's an awakening process, right. So I've got a mentor. A lot of these are paid mentors now, but in the beginning it was just people that I feel like God put in my life for a period of time. If you are ready and open and humble enough to receive that, they're probably around you. But I've had some really strategic mentors in tough parts of my life that have helped me along the way for sure.

17:06 - Samy (Host)
I love that you consider authors your mentors. I have the same sentiment. I believe you've got to be constantly learning and have that forward thinking. You don't really know everything right. You got to be constantly learning and have that forward thinking. You don't really know everything right. Those authors have a bird's eye view of experiences and allow you to shape your own life based on their experiences. One of the things that I value tremendously and I try to focus on in my personal life and in my business is relationships right? The podcast is called the CRE Connection. I founded that because I found that there's this intersection between relationships and real estate, or relationships and business. How have strong relationships helped you grow your business? What are some things that you look for in a great partner or business partner or someone that you want to align your values with?

17:50 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, relationships do two things. They either bring opportunities, which is what most people look for in a relationship, but I have found in my career and in my life that the relationships that help you solve problems are more important. The problem solving because they have been there, done that before, can really catapult you, not only in a business sense but in an emotional sense. For me, it's someone I'm trying to build a relationship with, living the life that I would want to live on my four foundations, which is my faith, my family, my fitness, physical and mental and then the future. Right, because there's many folks that may be excelling at one of those areas, but that's not success to me. You have to look at the holistic picture. If you can find someone who really succeeding across all those spectrums, they've got something figured out. Wayne Dyer talks about different levels of enlightenment. When you meet someone living that on every part of their life, life seems different for them, and that's the relationships that I'm trying to bring in. Work ethic is extremely important to me. I have had to reset my baseline expectations of how hard and tedious people will work. But if you're not willing to basically put in the work to work, the roadmap, that has been proven to be successful. I don't have a lot of patience that if you can help solve problems and you're a critical thinker and you've been there and done that, that's valuable. If you can bring opportunities, that's fantastic. But we need to be aligned in regards to faith, family fitness and future, to faith, family fitness and future. And then the third really being is this something that I believe that this other person may be willing to put the work in? That's a baseline that is hard to come by these days but is an easy way to set yourself apart. I told someone last night at that event it's really not that hard to win in this business maybe in any business because if you're just willing to work harder, but also a smart plan, you're probably going to get ahead. So those are the three things that I look for.

20:04
My top talent from Strength Finders that I've been working on cultivating is individualization. It truly does come naturally to me to size up what somebody's made of when I meet them. That is a God-given talent. It's a blessing and a curse, because it's easy to become judgmental as well. I have to make sure that I understand there are balconies to those talents and strengths, as well as basements. You have to make sure that you're not operating out of those basements on a regular basis. That takes a lot of reflection. It takes a lot of objective feedback from people who are willing to give it to you and not hurt your feelings, and then you have to be humble enough to receive that. But I think that relationships are. You know, I've built all my businesses on relationships. That is exactly what I think people need to be thinking about. You just have to create your own filter on what's important to you.

20:54 - Samy (Host)
Those are the things that I look for so faith, family fitness and future that's the four fundamentals. I love it Definitely in line with those values. You know, I'm very curious because you kind of talk a lot about systems and mindset. What are one or two frameworks or maybe habits that you rely on every day to stay consistent and focused in your life?

21:16 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, first and foremost, surrender. Wake up, god, thank you. Surrender in gratitude. Thank you for allowing me to wake up, thank you for my health, thank you for living in a home that has heating and cooling and a bed and food and water and a gym. Start with gratitude. You have to make sure that you get there. Stay there as long as you can. The second thing is surrender, god. What is it that you are asking of me today? Direct my steps in the right way. You have the ultimate plan. Help me to live that out. Here are my objectives. Are they yours? Here are my objectives. Are they yours?

