How to Build Trust and Close More Commercial Real Estate Deals

Quentin (00:00)
Answers that for sure. And I love it. You said time kills deals, momentum fulfills deals. Did I get that right? Did I get that quote right? that quote for me one more time. Yeah. Yeah. But no, no. I love it, man. And so it sounds like, you you’re used to, you know, all kinds of deals. I love how you talked about, you know, different sides of the transaction. Somebody may call from different sides. So.

Nathan Cohen (00:08)
I think so, yeah. I’ll have to check in with the patent attorneys on the momentum of the deal.

Quentin (00:25)
I’m sure as an operator, there was a moment when things got real, right? Maybe a deal went sideways or a time where you had to pivot fast. Mr. Nick, can you mind sharing one of those stories where you had to pivot fast with a deal?

Nathan Cohen (00:38)
Every deal. ⁓ I think every deal ⁓ involves some sort of immediate pivoting at any time in the transaction. In fact, I have a couple things that need to happen before a deal can close. it’s kind of hard to explain this to the new generation, but once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when I started in this business over 20 years ago,

Quentin (00:41)
Yeah

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. am your host, Quentin Edmonds, Q Edmonds, that you know I like to go by. And so today we’re gonna have us a great, great podcast. I’m excited about the guest that I have on. I’m excited for you to see things from his lens, from his perspective. I’m ready to dig into his mind so you can see what he has going on in his world. You know, I like to tease people up, but I think this time I’ma let.

Nathan Cohen (02:43)
Okay. Okay.

Quentin (03:07)
my friend go ahead and tell you what he’s doing for himself. And so today I’d

to introduce you guys to Nathan Cohen. Mr. Nathan, how you doing today,

Nathan Cohen (03:15)
I’m doing quite well and thank you for having me, Quentin. I’m grateful to be here today. Thank you so much.

Quentin (03:21)
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, listen, I want to dive in. I want you to take people into your world. I want you to tell them what’s familiar with your world, what you’re dealing with. So how about you take us through what your main focus is these days? And if you don’t mind, tell us what markets you’re operating in as well.

Nathan Cohen (03:39)
Sure, absolutely. So my main focus is providing debt for commercial real estate to ⁓ qualified real estate professionals. I work for a company called ⁓ LBC Capital, LBC Capital Income Fund. We are a ⁓ debt fund. We have about $100 million in assets under management. So we lend directly, and if it doesn’t kind of fit our box for one reason or another,

We also act as a intermediary or a, ⁓ it’s a fancy word for a commercial mortgage broker. And we then kind of, you know, go outside. We’re always very clear ahead of time right out of the gate, like, yes, this is something our fund can do or, hey, we have to switch hats here and go the broker route and it may be better for all the parties ⁓ involved. ⁓ As far as LBC Capital goes, we operate

in major metropolitan markets across the country. ⁓ We have a great rule here that I think is a very solid rule, which is if you have never heard of the city and you can’t immediately point it out on a map, we’re probably not gonna do the loan there. so we operate nationwide. Mostly we are located in Southern California, so the majority of our business is in Southern California.

As far as the fund goes, we are substantially less exciting outside of Southern California. It’s our home market. We know it well. We’re comfortable taking a little bit more risk here than places we’re not familiar with. As far as third party ⁓ brokerage goes, half calculator, we’ll travel. ⁓

If it makes sense, we’re happy to go there.

Quentin (06:21)
I’m going to know. We was talking a little bit before we got on and I wrote down something that you see as a major opportunity is helping, helping brokers with good deals, helping them get the deal across the gold line. And so I know sometimes that’s not always easy in this climate. So what is it that keeps you running smoothly? What keeps you going and running at a smooth pace for what you do?

