Transform Your Career: Michael Bull’s Blueprint for Real Estate Success

Michael Stansbury (00:00.558)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Mike Stansbury and with me is another Michael. Michael Bull, how are you sir?

Michael Bull (00:10.368)
Good, Michael. You had to be on your show. Thank you.

Michael Stansbury (00:12.61)
That’s right, that’s right, the two Michaels going at it today, folks. But first I’ve gotta tell you a little bit about Investor Fuel. Investor Fuel, help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. So Michael, out of Atlanta, let me hear the first, the origin story of how you got into real estate. You’ve been doing it for a little bit of time, but.

Where were you doing kind of beforehand and why did you pivot to real estate specifically, commercial real estate, sir?

Michael Bull (00:47.99)
Well, before commercial real estate, I was going to high school. When I went to college at night and I started in commercial real estate immediately during the day, managing apartments, renovating them and working with a company that did that, got my license at 19. So then I started selling full-time as a commercial broker, focused mainly on multifamily at 22. Built a really nice practice selling multifamily in Atlanta.

and then it grew from there. So that’s how I got started.

Michael Stansbury (01:18.712)
So most, so this is interesting, I love this, you’ve stayed focused in this industry for this period of time and so it’s really interesting because sometimes when I’m interviewing people I hear they’ve had multiple pivots into their life until they found that one thing that they really focused on. But you have taken commercial real estate and really drilled the hole deeply. So maybe in your mid 20s to 30s, what were your, between 25 and 35,

What were the growth pains, were the valleys and maybe the peaks as far as maybe that is concerned? And how did you handle, you know, it’s been 40 years, you’ve been through some market cycles, what did that look like?

Michael Bull (01:56.426)
Yeah, mean, the cycles have always been interesting. think how I got in beginning years, think the only reason I made it was because I studied sales a lot.

and I studied every bit of training I could find from anyone and everyone. I studied the top producers around the country all the time. I studied sales, like I was cramming for exams. And I’ve always enjoyed helping clients save money, make money, do deals. I’ve always just always loved doing transaction work.

In the down cycles, I learned the most, guess, and also have created the most value for my clients and for my company. And through every downturn, we’ve come out of it increasing market share in a big way. think when the market’s a little tougher, sellers, for example, look a little closer at what brokers actually do. And when they look at what the brokers actually do, we win more business. So like in the

a real estate recession, a recession period, right? We came out of that and we went from an Atlanta-based, Georgia-based company to a regional because the clients, the borrowers and lenders we worked for, once we sold something for them, they’re like, my gosh, do this here, do this here.

Michael Stansbury (03:05.527)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (03:21.294)
Right, so it became repeatable because you had a process and even during the downtime, you refined and worked that process instead of being affected by the market and saying, well, it was me. And you didn’t pivot, which was excellent. You just learned from the hard times. So, 08, everything was tied together. Everything went down and people got educated on really what was going on. A lot of people thought about diversity of, what was I saying, diversified.

All the, they thought they were diversified and they really weren’t because everything kind of, kind of went down in real estate. So fast forward maybe to today, some of the challenges, obviously interest rates are challenges, but in the last three to five years, COVID era and then today kind of what has commercial real estate been like and what have you seen as far as the challenges and maybe the benefits of being in this type of market.

Michael Bull (04:15.785)
Yeah, well, one of the good things, I guess, if you want to look at it that way, it involved for brokers in a downturn is that you really learn and have to learn that you’ve got to work harder and smarter. know, brokers who go through a downturn, if they stay in it, they have to really

pick up the pace, right? So it makes you an actual better broker. I find that going through a real downturn really makes you a more efficient broker, right? So in the current environment, you know, when the feds started their story, rising rates in 22, that cost transaction volume and 23 and 24 to drop probably 50 % on average around the country and no different for us. So, you know, it was a tough transaction downturn and

you know, again, what we do is pick up the pace, add more value to people, make more calls, have more meetings. And then we’ve seen it start picking up. So we started seeing transaction and interest in transactions grow when the Fed lowered the rate a little bit last year. And then when the elections were over, and I don’t know that it was about who won or lost, it was about just the uncertainty of an election. then, you know, and then after the first of the year, the transaction volume really started

jumping up. We picked up 50 % more assignments than we ever have in the first quarter and throughout our 27-year history here at Bull Realty. So things started really picking up. know and when I mentioned interest rates I think