21:57
Purity of intention If something comes along or you have an urge, you want to do something, what is the purity of intention? Why are you doing what you're doing? Is it to glorify yourself, someone else or to glorify God? Okay, so those are my beginnings right? I think that's extremely important to get a baseline as early as possible. You know.

22:20
The other thing is letting go of perfection. You know, done and in motion, beats, perfect and paralyzed, and I used to overthink content, pitches, even team structure, and now I move faster, I learn faster and iterate in real time the moment I embraced, ship it and then sharpen it. My growth, accelerated Action reveals everything. Success is alignment. It's waking up proud of who I am husband, dad, leader and going to bed knowing that I lived on mission. Money is part of the scoreboard, but for me it's about impact, it's about peace, it's about legacy. Am I creating value that lasts beyond me? Am I becoming the man I'd respect if I met him today? That's success. I try to measure that daily, you know, and so those are a couple of things that I think, frameworks, at least, that I use on a regular basis, many other specific mental models that I I implement on a regular basis, but those are probably the two more profound ones that have been shaping who I am recently.

23:21 - Samy (Host)
Logan. That is very deep. I love how thought out you are about those ideas, because I find that many times we get caught up in work. I think everyone asks the question of what is the perfect work-life balance, and I think you just said it right Work-life balance is when your primary thought is to perfect yourself and to live the best version of yourself, and then work will come out of that. You know what I mean. I definitely appreciate that. You mentioned this idea of first ship it, then sharpen it. Is that what you said? It sounds like one of your guiding principles is be quick, but don't hurry. How's that mindset helped you make better decisions under pressure?

23:59 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, john Wooden, be quick but don't hurry. That was imprinted on me by one of my football coaches we got to be quick, but we don't need to hurry. What does that mean To me? It means you need to take action, but don't try to do too much too fast. So it's focus. It is what's the one thing that if I accomplish right now, in this moment, will make everything else easier or unnecessary. It's essentialism. It is understanding what moves the needle and then focusing on that. So many things are here to distract you. Many things are here to distract you Advertisements, people, your phone, your email. I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I need to go to the bathroom, squirrel mentality, right, I can go on and on on that front.

24:47
But if I'm going to be quick, meaning give you a prime example, here's a mental model If there's a task in front of you and you can get it done within less than 30 seconds, do it, get it done, Move on. We tend to have something that's called Parkinson's law, which means you give a task a certain amount of time. It's going to take that long. And when you think about man, I got to get this big project done and I'm making this whole ordeal about it. Man, I need to get this done, but it's probably going to take me an hour, and you think about doing it and doing it, and doing it, and you don't do it. It's. You could have probably just started on it and been done in 10 minutes.

25:27
Our mind tricks us be quick, but don't hurry. The don't hurry part means I need to be focused on exactly what I'm doing. Gary Keller talks about in the one thing that you need to avoid multitasking. Because if you get into multitasking and if you see that on a resume, I'm a good multitasker, so you don't focus on anything. When you start multitasking, you start hurrying, you try to do two things at once. You don't do either of them very well. So we're quick on what matters most, but we're not in a hurry to do everything. That's what it means to me in my life and business. I'm being where my feet are. I'm with my kids. The phone goes upstairs. It's in the farthest part, away from me. I'm a dad now.

26:09
I'm a husband, I'm not a business guy anymore. I've got to turn that off. I'm going to be quick, but I'm not going to hurry in anything that I'm doing, and that is from John Wooden's book the Pyramid of Success. I highly recommend everybody checking that resource out.

26:23 - Samy (Host)
So, logan, I want to pivot a bit and focus on the real estate side. This has been incredibly eye-opening. I love your discipline, structure and the way you find these fundamentals and frameworks to guide your personal life, but this is what you bring to work every day, so I really do appreciate that. I want to touch a little bit on the real estate side. You go by, if I'm not mistaken, on LinkedIn by the KC CRE guy, kansas City CRE guy. You've done over $400 million in transactions closed. You've developed a strong lens for evaluating opportunities and you shared before a little bit about how you launch properties. You don't just list them. What are some filters that you use when deciding where to focus your time and energy, on what types of deals? How do you decide?