Nathan Cohen (06:45)
would say the flow of information. ⁓ Information is key. I think a level of trust ⁓ and transparency is important. So if you and I are working on a deal, a lot of times there’s this kind of fear type of situation that somebody’s gonna get circumvented in the transaction. We’re happy to sign any sort of fee agreement.

ahead of time just so we know what everybody’s roles are and what everybody’s compensation is going to be. In that way, I don’t need to be afraid if you want to pick up the phone and call one side of the transaction or you don’t need to be afraid if I’m going to call the other side of the transaction. And I think the more everyone can see what’s going on and not hold any request back out of some place of fear for asking for it. ⁓ I think that’s a big

big thing and I think that’s a big hindrance that stops deals from getting done. I mean like

In commercial real estate, a lot of ways is one of the slowest moving enterprises in our country for no apparent reason. No other industry takes days or weeks to send someone a year to date P &L. I mean, no one else does that. When Fullwell Company has a professional property manager, all it takes them is a few seconds in rent manager to spit off a T12 and Excel for a lender.

I mean, that’s literally a 30 second thing that can turn into like literally weeks. ⁓ So that gets frustrating and time kills deals, momentum moves deals. ⁓ I think that answers probably that.

Quentin (08:39)
Yeah, no,

definitely.

Answers that for sure. And I love it. You said time kills deals, momentum fulfills deals. Did I get that right? Did I get that quote right? that quote for me one more time. Yeah. Yeah. But no, no. I love it, man. And so it sounds like, you you’re used to, you know, all kinds of deals. I love how you talked about, you know, different sides of the transaction. Somebody may call from different sides. So.

Nathan Cohen (08:49)
I think so, yeah. I’ll have to check in with the patent attorneys on the momentum of the deal.

Quentin (09:06)
I’m sure as an operator, there was a moment when things got real, right? Maybe a deal went sideways or a time where you had to pivot fast. Mr. Nick, can you mind sharing one of those stories where you had to pivot fast with a deal?

Nathan Cohen (09:19)
Every deal. ⁓ I think every deal ⁓ involves some sort of immediate pivoting at any time in the transaction. In fact, I have a couple things that need to happen before a deal can close. it’s kind of hard to explain this to the new generation, but once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when I started in this business over 20 years ago,

Quentin (09:21)
Yeah

Nathan Cohen (10:23)
There was no such thing as the cloud. ⁓ People were still using faxes pretty predominantly. Scans were not the norm. ⁓ And so I had a number of things. So I’m trying to relate this into megabytes for what needs to happen for a deal to close. But it used to be these were the things that you needed to have happen for a deal to close. And I’ll explain that. And then I’ll explain why you have to pivot.

You need a stack of papers like at least four to six inches high. Okay, so if you think you’re going to have a closing and you don’t have a stack of papers four to six inches high, it does not matter what the papers are. If you don’t have a stack of papers four to six inches high, under no circumstances will you have a closing. Okay, so now, so I haven’t been able to equate that to megabytes if there’s some more

computer savvy person that can tell me how many megabytes this is of stuff, ⁓ then I can help. But you have to have, you know, I know if I go in my file for the deal, if I can’t scroll down a long way, there better be like a lot of stuff in there. You know, like just like forever, for days scrolling in the file of Adobe’s. And then you have to go past the actual closing date. ⁓

Quentin (11:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nathan Cohen (11:47)
So if you don’t have a stack of papers this high and you haven’t gone past the actual date, you’re not gonna have a closing. If you don’t have a stack of papers this high and you haven’t gone past the actual date and no one’s gone out of town, a key person hasn’t gone out of town, you’re not gonna have a closing. And then the final factor that you need to have happen is two or more parties have to ⁓ swear or affirm with or without a solemn oath that they will not speak

to ⁓ one or more of the other parties involved in the transaction. And once all those things happen, then you can have a closing. And you should know that you’re well on your way to closing a commercial real estate transaction. ⁓ I think that the biggest pivots happen in the due diligence ⁓ process where people don’t realize how

