Commercial Real Estate Investing Advice: How to Find Better Deals, Clear Goals, and Stronger Returns

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (00:00)
When failure is not an option, I would say it’s not just women, it’s everybody. Don’t give yourself an option. Just work hard through hard work and mentorship and doing the right thing and doing right by your clients, being transparent in what you do and do all things right. Don’t let impropriety into your transactions ⁓ and treat people the way you would like to be treated. And put your head down and just get

to work, you’re going to be great. You’re going to be great and you provide value to your clients

Michelle Kesil (02:08)
everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Kathi Constanzo, who is a commercial real estate broker in California. So excited to have you here today, Kathi.

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (02:27)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Michelle Kesil (02:32)
Amazing, let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is these days?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (02:42)
Sure, I am

specifically dedicated to commercial real estate. My specialty is in ⁓ office and retail, but as a result of my clients, I end up doing a little bit of everything I have done. I’m currently doing quite a few land transactions, and I have done retail and industrial as well, but my main focus is in office and medical office.

Michelle Kesil (03:08)
Awesome. And how did you get into real estate and into your role?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (03:13)
Ugh.

Wow, okay, that’s actually kind of a long route because I started commercial real estate at 48 later in life. ⁓ so my previous experiences in life, believe is everything I did really led me to be successful at what I’m doing today. ⁓ I had really been ⁓ in the legal profession working for some of the top law firms in the country for over 20 years. I had taken a hiatus

for four years, I lived in the country of Jamaica and had ⁓ created an educational foundation that grew to be one of the largest foundations in the country, which is probably my, I’m most proud of that ⁓ professional experience. But, you know, while I was working in law firms, my ex was, we created a lot of small businesses. So as a result of opening these businesses and restaurants, I have a very,

My perspective is really from a business owner’s perspective. I come from a family of developers and he was a developer so I’ve been around development my whole life. ⁓ And I guess my family had designed and owned Japanese Village Plaza in Little Tokyo which I’m very proud of. And I helped my first foray into commercial real estate was honestly helping my family manage that shopping village, shopping center of 44 shops and restaurants.

Fast forward, ⁓ it’s a very long story, but it was when I was working for WilmerHale, actually one of the top intellectual property and securities litigation firms, ⁓ I had very significant health issues that caused me to step back from it. ⁓ And I am just grateful by the grace of God that my dad kept saying, you’d be great at real estate, you should get into it.

⁓ I ignored it for the first two years and he kept buying me my classes and on third year learned how much money I could make in commercial real estate and that was it.

The light bulb went on and tested out a book one in a day, tested out a book two in another day, and the rest is history. So I am just grateful. So all of the sum of my experiences, understanding contracts very well helped me to just scale up. And having those contacts from back in my Arthur Anderson days and the law firm days, you can’t make new old friends. And when people know your work product, your work

and then you have a trust because they’ve known you for years and years, in some cases decades. When you get good at commercial real estate, they will refer you business because they know how you operate and work and I’m very thankful for that and that’s helped me to scale up very quickly.

Michelle Kesil (07:02)
Yeah, that’s amazing. And what do you feel? Yeah, of course. What do you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed the business to grow and run successfully?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (07:04)
Thank you.

Sure, I think the first thing that a new person out there find yourself a great mentor, which I understand is difficult, but just be persistent. mean, that’s in sales. You have to be persistent. But in this case, I was very lucky to have, I was told by several people to call a person named Bill Ukropina, who is, I believe, the cold standard, the platinum standard in my area. I did not know that at the time, because I was obviously in law and I did,

I had seen his name come across my desk. I made the call. I called him and said, hey, I’m getting into real estate and would, can I have 15 minutes of your time? Can I take you for coffee? And I also, the timing was lucky because Bill was creating a new team coming back to Pasadena from Glendale. And so timing was right and little did I know he had a very

specific list of checkboxes on what

what he looks for in a team member. ⁓ And so I got lucky with mentorship. ⁓ And then I’m proud to say that Bill and I won mentor and protege of the year award a couple years ago with our company nationally. But yes, number one thing is find yourself a mentor. Two is know that if you’re going, people sometimes join real estate, get their license because they think it would be a great way of making income on a

part-time basis. If you want to be great or successful at what you do, real estate is not a part-time job. This is full, I mean, it’s even more than full-time. is, ⁓ I don’t have a nine to five, I have a when my eyes were open till my eyes are closed kind of job if you wanna be successful at what you do. ⁓ So, ⁓ you know, really, ⁓

know that going in and you know work hard, be consistent and when you have a good mentor ⁓ then you know you can ask somebody questions and get good answers and that’s how I’ve scaled up very quickly.

Michelle Kesil (09:33)
Yeah, absolutely. Mentorships and relationships are everything in this space.