You know, for a lot of us who been in the business for 12 years or so, know, these interest rates are really high. But for us, have been in the business 40 years, these interest rates are normal, they’re average. So while there’s that shock and of the refi challenges, if you’re in at lower rates and you underrode at lower rates, really the rates are not bad. And I think it’s adjusted cap rates, different on different property types, but it’s adjusted. And we are where we are.

Michael Bull (06:21.143)
I think a lot of sellers are understanding that and so it’s okay to take a profit. It’s okay to do transactions because in my opinion we’re not gonna see a huge drop in interest rates if you they’re back more than normal rates and if they went down to where they were probably means there’s a big problem with something because that was abnormal. So you know think we’re seeing activity pick up people are you know there’s some real opportunities for

investors right now if you want to key in on that I think it’s a great time for investing.

Michael Stansbury (06:57.262)
Yes, so and I want to get into that but I want to just let my audience know is this is the benefit of being in the industry for 40 years is you’ve been around when there were higher interest rates than this and this is normal but what happens is when you grow up in the if you’re 27 or 30 years old you’re used to seeing your only your your history is a little bit jaded.

And so, but what you can do is educate your clients and say, hey, we’ve seen actually worse than this. This is normal. And let me show you, let me show you what the numbers look like in 1985 or 1983. And some people don’t, you know, they don’t have that perspective. And some folks that are new to commercial don’t have that perspective because they haven’t lived through some of those times. So today though, Michael, how are you helping the most people as far as maybe individual investors, people interested in commercial real estate, people maybe wanting to

know, lend money when it comes to that. Tell us about some of the few things that you’re helping people right now in the commercial real estate space.

Michael Bull (07:58.698)
You know, the thing is to help them understand the history of our industry and when investors and big funds have created the most wealth is from acquiring properties when there has been uncertainty or when there has been a downturn. And so I think we’re at a remarkable stage there in kind of two ways.

Once you have the drop in transaction volume based on the interest rates, you have the COVID shock in office. then because of the, but add to that, the rapid rate increases the Fed did in 22. I mean, that really started curtailing new development, new starts. And in a lot of sectors, there’s been, those have delivered, know, once you start something, you can’t really stop it, even though you don’t want to.

to you and the lender and developer you have to move forward. But a lot of those deliveries and lot of markets are kind of starting to stop and so there’s not been a lot of new starts. So I think the cost to deliver new product has gone up. You we just heard the steel going up again and metals and tariffs cost. So I think it’s a real good opportunity. I think we’re going to see some really rapid rental increases in most every property type

in the next one, two and three years as some of these new deliveries drop off in markets where there’s growth, of course. So I think it’s a remarkable time for buyers. if you look at, I’m headquartered in Atlanta. We had a lot of apartments, like a lot of markets get built. Rent’s kind of flat lined a little bit. Now they’re starting to go up a little and the predictions that the underwriters of the institutional buyers that we deal with and some of the private high net worth are that, Hey, we’re going to see some pretty

big increases next year and then underwriting some really big increases the next two years because of the lack of new deliveries especially if you’re in a market that’s growing like the Sunbelt Southeast and other markets in Atlanta.

