The Hidden Potential of NYC Properties: Invest Like a Pro Today!

Michael Stansbury (00:01.582)
All right, in three, two, one. Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros show. I’m Mike Stansbury and today we have Miss Joan Brothers from New York City. Joan, how are ya?

Joan Brothers (00:18.065)
Hello, Mike, what a nice introduction.

Michael Stansbury (00:21.678)
Yeah, I try to make a little flair and for those folks, Real Estate Pros is a podcast brought to you by Investor Fuel. We help real estate investors, service providers and real estate operators and entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their businesses to allow them to build their businesses they’ve always wanted and to allow them to have the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Joan Brothers from New York City, tell me a little bit about the origin story. How did you get involved in real estate? How did that all happen? What’s that look like?

Joan Brothers (00:49.757)
Sure. Well, I actually thought I would be an expat living in Hong Kong when I left business school and be a corporate person. So I had no idea about real estate and the benefits of real estate. didn’t come from a real estate family. I didn’t know anything about real estate. But my first job was at Mitsui, the largest trading company in the world. And I noticed that a lot of our Japanese bosses, because it was a Japanese company, owned real estate.

you know, it was a large part of, you know, when you move around, you’re in real estate. And I said, this seems pretty interesting. So I ended up getting into it by being in the corporate world that I thought I was originally in. I exited because the corporate world was a little too restrictive. I enjoy the entrepreneuristic piece of real estate. And voila, I ended up in it. My first week in real estate, I thought, oh, it’s really slow. I don’t know how this business can go. And then, you know,

25 plus years later, I’m like, yeah, there you go. So it’s a very fast-paced business. really. True.

Michael Stansbury (01:49.518)
The first week kind of fooled you.

Now have you always been located in New York City?

Joan Brothers (01:57.947)
Correct, yes. Always been in New York, but definitely look at different options in terms of referrals and helping clients worldwide, because our clients are worldwide. We like to say our clients are global, but our product is local.

Michael Stansbury (01:59.757)
Yeah, so.

Michael Stansbury (02:12.824)
Gotcha, I like that. so, do you own the brokerage now? Tell me what the business looks like, where you are in the, I guess I would say the org chart, and what your day-to-day is like,

Joan Brothers (02:26.386)
Well, the beauty of real estate is your day-to-day changes every single day. So it keeps things interesting. You certainly can say you’re never bored. The clientele probably changes in terms of where they’re from, who they are, what market selling, because that’s, again, the beauty of real estate. You cannot predict what segment of the market will perform or what will be.

happening. I mean, think you have to be able to roll with it, but you have to have a good foundation and you have to have people that you really like and trust within your organization that you can rely on. And then you have to pivot a lot as a boutique firm. The beauty of being a boutique firm is you can pivot quickly. You’re not a big organization, which I really like. But the day to day, it can change. And the clients, you you’d like to say you could predict which clients are going to come.

at what time, but I don’t think that’s any business anymore.

Michael Stansbury (03:21.474)
Right, they just come when they come and bring them on. and so 25 years in New York City, what’s been the biggest, has there been a shift or a change or when have you had to, tell me about those pivot times, what did that look like and how did you guys pivot to maybe make sure that the market was kind of, that you went with the market instead of what people do is like, we can’t do anything, the market stinks.

Joan Brothers (03:47.208)
Right. One of the things I learned early on when I was, I ended at the business when I was early, you know, in my 20s. And that was sort of unusual for a lot of people. So I’ve been in the business a long time because of that. So I learned from some of the veterans and they said, the most successful people that I knew said, you don’t say, I don’t do that because sometimes the market will be very high end. Sometimes it’ll be entry level.

Very rarely is it all things moving at the same time. Sometimes it’ll be residential, sometimes it’ll be commercial. What is it? Is it commercial office space? Is it retail? Is it multifamily? They all change. So you have to be versed enough and have areas of specialty and know how to reach out to everybody. So the pivots, they happen in very obvious times like 9-11. That was a big pivot.

because we didn’t have business for a while. And yet there was still people who knew, here’s a bit of chaos, let’s take advantage, I have cash. The economic changing times where we had, you know, 2008, 2009, where there were absolute shifts to things like that. So that was very helpful too. Just to know that you have to pivot, you have to be able to enjoy.

Knowing that things will be quiet for a little while and you have to lay your foundations more strongly So that you can be ready when things move again Again, it got a little loud. Now. Are you okay? Okay

Michael Stansbury (05:20.792)
that’s great. Yeah, we’re good. So the ability to pivot in those areas and be in a small boutique and, know, people, real estate obviously encompasses a lot of things. It’s an umbrella. But if you’re doing commercial multifamily and, you know, if somebody asks you about that and you just automatically say, I don’t do that.