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (09:39)
Absolutely, absolutely. That’s true. The relationships that you build, you over time, you don’t know. You know, I always thought, you know, live by that golden rule, you know, from just not because you have to, but because you want to, and you don’t know, you know.

30 years ago when I was working at Arthur Anderson, I didn’t know that you don’t make friends or treat people right or do good work and put, because you think you’re gonna get something back, you do it, just, you know, incorporate that into your life. I believe in the giver’s gain mentality, you know, where a lot of times people think I’ve got to hold on to information because I’m afraid of the competition.

I believe in the opposite, you know, the more

you’re willing to give freely of your knowledge. It’s not what you… Knowledge, it’s what you do with it, right? So ⁓ everybody can learn or have access. The other thing is CCIM. CCIM, it’s like getting your master’s degree in commercial real estate. ⁓ That is one of the greatest educational institutes for commercial real estate. So if you are having a hard time,

and you want to learn, ⁓ look up this ⁓ CCIM and ⁓ it will teach you, and you don’t have to be a commercial broker. You could be ⁓ a family office. You could be a property manager. ⁓ There are such valuable information and ⁓ knowledge that you will gain as a result ⁓ of getting this accredited. You also have to fulfill a certain amount of

deals and transaction amount numbers and things like that in order to get it. But certainly the educational piece anybody can have access to.

Michelle Kesil (12:16)
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And I know when we chatted before you mentioned you were awarded the top woman in your company. Can you share more about that experience?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (12:16)
I hope that’s helpful.

yeah,

so I’m one of the top seven women in my company for Coldwell Banker Commercial globally. I have been able to achieve that every year since year one. ⁓ And

I believe that, I mean, I say this very humbly and I believe that to be really good at what you do, you’ve got to stay humble and you got to stay hungry because nobody cares at the end of the day what awards you win. You’ve got to just provide great work product, great work ethic. You’ve got to show up, you’ve got to do the work. ⁓ But that journey honestly has been

I mean, I feel like I am beyond grateful to have found commercial real estate. I feel like…

There’s not many industries that you could ever make this kind of money and also be of service and be helpful to people and find meaning in what you do. You can create generational wealth as a broker. helped to create generational wealth through investments or helping to sell their properties. ⁓ And ⁓ as a woman, this year I was just awarded, ⁓ it’s a peer nominated award. ⁓

It’s a national award called the Pathfinder Award. And ⁓ it was honestly the greatest shock of like, I was sitting in the very back row in this huge ballroom full of 350 people and I just put my tennis shoes on, I’d spoken three times that day at the conference and I was sitting at the

very back just thinking, okay,

I’m gonna listen and hear the keynote speaker and the award winners and.

It’s very humbling, but I do also believe with that it comes great responsibility to be that pathfinder ⁓ because you know that people, it makes you aware that people are watching. so I think what it means to me, it’s like, do I become better ⁓ as a person? How can I become better as a broker? How can I truly be that pathfinder and level up?

I’m doing, I’m very excited about this actually, is I am up to become an SIOR this year, which means an SIOR there’s only about, so there’s about 4,000 SIORs in the country, of which 2,800 are true brokers, not as associate members, but 2,800 members. Of those 2,800 people, there’s less than, I believe,

that have both their CCIM and SIOR designations of those 1100 less than 120 are women. a hundred out of all the people that are licensed in real estate and then as a minority woman, it’s there’s less than 20. So that would make me a 0.00005 % of 1 % of 1 % of all licensed agents in the country.

And I want to do that to one, continue to become better and be a truth pathfinder so that other women that come or are in the industry, you know, we don’t think about what’s possible unless you see it. It’s kind of like that person that broke the five minute mile decades ago. No one had done it for years and years and years. And the moment he did it, then all of sudden, you know,

of people started hundreds, thousands now have and and now look at it today. ⁓ a five minute mile is normal and and I’d love to encourage those women out there or those new, there’s a lot more women that are breaking into commercial real estate but you know, it’s it’s possible, you know, starting in career forty-eight, starting from scratch.

went through bad divorce where I had to pay my ex in the divorce. was just, you know, and,

When failure is not an option, I would say it’s not just women, it’s everybody. Don’t give yourself an option. Just work hard through hard work and mentorship and doing the right thing and doing right by your clients, being transparent in what you do and do all things right. Don’t let impropriety into your transactions ⁓ and treat people the way you would like to be treated. And put your head down and just get

to work, you’re going to be great. You’re going to be great and you you provide value to your clients

and ⁓ and that is what I seek to do each and every day and and I’m just grateful for the for the opportunity and I’m very humbled by this award. So yeah and it just came it just came I just I just received it this week so.

Michelle Kesil (18:26)
you

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (18:28)
Okay, I’m very excited to have received that one. It’s meaningful to me.

Michelle Kesil (18:34)
Congratulations, that’s incredible.