27:07 - Logan (Guest)
that, yeah, I mean it all starts by understanding the 18.6-year real estate cycle. But even before that it's understanding Ricardo's Law of Economic Rent, and this was developed by economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century. It explains how the value of land is derived from its scarcity and productive potential, rather than the effort or capital put into it.

27:30
So, in essence, economic rent is the income earned by land based on its location and desirability, rather than the active improvement by the owner. It's tied to land scarcity. Land's a finite resource, unlike labor or manufactured goods, which can be expanded. An example would be prime real estate in a central business district generates significantly higher rent than a property on the outskirts of a city because of its location and access to resources, infrastructure or population. Why does that matter? Land value appreciation drives the cycle. There's speculation and mispricing in every market and economic inequality all come into play in the real estate cycle.

28:09
Understanding that, I can then find areas that are paths of progress. Understanding where the infrastructure is, I don't care if it's an industrial office, retail, multifamily parking lot, mobile home park, self-storage facility, flex, industrial. Whatever it is, it needs to be in the right location. We've seen this happen in Kansas City, right? So properties along the new streetcar line on Main Street right, they were vacant before, and now people can get on public transit and move from downtown to Crown Center, to the plaza, and it's going to go east and west.

28:43
So what do you think happened on those property values along the streetcar? You no longer need a vehicle to actually work, live downtown and if you're on that streetcar line, your value of your property likely just went up. What the property owners did not do anything with their properties to actually improve them. Public infrastructure went inside or next to those properties and values went through the roof. I was the beneficiary of this at Lynx. I had a 36 unit apartment complex along the streetcar line and was able to sell it for a very high price because of the streetcar stopping outside. Well, just so happens, we didn't have any parking at that spot, so I was just waiting. I made a bet four years ago. I knew that the streetcar line was going to come right there. I bought an office building on the streetcar line.

29:30
It's stopping right out front, so I think that's where it all starts. Then we can all kind of prognosticate on where we're at in regards to the 18.6-year real estate cycle, where we're at in the real estate world. I don't know if we want to spend much time doing that today. It's probably a full episode in and of itself. But if you can really understand the law of economic rent and derive your properties and your strategies because of that and you have information that other people don't and you can make educated guesses and hypothesis on where that path of progress is going, based off of data and information, then you can be the beneficiary of that. It's happened in every city for a very long time. That law has been around for a very long time.

30:13
I was meeting with a wealthy landowner in his 80s and he was telling me about how he would buy property close fast and a couple of these real estate deals that he's been doing. He said, logan, I bought this land for 76 cents and then the highway did a new intersection and it stopped right there and somebody came and bought it for me for $4 and 30 cents a square foot. And I looked at him and I said, bill, you implemented the law of economic rent. He stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't really look at me the whole time. He stopped. He looked up and he said what did you say?

30:46
I said you implemented the law of economic rent, which explains how the value of land is derived from its scarcity and productive potential, rather than the effort or capital put into it. He had plans for his flex industrial building. He turned him over, gave me a pen and said can you write that out? The guy owns thousands of acres, is likely worth 50 to $100 million. He'd never heard of it, but he was implementing it his whole life and had me write it down for him on the back of a site plan of a flex industrial building. That's the power of the law of economic rent. I don't hear anybody talking about it. I don't hear anybody studying it. They're all studying trends, macro trends and all these things, when real estate really is understanding. The power is in the land.

31:29 - Samy (Host)
Wow. What's incredible is that he was intuitive to understand that law. He just couldn't articulate it. That's new to hear. I love that. Can you share one or two projects that you've worked on, or maybe a project from the past, something that you've had some challenges on? One thing I always appreciate about real estate is that a lot of times we see everyone's posting or sharing things about their successes and it always looks like this beautiful and incredibly successful world, but what people fail to realize is that there is so much work and failures that go into making deals happen. I'm curious if you could share just maybe one transaction or something that you can highlight Absolutely.