Well, think you’re, I love the fact that you say, well, hey, I’m supposed to be the expert in helping my clients. So I like the fact that you do say, Hey, yeah, I can, we can talk about that and figure those things out because in the way that we’re all connected now, if I don’t know much about commercial real estate or the commercial real estate market, I know some people that do. And so I can always be that conduit. Yeah.

Joan Brothers (06:01.402)
Absolutely. And we have different experts within our firm. As a broker, you own the firm. And of course, you have agents have areas of specialty. So

We have one person, for example, who’s real estate developer who certainly knows how to do the numbers in an incredible way that would satisfy investors, know, for multifamily, for development. And then we have people who are office space experts, and then we have people who are retail experts. On the residential space, we have people who are, you know, in the condo sphere versus the co-op, which is more of a New York City family, or not family, New York City person.

property kind of thing. you have the resources within your firm and if for some reason it’s something so exotic, of course we have the contacts to find out and help you a little bit more. Of course, absolutely.

Michael Stansbury (06:57.208)
Yeah, that’s great. So Joan, but I always like to get in the origin story. You teased us a little bit. You thought you were gonna live in Hong Kong the rest of your life. What did that look like? And why aren’t you in Hong Kong? Is that a place you wanna end up at some point or is that dream dead?

Joan Brothers (07:06.323)
Yes.

Well.

No, I’m… Well, I kind of got lucky in the sense that in the end it was an idea. I really wanted to go to Asia. It was a very interesting time where Asia… But Hong Kong changed over in 1997 and it became a little bit less interesting. And the time that I could have gone to China was too early for, you know, people who weren’t really fluent in the language or really in the mix to go. So in the end, I married a man.

who ended up having business in China. So I spent quite a bit of time in Asia, cultivated a lot of clientele, about 50 % of my clients were international and remain that. And that’s my area of interest as sort of a global citizen. So I still got to live my dream just in a different way.

Michael Stansbury (07:59.03)
that’s amazing. tell us about that. Where in China did you, and how did you, you cultivated those relationships but where in China did you, did you say hey if I’m going to China these are the two cities or this is the one place that would definitely tell somebody you got to go check it out.

Joan Brothers (08:15.263)
Well, I’m sure you feel the same way, but I think sometimes just things lead you. You you have a friend in Beijing, you have a friend in Shanghai, or somebody says, hey, you got to get to Guangzhou and check this out. So that’s what we did, is I had connections, I had ideas. At certain points, we were developers, real estate developers within New York City, and we were selling products, were, you know, 150 units.

in a building in Harlem, which was great. And we took that to China at trade shows. So we did that in Beijing, we did that in Shanghai, made a lot of friends. Oddly enough, this is kind of fun, met the French contingency in Shanghai in 2008 and ended up knowing a lot of them and they sort of connect worldwide and have met many of them back in New York. So who knows, you show up in China, you meet the French, they, you know, you just.

Michael Stansbury (09:09.42)
That’s how it happens, right? Yeah.

Joan Brothers (09:10.758)
And another piece of it, one of the contacts there, recently I needed to find a castle for somebody from Asia, but they wanted the castle in Paris. So again, I connected with the French contact, got the chateau broker there. So I mean, it’s a big world, but it’s a small world.

Michael Stansbury (09:31.06)
It’s a big but small one. So that’s very, very interesting. And the New York market, again, I’m in little old Memphis over here, but what’s amazing is, yeah, it’s a fun town. But what’s interesting though is that I’m getting the flavor for a New York City real estate brokerage and just the…

Joan Brothers (09:39.841)
fabulous.

Michael Stansbury (09:50.466)
the depth of it because it is an international city, it’s New York City, and you’re going to China to sell New York, and then obviously vice versa, they’re coming here and you’re getting more referrals and things like that. That doesn’t happen in every city, maybe in Charlotte, Miami, and LA, and some other ones, but wow, what a, you know, this is kind of, I’m kind of learning something that, you’re just adding depth to.

Joan Brothers (09:53.541)
Yes.

Joan Brothers (10:09.454)
Yes.

Michael Stansbury (10:17.336)
to and and what what you know i think a real estate agents are the same everywhere well actually you know they’re not you know because and when you’re in a city like new york you’ve got this opportunity to travel to also just that’s with your that’s because of your job that didn’t happen in memphis i’ll just tell you that just doesn’t happen

Joan Brothers (10:30.776)
Yes. Yes.