A material impact can significantly affect something. There’s a transaction I’m working on right now. ⁓ The people had bought a very nice asset ⁓ at the time, which was a fair deal. It recent, ⁓ know, within the last couple of years. And the neighboring property, which was almost identical, in the point of the due diligence, sold at a fire sale for like half of what they

you know, had paid for their place. So the loan proceeds literally went down by probably 30 or 40 percent ⁓ a couple weeks away from the closing. So to have to go back to someone and explain to them that we value your property, you know, almost 10 million dollars less than you do, ⁓

and why is not an easy thing. And one of my mentors, some great advice that I can follow sometimes and could always use better to follow is don’t delay in providing bad news. And the sooner that you can provide bad news, the better. ⁓ The sooner you can do it, the better. Hiding it, brushing it under the rug, burying your head in the sand.

is not a way to solve a problem in a commercial real estate transaction. You know, I found with lenders the best thing to do is tell them everything humanly wrong with the deal that you possibly can and then tell them why it’s okay. Just so all the skeletons are out of the closet early. All the deep dark secrets are out there early for everyone to know.

Quentin (14:36)
Absolutely.

Nathan Cohen (14:36)
And it’s gonna

happen on every day. Things are gonna happen. And it’s a matter of how do you provide the solution to these problems and how do you…

assure the lender that their security interest is protected.

Quentin (14:55)
No, I love it, man. That was a great start. I think this is the first time I heard a Facts Machine mentioned in a long time in the episode. I think this is the first time I heard a Facts Machine mentioned, but I love it. I love how you talk about building trust. I love how you talk about giving the bad news as soon as possible. Somebody that I follow, Brene Brown, she says, clear is kind, unclear is unkind. So the kindest thing you can be is clear to your customer and let them know.

This is what’s going on. This is how it is. So I love that, Nikan. I love you telling that story. That was awesome. So let me ask you this. Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? Like, what’s the next real goal for you, Mr. Nikan?

Nathan Cohen (15:30)
⁓ thank you.

I think the next rule, right now we’re ramping up our

our visibility. So the next goal for me is kind of we talked about it earlier, it kind of relates to the biggest weakness or opportunity for me is the gathering and collecting, organizing and presentation of necessary items needed to acquire that stack of papers to close the loan. Because, I mean, look, I get to

kind of see both sides of the fence here. One is a lender and one is a intermediary. And like, I’ll be darned if I’m gonna be a Dropbox broker. And someone, like, I can’t tell you how many times somebody sends me over a Dropbox or a shared file or a Google Drive and expects me to be some sort of forensic accountant.

to just dive in there and read every document and piecemeal together what the loan is gonna be. So if you’re a loan broker out there and you’re just sending lenders out a drop box filled with stuff and you don’t understand the deal, maybe we should talk, I’d be happy to help you to understand the best way to present a deal.

in how to have conversations. Because if you have that information and you’re having trouble getting calls back and getting people to take you serious, there’s a way to do that in a clear, concise, professional manner. We can do that for you and we can work together or we can try and help you the best we can. It’s about collaboration.

you know, if people don’t learn and help each other, the industry won’t grow and improve. You know, the other side of that coin is, and I just started to do some writing today. I’m doing a lot of writing right now, my own improvement. And one of those, my thing that I stopped at short this morning was ⁓ what can I do to grow and evolve in this business? Because, ⁓

I should be growing and I know better. know I need to be growing and ⁓ evolving ⁓ every day to learn more and more. So I’m trying to learn a lot more about negotiating, about marketing and things like that. That’s why I’m on here today. This is out of the comfort zone for me. Thank you for…

Quentin (19:05)
So.

You

Nathan Cohen (19:10)
Allowing

me not to get in my own way today. Quentin, I really appreciate it.

Quentin (19:15)
Well, man, it’s pleasure. Your perseverance is shining through and I’m glad to help. You’re doing great. You’re a natural. You’re doing a good job. And so I love it. I love everything you’re saying. I love specifically when you talked about ⁓ building relationships with people. You talked about building trust, but also building relationships with the right people. And I want to ask you about that because there’s a lot of people that are listening and they’re either early in their journey or they’re looking to level up.