32:08 - Logan (Guest)
I had the Midas touch early in my career, sammy. Everything I touched turned to gold and I went and I purchased myself a 12,000 square foot building built in the 1800s and I had a vision for it. I was going to do short-term rentals on the top, retail on the bottom and renovate this beautiful building.

32:27
I did just that. But I also lost $250,000 in the process. Two main things. One I ignored the experts. I knew better, even though the experts said this is going to cost this and you're not thinking about that. Though the experts said this is going to cost this and you're not thinking about that, I found a general contractor that told me I was right and then hit me with change orders. We missed $90,000 to tuck pointing oh, we got to shut down Southwest traffic way and it's going to cost you $55,000. And we got to put in four inch water pipes. Those three things alone broke our budget and the deal lost me $250,000. Now we finished the project, I wrote the check, I moved on, I got it leased up and we still have it.

33:10
That is a prime example of not being willing to listen to the experts. Somebody's been there, done that before and they're telling you that you're wrong. I didn't want to hear it and it goes back to humility. That is a painful lesson I have taken to heart. If it's out of my circle of competency, I have the foremost experts around me, being extremely objective, telling me this is what it's going to cost.

33:35 - Samy (Host)
I love that you took a lesson out of that and really implemented it in what you're doing currently. So, lastly, before I wrap up, ai and commercial real estate where are we going? What do you see happening? What are some things that you're implementing? Can you share a brief overview of where you see AI being implemented in commercial real estate, what you're using and what the future looks like?

33:56 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, you got to think about what commercial real estate brokerage. I've talked about creating a market in the past on the show. There's creating a market via marketing channels. Obviously, ai can help you with that. Prime example is I used to go on podcasts. I've hosted many podcasts, but now I host a podcast on StreamYard. It's done, it's loaded to LinkedIn, it's loaded to YouTube. I click, generate AI clips and now I have 15 different videos that I can post on LinkedIn. I used to ship that out to a vendor. They would cut it up, put the editing in and do all of that work. That's a prime example on the marketing side, in regards to site selections and market dynamics, it's fantastic.

34:41
On research, I utilize deep research. I want to know data, not subjective things. I find market reports, news articles from verified sources and create market summaries, demographic profiles, right. So when we have a new project, we will load it up and say who are the likely top buyers for this property, Find folks who have closed similar size deals in a five mile region. It will take 17 minutes. Look at 347 sources and send me a five page deep research PDF which I can then create a beginning start of a prospecting list for a for sale deal. There's a research one that we're utilizing. There's a research one that we're utilizing More than anything.

35:23
I would say that artificial intelligence is now allowing me to move faster. It is my brainstorming technique, it is my real estate lawyer, before I talk to the lawyer, it is my idea generator, it is my content creator, it is my admin, it is my summarizer. Read this document and give me the five points. I'm able to move fast and be quick, but not hurry. Prime example a property owner reaches out to me eight o'clock on a Thursday, says I want to sell this property. I pull the MLS data, I pull the Crexie data, I pull the CoStar data, I load it up into my CRE underwriter. I said give me a BOV on this property. I review it, I make some changes. I take that word salad. I put it into a product called gammaai or gammaapp. So it takes the word salad and creates in my own branding, right In my theme, that uses my colors, my fonts, my logos. In less than five minutes I've got a BOV back. Less than four hours later, I have a signed listing agreement on a new property. That's how brokerage is changing. There's so many other use cases, but I just gave you three or four right there that I think are very, very important to think about.

36:37
How real estate's done now versus how it will be done in the future is anybody's guess. My guess is that the 20% that are doing 80% of the real estate will continue to do that. They will do it faster, they will do it better. We have gone from information parity where the brokers or one person has all of the information Sorry, that's information asymmetry. We've gone from information asymmetry to information parity, where everybody has the information, to information overload, where there's too much. So the folks that can cut through the noise, figure out what matters and help people remember the future are the ones that are going to be winners.