Joan Brothers (10:35.936)
Well, I have to tell you, I’ve been envious of Memphis. You know, recently with all of your, you’ve been very smart in attracting corporations and therefore people, and your residential real estate, and I believe your commercial real estate are doing incredibly well. So I think that’s commendable. But you know, I think New York City is different in the sense it’s a world city because we have every nation, every language spoken here.

People feel comfortable. It’s a place for young professionals to come and start their career from all over the world because of the largest corporations around the world. And here they are developing professionally, falling in love, buying apartments, selling apartments, moving back to a home country or a completely different country or to Memphis because it’s a wonderful quality of life. So in a weird way, we…

Michael Stansbury (11:30.06)
Never know. Yeah.

Joan Brothers (11:32.705)
We’re like a placeholder for a lot of people. I’m a lifer, I’m never leaving here, but I will tell you, I have seen a lot of people come and go. And as a placeholder, I think we serve our purpose for a lot of people.

Michael Stansbury (11:46.828)
Yeah, and you know what’s interesting too is you could probably write a book. You got a lot of stories, right? Because you fixture there. But you see, I don’t like the word transient because it just it maybe you think of something else. But do people come to New York? They stay a little bit. They it’s it’s a stepping stone in their life. But it’s always I know a lot of people that have lived in New York for a bit of time and they’re all always nostalgic about it because it’s just a different way of living and and

Joan Brothers (11:49.086)
Thank you.

Thank

Yeah. Yes.

Joan Brothers (12:06.883)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Stansbury (12:14.504)
And you take somebody from the south that comes up there, they just, their mind is blown about how in two blocks you have all the activity that you have in five square miles of a city. yeah.

Joan Brothers (12:19.138)
Yeah, yes. I guess I grew up in Connecticut, so I’m a Connecticut girl. I know what you’re saying about not having much action in a, you know, several mile radius. And then in New York, like you said, that two blocks, you’ve got your sensory, you’ve seen so many people and animals and action and you won’t ever reproduce that again, because

Michael Stansbury (12:39.896)
Right.

Joan Brothers (12:49.085)
Everything is moving all the time. Yeah, it’s a feast for the senses.

Michael Stansbury (12:56.098)
Yes ma’am. Well, one of the things I always like to talk to you about folks is what kind of real estate investing happens in New York as far as we understand and maybe there’s a little bit more depth here when somebody buys a house or a condo or just a building there for a residence. But there’s there’s people that are still buying in New York for investment and for.

Joan Brothers (13:18.4)
Bye.

Michael Stansbury (13:18.584)
for that, what does that look like in New York today? How are you helping people? And you can go to a specific client that you may have helped in the last six months and kind of tell us about that transaction.

Joan Brothers (13:22.816)
Sure.

Joan Brothers (13:28.185)
I think what might be in, I’d be happy to address that. And I think I’ll give you two scenarios. How’s that? One from a residential, one from a commercial. The typical, or not typical, but the interesting part almost worldwide that you find, and we’ll go back because this is sort of the breadth of New York City, is that you have young professionals coming in and beginning their life. And beginning their life means they’re moving up the corporate world or moving up in their career pattern.

Michael Stansbury (13:33.912)
Sure, yeah.

Joan Brothers (13:56.188)
and also kind of having a life, you know, really enjoying, you know, having a life and developing their life personally and professionally, whatever that means. So what is interesting is a lot of world families and a lot of US families recognize, and if you can, there’s a saying in New York, if you can, you do. So a lot of these families help support their young professionals and they’ll buy a property.

in New York, a one or two bedroom for their family member so that they can grow and develop to a point and then they’ll sell that. So that’s really an investment that somebody might see in different lights and you’re really privileged if you can do that but that happens quite a bit in New York. So I think that’s a wonderful example of investment in New York that really works. You buy something and then you sell it for some appreciation or it works as an asset from a rental standpoint. The other piece that I

Michael Stansbury (14:35.17)
Yes, yep.

Joan Brothers (14:54.054)
I have to say I learned, and I never would have known this, in the commercial world of New York, people will buy multifamily buildings. Or could be small multifamily or big multifamily. And these would obviously be wealthy families. They would buy them not to make money in their generation, not even to make money in their children’s generation, but for their grandkids to make money off of the properties. This, me, was like mind blowing that…

This kind of visionary investing existed because they just wanted to hold the asset, let it perform, they had enough money to weather any storms and deal with things. But it was for the grandkids. I just thought, wow, that’s visionary. That’s real, really intelligent strategic thinking.