And I think that benefit hearing this, especially from you, when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you?

Nathan Cohen (19:53)
I don’t know answering my phone ⁓

Quentin (19:57)
Haha!

Yeah!

Nathan Cohen (20:01)
Not being a, you know what, I think candidly has made the biggest difference for me and is the help that I got from my father when I was very new in this business ⁓ over 20 some years ago. ⁓ He’s a veteran, he’s ⁓ retired but he’s ⁓ heck of a role model and a veteran in the commercial real estate lending industry.

And I remember I started out as just a regular commercial real estate broker and somebody was mean to me on the phone, Quentin. And they were just mean to me. And I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be, ⁓ I didn’t know I shouldn’t be working with my feelings. And at the time I was working with my feelings and I did what any young kid in their early 20s would do. I called my dad. ⁓

who I looked up to in this business and I called them and I told them what happened. ⁓ you know, being a kid that didn’t always listen to his parents, teachers, do what you’re supposed to, I didn’t ever, for the most part, I pretty much did not heed any of the advice that my parents gave me growing up. And thank God that for some reason, I took this to heart and I listened to it and he said, Nathan, if you wanna be in this business, you need to be like Teflon.

You cannot let what people say bother you. And what happened was, is that I was able to turn that into a learning moment in a series of continued learning moments. Where I know that if I call up a place that’s more, ⁓ like I love working with guys smarter than me. And it’s easy when you’re new and I was certainly guilty of this.

where you wanted to try and kind of assert your dominance and your prowess like that’s a business thing. And you’re arguing with people that know better than you. Instead, if you take the approach of listening and learning and if you’re like Teflon and you don’t get bothered by that even though somebody’s talking down on you and explaining something, you take that opportunity to learn things.

then you’ll know why it’s important that a lender is asking for a certain thing and you’ll become to realize that if you’re a borrower or you’re the borrower or you’re the borrower’s broker and you’re going to someone asking them for money, know, pretty much if the lender asks for it, you’re pretty much got to give it to them. And there’s a reason that they’re asking for it. And don’t be afraid to say, hey, I don’t know why.

But just so can explain this to my client, who by the way will then argue with you and tell you why you don’t need to do it. But I don’t know is never a good answer. For instance, ⁓ I’m working on a CMBS deal right now. ⁓ It’s an owner user deal where the tenant signed a long term lease for 15 years. It’s a five year loan and there’s some reserves in there for tenant improvements and leasing commissions.

Quentin (22:56)
Right.

Nathan Cohen (23:20)
more commonly known as TILC. So the borrower says, what’s this TILC? And I say, well, those are for a hold back for tenant improvements and future tenant improvements and leasing commissions. He’s like, great, we can take that out of there because I’m already in the building for the next 15 years. And I was like, well, they’re actually in there. I know you don’t want to hear this, but God forbid your business doesn’t work out. You go bankrupt.

and you move out and the building’s empty, they’re in there for the next guy. And it’s kind of non-negotiable because of that. ⁓ so as much as I’d like to whittle down this number, you know, that’s kind of got to stay because we don’t need them come because I’m here is not a rebuttal to that. A valid rebuttal to that is, hey, ⁓ the market rent for this will be this.

The commission will be this, your numbers don’t match up, cutting a more appropriate number that will cover the tenant improvements and leasing commissions is this number based on market data, which you can try and dig up the best you can depending on what you have access to do that with. But if you don’t ask people that stuff to learn, and probably, just to be blunt, probably look like an idiot.

Quentin (24:49)
Yeah.

