How Carlos Moreno Conquered Challenges in Las Vegas Real Estate

Erika (01:31)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Erika. And today I’m so excited to sit down with Carlos Moreno from Agora Realty and Management. Carlos is crushing it in the real estate world and I can’t wait to unpack his insights. Carlos, thanks so much for joining us today.

Carlos A. Moreno (01:51)
Thank you for having me. We’re excited to be here, so thank you.

Erika (01:57)
So let’s dive in, Carlos. For those who aren’t familiar with you or Agorah Realty and Management, give us your story. What’s the primary focus these days and which markets are you dominating in?

Carlos A. Moreno (02:12)
Okay, so I’m based out of Las Vegas. the vice president of leases and sells for Nevada. The company’s actually based out of California, Calabasas, California, fact. And ⁓ we do, as a company, multiple different things, developments. We have two major developments. One of them is High Low Park, which is the older site where we had two major casinos here in town. We’re Fiesta Rancho Casino and Texas Station Casino. And that development,

It’s composed of 73 acres. Part of that is also 11 acres of that is residential. And then we’ll have retailers. We have 158,000 square foot indoor arena. We’re talking also to an indoor soccer field, the professional soccer player that wants to open a location. So that’s an exciting development. And then the other major location or project is on North Vegas Gateway. That’s for people who are familiar.

with Vegas it’s ⁓ Las Vegas Boulevard and Lake Mead North and so that it’s another 29 acre development which probably gonna be around 120 different retailers and service providers office space and medical and so that ⁓ facility that that is gonna serve both ⁓ North Las Vegas and downtown Las Vegas and so the corporation like I said is based out of California I’ve been with the company a little over two years now I’ve been in the commercial

real estate businesses since 2018 and I specialize in ⁓ retail mostly but you I’ve also have done a lot of stuff with land so retail and land are my two main focuses on the commercial real estate world.

And I’ve been licensed in the commercial, in real estate, I’ve been licensed since 1999. And so been in the business for a while, but commercial, strictly commercial since 2018.

So.

Erika (04:59)
Got it, got

it. And seems like you’ve got a ⁓ variety of ⁓ commercial projects that you’re managing. How do you balance all of that? What’s the secret?

Carlos A. Moreno (05:11)
So it’s basically taking it one at a time, right? ⁓ Every morning I look at what’s the biggest fire that’s gotta be dealt with or the biggest opportunity as we get going and then you just vote down the line as the day goes on. We start our day around 7.30 in the morning and sometimes it goes on to like five or 6 p.m. so it just depends. But we try to get to everybody.

⁓ within a timely manner as far as answering phone calls and getting back to answers that we may not immediately have, but that’s kind of the way we address that.

Erika (05:52)
Yeah, that’s great. And as I’m sure you’re familiar with, real estate isn’t all smooth sailing. There is moments where things can get tricky. And with all these commercial deals that you’ve dealt with, can you share a tricky moment and how you navigated through that?

Carlos A. Moreno (06:05)
Please,

There’s a one that comes to mind right now where it’s an off-site gas station where the gas station is for sale.

When there’s a gas station or any retail or any commercial property, most probably do a phase one report to find out if there’s any contamination on the soil. In this case, we had to go through phase one report, which is through the report. There’s some findings. We go to phase two and now phase three. Well, once we get to that point, the buyer doesn’t understand that.

Okay, it’s contaminated. It’s horrible. No, the price is going to reflect that, right? Where you would normally pay a $4.5 million for this property, now you’re going to pay half because of that. But now, through finding out through that, through the remediation companies, that actually the sellers of the property pay into a fund that’s covered up to a million dollars to remediate these kind of things. an insurance type of thing. And so that was kind of new to me and that’s how we…

the deal was almost getting rid of, you know, cancel. We were able to save it because we were able to provide an estimate of what it would cost. It would cost about $300,000 to remediate the issue. And so there’s still plenty of money left if anything comes up within the next 365 days. So, you know, now…

We’re basically now in what’s called phase three. So now the work has been done to remediate the whatever is causing the leaking of the gas tanks in that situation But it has been done phase three is composed of quarterly reports make sure that the contamination levels either go down or don’t go above from an acceptable level that the ⁓ that the remediation company Requests or it’s

by the state that can’t be no more than a number of the contaminants. And so, so far we’re quarter three into it and so far is looking good, but that’s how we navigated through that deal.