37:13
I think that real estate brokerage likely looks like a lot more online. Right, there's going to be marketplaces, there's going to be information that's widely available to everyone to make faster decisions, and the folks that have the networks and they have the audiences and they can create those markets and they can move fast are the ones that are going to be able to win. But envision that there could be folks like myself and other top performers that say why am I bringing on a junior broker that I'm going to split this commission with when I can go hire a W-2 employee to be an internal salesperson right, I bring in the leads. I have AI systems that does all of the work, but they have a static salary and a bonus. Every time we close a deal, they likely just put seven figures back into their pocket. So I think that it weeds out a lot of folks, because a lot of the work that brokers are doing can be outsourced to AI and the ones that are the deal makers and have been there done that. Experience will continue to thrive.

38:13 - Samy (Host)
Love that. I've definitely used it personally. I'm a big believer in the power of AI, whether it's for networking, being an assistant, an admin, an idea generator. There is so much power to it and I love that you're at the forefront of that forward thinking. So thanks for what you do on that front. Definitely appreciate that. Lastly, logan, there's four rapid fire questions I like to get to know about people. Number one what's one thing you do every day to start your morning off right? Yeah, it's prayer.

38:40 - Logan (Guest)
I'm in the word of God every single day, and it's that mindset of surrender God direct my steps. What do you want from me today? These are my plans. Show me yours.

38:50 - Samy (Host)
What is a hobby or interest that you have outside of work that most people don't know about?

38:55 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, I'm obsessed with pushing myself physically. On my birthday I forced myself to run a half marathon. I hadn't trained for it at all and I got it done. I row every single day and I have to be a top 10 concept two rower. It's a physical challenge for myself. Sweating every day is non-negotiable for me and I'm widely obsessed with it. Anything that is health or mental health optimization I'm into. Right now I'm deep into Dr Joe Dispenza's manifesting and figuring out how to put out the right energy in the world and receive that back. That seems pretty kooky for a guy that grew up on a hay baling farm in Jefferson City, missouri, but I tell you what it's real and it happens and it's incredible. I'm obsessed with growth. I think is really probably what it is.

39:43 - Samy (Host)
And what about a book or a podcast that you're currently reading?

39:49 - Logan (Guest)
I reread Tim Grover's two books every single year and that is Relentless and Winning. And Tim Grover was Michael Jordan's coach. He was Kobe Bryant's coach, charles Barkley's coach, dwayne Wade's coach Not just physical, physical, but mental. People often underestimate what it takes to be a winner. You may win once, but how do you win in every area, every single day? That's what I'm after. Winning by Tim Grover is what I'm reading right now. It's reinvigorating my drive, my inspiration, because motivation is fickle, but inspiration literally means in spirit. I am trying to stay in spirit and know myself so that I can stay inspired.

40:33 - Samy (Host)
And what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self, looking back at your life, what is one piece of advice you'd give?

40:39 - Logan (Guest)
Yeah, it would be surrender your goals, desires and dreams to what God has planned for you in your life and realize. Breakdowns are breakthroughs in disguise. That's what I tell myself.

40:58 - Samy (Host)
That's actually awesome. I love that. Logan, I really appreciate you joining us on the podcast today. It's incredible to see what you've accomplished and I'm definitely excited to continue with this to see what else you're going to be accomplishing. Can you share how our listeners can learn more about what you're doing?

41:14 - Logan (Guest)
Absolutely. I'm active on LinkedIn on a regular basis, mr Kansas City, kansas City, commercial real estate guy. I have my newsletter there. Kansas City, kansas City, commercial real estate guy. I have my newsletter there. I've got over 7,500 people following me on the newsletter and I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn and chat about commercial real estate and mindset and health optimization. It's something I'm very passionate about.

41:35 - Samy (Host)
Thank you for joining us again for another episode of the Kansas City Podcast and we look forward to catching you in the next episode.