Michael Stansbury (15:41.9)
Well, yes, yeah. So many people are just such a lot of, not most people, I would say that the short term thinking about investments, maybe we hold it for a little while and then we sell it in two or three years. I read a good book, it’s called The Household and the War of the Cosmos, and in it, it kind of described exactly what you were talking about is that people, when they,

Joan Brothers (15:57.479)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (16:09.89)
develop their families, they were not just thinking about their kids, but they were thinking about their grandkids. Every decision that they made was not just in the light of their one descendant. They were thinking about, okay, they were thinking down the line, which is a very interesting way to invest, or to even, I wouldn’t even call invest, just thinking through those things. And yeah, that’s a really neat way to look at it. Buying a building, hey, I’m buying this, I’m not gonna get a return.

Joan Brothers (16:25.168)
Yeah.

Joan Brothers (16:32.252)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (16:39.854)
in my lifetime, but my grandkids are gonna get a return. That’s a great way of thinking.

Joan Brothers (16:44.346)
Yeah, it’s a wonderful position to be in. Let’s hope all of your listenership and us, we can benefit in that way in some time. But it is wonderful to see. It’s enlightening to see. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (16:53.504)
Yes

Michael Stansbury (16:57.728)
Okay, so now one thing I’m just going to be very transparent here. My children have been in New York City. My son and my daughter have. I’ve never been in New York City. So where’s the best place to… Absolutely. Absolutely. At some point I will. I keep telling myself. I got to go see a Yankee game because I’ve never done that. But where in New York do you like to… Where is kind of your hub?

Joan Brothers (17:08.958)
well, we have to rectify that.

Joan Brothers (17:19.886)
Mm-hmm.

Joan Brothers (17:24.773)
There’s practically no bad neighborhood. Every neighborhood has merit and constantly changing, which is kind of fun. Some place that my great aunt lived or my father lived in when they were young kids in Brooklyn, it was a great neighborhood and then maybe it went down a little bit. It was a little bit unsafe and now it’s back and better than ever in Brooklyn and all the young hipsters are, the hipsters are.

Michael Stansbury (17:30.488)
Right?

Michael Stansbury (17:53.038)
Taken over, huh?

Joan Brothers (17:53.824)
there and these investors who are buying for their grandkids are buying there. you know, there’s no bad area there. You know, there, of course, it’s a big city, but each neighborhood has its own flavor and really fun if you can go to some neighborhoods for some distinctive kinds of, you know, cultural food. There’s the flavor of Midtown West. There’s the flavor of Soho. There’s the flavor of, and I mean, neighborhood at this point, not just food.

Michael Stansbury (18:04.077)
Yes ma’am.

Joan Brothers (18:22.052)
But food is very important, obviously. But no, each neighborhood, there is no bad neighborhood, in my view.

Michael Stansbury (18:24.618)
Obviously,

Michael Stansbury (18:30.796)
Right? Well, I’ll have to figure that out. It sounds so exciting to go over there. My son always tells me that every time he goes, it’s like it’s un, you can’t not have a, for two weeks you feel like you still haven’t scratched the surface on seeing all of it. So definitely gonna have to try it someday.

Joan Brothers (18:48.503)
Yeah, well that means you have to have multiple returns. But you know, your son might return to Memphis at some point. He might get it out of his system, but it’ll always be with him. He’ll always be this, hopefully, touched by it in some very positive way.

Michael Stansbury (18:55.266)
Yes, man.

Michael Stansbury (19:02.882)
That’s right. Well, Miss Joan, how can people, let’s say that, hey, I’m moving to New York and I want to reach Joan and her business. How do we get in touch with you? What does that look like?

Joan Brothers (19:08.918)
Joan Brothers (19:13.334)
Well, pretty easy. Not hard at all. My name is pretty simple. You can think of me as the brothers, Joan Brothers. So you can find me that way or Manhattan Boutique Real Estate. All in the websites www.mbreny.com. And very much able to be listed and contacted. Certainly happy to speak with anyone. And let me just put it this way, if we cannot help you directly, you can certainly call us and we’ll try it.

push it into the right spot and give you some advice or opinions at least.

Michael Stansbury (19:48.628)
Awesome. Well, Miss Joan, thank you for being on the podcast. Folks, thank you for watching the Real Estate Pros podcast. Miss Joan, we hope you have a great day. And when I get to New York, I’m going to look you up, OK?

Joan Brothers (19:51.425)
I’m off.

Joan Brothers (19:58.216)
absolutely. I would love to take you for a cup of coffee or a cocktail, either or. All right, my pleasure. Bye. Thanks for the time. Thanks for having me.

Michael Stansbury (20:03.116)
Yes ma’am. Alright, we’re gonna do it. Alright, see you now.