Erika (09:08)
Yeah, that’s a really tricky situation. ⁓ A lot ⁓ of the people who are listening to this podcast are looking to level up. So through that experience, what kind of advice would you give to someone if they find themselves in a similar situation?

Carlos A. Moreno (09:14)
NG

I would say talk to somebody that has experience in that arena because there’s some tricks that we learn throughout trial and error. I’ve been in for eight, what is it?

eight years, nine years now, going into nine years, we’ve seen different scenarios where a new person maybe one year, two years into it may have not ran into. And then sometimes I have colleagues that have been in commercial for 20 plus years. And if I run into something like that, I’ll talk to them and say, hey, have you ever seen this? And for the most part, they’ll expect, because most of us, we have kind of like an area that we work on. I’d say most people

Some people that work do retail, some people just focus in on industrial or land. ⁓ So I would have a lot more on the retail, more experience on the retail side of things. So I would reach out to somebody that has minimum five years or better experience that can probably help and guide through the experiences that they’ve had in the past.

Erika (10:39)
makes a lot of sense to find those people who have that experience and can help you. What would you say is the most effective way for people, know, they’re not maybe they’re not in this situation, but you know, you’re looking to build your network because you do need people like that in a situation. What kind of advice would you give people if they’re looking the network and, you know, have more people who can help them with their vision?

Carlos A. Moreno (11:06)
I would say reach out to networks of folks in that community. I’m in Nevada and the laws from let’s say a restaurant or a gas station, they may be slightly different in California, slightly different in Arizona. So ⁓ reach out to somebody that’s local, that’s been in business for at least five years and interview at least three different people before you decide to move forward. ⁓

fit for everybody. So when I first meet with people it’s finding out whether they’re like me, whether I want to work with them as well. once you feel comfortable with that person then that’s who you would ideally work with.

Erika (11:52)
So for you, is it more certain qualities or more like a feeling? how would you describe it?

Carlos A. Moreno (11:59)
I would describe it as more like a feeling when you first meet somebody. ⁓ Very few times I’ve ever had people that I’ve turned down and say, you know, I don’t think we’re a good fit. Here’s another number from a colleague if you want to work with someone else or, you know, ⁓ but it doesn’t happen very often, but it has happened.

Erika (12:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

So looking forward, Carlos, what’s the next big goal for agorareality and management? Are you eyeing certain properties, scaling, or maybe something else?

I was asking what’s the next big goal are like with Agora are you eyeing larger properties? Are you looking at something else? What are you looking forward to?

Carlos A. Moreno (13:35)
Okay, yeah, no, we’re looking for we’re always looking for opportunities. ⁓ Looking to ⁓ development wise, we’re pretty full. ⁓ But you know, if an opportunity comes up and it’s it’s a value add property, or if it’s a ⁓ what do call it a property that’s, you know, with a cap rates of somewhere around 7 % I always we’re always looking at it and whether it be for the company or for myself.

So ⁓ yeah, those are opportunities that come up mainly like I said deal with not residential retail, but we’re open to looking at ⁓ multifamily as well.

Erika (14:17)
Awesome, awesome. You I don’t hear too many people say that they’re kind of full right now. So I guess it’s a good time to ask what’s the secret? You got any advice to share for people out there?

Carlos A. Moreno (14:22)
Yeah.

When I say full, it’s not full because we don’t want to have all of the same ⁓ developments. It’s a long term, right? So it’s a ⁓ two, three year project. ⁓ But we’re always looking for opportunities. If something that’s already built out in three months, we can start to generate income, then that’s a much better opportunity for right now.

Erika (14:38)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So before we wrap up, Carlos, if someone wants to reach out, learn out more about Agora or maybe explore partnering with you guys, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Carlos A. Moreno (15:10)
So yeah, the best way is through ⁓ my contact information is 702-236-3828. 702-236-3828. Or my email which is cmoreno, M-O-R-E-N-O, at agoraproperty.com. cmoreno at agoraproperty.com.

Erika (15:36)
So, Carlos, this has been incredible. Thanks for sharing your insights. It’s clear you’re playing at a high level. You’ve got a really awesome portfolio. For everyone listening, if you got value from this, hit that subscribe button for real estate pros. We’ve got more heavy hitters like Carlos lined up to share their stories and expertise. We’ll see you on the next one. Carlos, was great having you.

Carlos A. Moreno (16:00)
Thank you. Thank you for your time, All

right.