Nathan Cohen (24:49)
you

can do it or you can look like an ignorant idiot and argue about something that makes no sense. know, so best to kind of ask and learn and listen or and to be, you know, straight up. And finally, you know, I got to a point there’s like, I know nothing about low income housing tax credits, LIHCC deals, you know, or CRA credits, you know, like I’m totally cool saying

I don’t know what that is and I’m not familiar with this this part of the business ⁓ So I’m gonna need a little help here. I don’t where I don’t normally, you know You know municipal bond financing. I know it’s out there don’t work in that that part of the the business and I’m okay saying that you know, cuz ⁓ You know when you’re new ⁓

I worked with this lady, Pam Smith in Indianapolis when I first started out. And what I learned from her was that use being new is an advantage because a seasoned guy, so if you’re a new real estate broker, you’re a new mortgage broker, new commercial mortgage broker, a veteran guy that owns a lot of buildings is going to like you because like

Quentin (26:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nathan Cohen (26:18)
He is really, really important, you know, and you’re gonna give that guy service way better than some 20 year old, a 20 year salty veteran is probably gonna give him. You know, and you’re gonna be 100 % focused on doing that. And they’re probably gonna know that you don’t know, and they don’t care that you don’t know. They just care that you’re gonna stay on the phone, and you’re gonna be hitting the phones, getting the job done.

and in the trenches and you’re gonna get smacked around a lot but you’re gonna learn a lot too. don’t, moral of the story, be like Teflon and use that to not, you don’t need to know everything.

Quentin (26:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. No, Nathan, I thank you, man. I thank you. I thank you for sharing your stories ⁓ about you learning from your dad and even learning from Pam Smith. It’s not like these relationships have put you in a great position that you are now. And be like Teflon. I mean, what a great nugget for people to show them that, you got to push through, persevere. Don’t be so agitated or irritated. Just, hey, stick with it. And I love it, And so listen, before we wrap.

If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you? Give them your facts number, man. Give them your facts number, Nathan.

Nathan Cohen (27:39)
Sure, my facts,

my facts, you know, I’ll tell you a funny story about that real quick. had a, I was working on a development project and the billboard needed to come down and. ⁓

Quentin (27:44)
Yeah

Nathan Cohen (27:53)
There’s language in the billboard lease that said with building permits will terminate the lease and you can take down the billboard. And I didn’t want to sit on the phone with CBS advertising or Lamar or whatever it was for million years. So I told the young kid in the office, ⁓ hey, get on the phone with these people. Here’s the lease. It’s recorded. Call them up to ask them. Ask them you need to get on the phone with someone that can terminate a lease. When you get someone, tell them to please hold for the vice president of your company.

And ⁓ so after a while, I’m like, hey, did you ever get what’s up? Did you ever get these people on the phone? I keep calling and calling and asking for this lady and they just hang up on me. And I’m like, lady, because I looked at the release, I don’t recall any lady. So I said, what lady are you asking for? And he said, this one right here on the top via facsimile.

You

Quentin (28:58)
⁓ my goodness, that’s hilarious. Neopleximony. Yeah, that’s hilarious, man. Great storyteller, Nathan. Nobody can find her, and they just hung up the phone. Yeah.

Nathan Cohen (29:04)
Yeah, the effects of Emily.

No one could find her. Yeah, no one could find her. But if you want to find me,

I can be reached at Nathan atlan atlbccapital.com. That’s Nathan at lbccapital.com or directly here on my old school desk phone that I still answer at

Quentin (29:32)
You

Nathan Cohen (29:37) 3238797297

Quentin (29:45)
with the HR people. got the landline, you got the email, you got the fax number, reach out to them. Man, Nathan, I thank you, man. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your stories. Incredible stories, man. We need more people like you that’s going it the right way. So thanks for being here.

Nathan Cohen (30:03)
Thank you so much for having me. It was a real honor.

Quentin (30:06)
Absolutely. And for those tuning in, if you got value from this, please make sure you subscribe. You do not want to miss out on more conversations that’s coming, just like I had today with Mr. Cohen. So again, thank you, Nathan, and to the rest of you, I’ll see you on the next time.

Nathan Cohen (30:21)
Thanks so much. Goodbye.