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (18:37)
Thank you, Michelle.

Michelle Kesil (18:39)
Now, and what would you say your most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (18:48)
Well, that is my SIOR designation. There’s no doubt about it. I want to constantly be striving to be better. So professionally, that is where I’m seeking to go so that I have both CCIM and SIORs. But on the daily, I want to make sure that I…

accomplish the goals that I set out for myself. I am first and foremost a listing broker and so I, you know, I sell buildings but I also do leasing. have, again, I have a legal background so I…

I like to just look at things contractually. I honestly, I don’t understand why some people limit themselves to just be doing tenant rep or ⁓ only or leasing only. ⁓ I look at things very contractually and it’s just separate contracts ⁓ and I enjoy the variety, but I like to be always on the listing side as a result of listing buildings for sale or for lease. Then I end up also representing

buyers ⁓ that are looking for great investments or tenants that are looking ⁓ for spaces for lease. ⁓ And I love what I do. So ⁓ it’s just, it’s grinding. It’s hitting the pavement hard each and every morning, excited for what, because every day is different. And I love that. So it’s really about ⁓ what I have on the to-do list for that day.

⁓ that I set as my goals. And I look at all my goals the night before, set my goals the night before, and then implement first thing and carry it through, set my meetings appropriate, appropriately, I time block, ⁓ but always, always the client comes first.

Michelle Kesil (20:59)
Absolutely. Most of the listeners here are investors. Is there any advice you would give to an investor that’s listening?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (21:06)
Absolutely, don’t limit yourself.

You know, I’d say that sometimes people say, investors say, I’m only looking for one specific asset type. ⁓ in, you know, there are reasons why investors will want to invest in a very specific area, like if their property management is close by, or they want to be able to see and drive to their locations. I’m in California. And so I have quite a few that say that that but they also say,

hey, I would like to find investments in other areas. Some people like, say, industrial. Well, if you like industrial, that’s awesome for so many different reasons. But if you are willing to work with, and so one thing is I always ask, what are your goals and objectives? So you as an investor really wanna be clear what your goals and objectives are. So if your goal is, you want generational wealth? Are you looking for a high cap rate?

⁓ and then or to or or do you want to turn the investment, know, invest in something and then ⁓ turn it, you know, ⁓ lease it up and then sell it at a higher ⁓ because you have now ⁓ improved the property, leased it up and then you can sell it. So, you know, what are your goals and objectives? So be very clear on what you want. The clearer that you are as an investor, a great commercial broker.

Like I’ll know my marching orders and I can go get it for you. And that is very, very helpful. ⁓ You know, like I say, look, I love a good for somebody in general who just wants a good rate of return. What I call it ⁓ a coupon clipper and you don’t want to do a lot of management or work. Find that find a national credit tenant. ⁓ Triple net, you know, investment ⁓ that, you know, has a long term lease and then

And that to me, if that were me and my goals and objectives are these national credit tenant ⁓ triple net leases ⁓ that I would want to buy because those oftentimes are stabilized, they have a high cap rate, so great rate of return. ⁓ And if for any reason something happens, because as we all know, some of these national credit tenants, there are crazy things happening, what you’re left with if they end up not being able to

to

fulfill their term, what you’re left with is a great piece of real estate because all these national credit tenant ⁓ triple net leases, they’re oftentimes on a signalized corner with a drive-through. And you will always be able to find a tenant for a signalized corner and ⁓ a drive-through ⁓ situation. So I look for ⁓ properties like that.

and that’s just one example of advice that I would give to investors out there. ⁓ But again, I would listen to what your goals and objectives are ⁓ for what you would like to accomplish with your money.

Michelle Kesil (24:21)
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of that.

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (24:24)
Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure.

Michelle Kesil (24:28)
Well, before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you?

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (24:38)
So my name is Kathi Costanzo. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to see my name written on my screen. ⁓ And so, but I spell my name K-A-T-H-I C-O-N-S-T-A-N-Z-O. I have a website, I have LinkedIn. Can please connect with me not on LinkedIn, I’d love to do that. I also have Instagram and I think my assistant has me on Facebook also. So ⁓ I’m pretty much,

⁓ everywhere ⁓ that you know professionally you you can reach out and find me my number is (626) 898 2308 or my email address it’s my name [email protected] and

or Google Kathi Constanzo Commercial Real Estate and you will find me. I think there’s lots of ways.

So thank you. I appreciate that opportunity to get my name out there. That’s very kind of you.

Michelle Kesil (25:47)
I appreciate your time and your story. Thank you so much for being here.

Kathi Constanzo, CCIM (25:52)
My pleasure. Thank you so much, Michelle. I appreciate that opportunity very much.

Michelle Kesil (25:58)
And for the listeners that are tuning in, if you got value, make sure to have subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Kathi who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you on our next episode.