Michael Stansbury (10:09.026)
Yeah, we heard this actually last week from somebody else in Texas is that was the problem is during COVID they started a, there was a bunch of starts and then once the interest rate hits, it just went dead. And now to re-engage that engine is pretty tough because the inventory is dwindling as far as apartments are concerned, but the people aren’t, the people are still coming. And so there’s still a need for that inventory. And so,

Michael Atlanta, so you do business in the southeast, so every state in the southeast, kind of, tell us, walk us through maybe a deal that, I’ll let you choose your own adventure, but walk us through a deal recently that you did so people can get an idea of maybe the, just that vertical, and maybe a different one as well, maybe an industrial and maybe a multifamily. Again, I’ll let you choose.

Michael Bull (10:47.957)
Thank you.

Michael Bull (10:55.125)
Thank you.

Michael Bull (11:03.157)
Yeah, well a couple that are kind of interesting is we have an $80 million class A apartment complex in a nice southeast city on the market right now and those comps are like five cap and some people think five cap? What my interest rate maybe be six, six and a half? Yeah. Is that negative leverage? Yeah. Why are buyers doing that? Because of what we just talked about.

If you’re in a market that’s going to grow in population, grow in job growth, and there’s no new deliveries, that supply and demand is going to work for you. We have 18 confidentiality agreements. We’ll have a call for offers deadline in about two weeks. I think we’ll have probably eight or nine institutional buyers bidding on it. So that’s kind of one side of the market, if you will. To give you another example, we just sold $115,000

square foot, beautiful office building in a metro Atlanta market for a bank. This building was hard to sell and it’s gorgeous. It’s 50 % occupied. We got 60, think around $62 a foot. Miraculous opportunity for the buyer. The replacement costs with the land and the building and the tenant improvements that were usable is probably $700 or $800 a foot.

just an article out the other day that in the US there has been more buildings, more office buildings converted or moved than were delivered.

And that’s crazy. And I’ve been telling people for a while that that’s one of the things about office. If you want to buy low and sell high, you do it when there’s turmoil, right? And I think office is going to be the best buy of 25 because of supply and demand, especially in markets where you’re going to have growth. Some buildings get torn down. Some get converted. New supply stops. People go back to office more and more, gradually, but more and more.

Michael Bull (13:09.143)
then you have the normal growth. I think office, if you people who can stomach it and have the cash is the buy of 25.

Michael Stansbury (13:20.654)
So yeah, buying something that’s $62 a foot and knowing you have to insure it for $700 a foot is hilarious, it’s great. And so one of the things I was talking to, I was in a small town yesterday, I own a couple commercial properties there and I was selling it and the buyer asked me, like, what do they, in this small town, what do they do as far as code enforcement if I wanna do this, this here? And it literally was this, like, listen, they’re a small town, they really don’t care. They really don’t care, but that’s not everywhere.

Michael Bull (13:25.685)
Yeah.

Michael Bull (13:46.653)
Thank

Michael Stansbury (13:49.399)
Are you seeing some mid municipalities be open to more conversions, especially maybe for these office spaces that you can get at great deals? How are you adjudicating some of those? Are there some opportunities out there for conversions?

Michael Bull (13:49.427)
Right.

you.

Michael Bull (14:04.871)
I am, but not enough, Michael. I mean, we’re seeing some metros and municipalities.

adjusting zoning and understanding that that’s what they should do. Then of course you have some municipalities who just don’t like apartment rentals and don’t want any more and they don’t. But what they really need to do is think about the housing cost and the challenge with not enough housing and they need to provide incentives and some cities and some markets are providing those incentives and a lot of these deals just don’t work without some incentives. It’s so expensive to convert

an office building. Of course, it’s got to be the right building and location to start with. So I’d like to see more of that because it would be helpful to the communities and for housing costs.

Michael Stansbury (14:55.362)
Right, the development, even in, I’m in Memphis, you’re in Atlanta, we’re in the south, but the cost of development makes it cost prohibitive to develop, because the infrastructure that is needed in some areas, it just costs too much, you can’t build a single family house. Memphis has always been, even in the commercial and residential space, very economically just easy. The cost of living here is great. But now we’re seeing in my little city,

You can’t get a house here for under $300,000 anymore when before COVID it was easy to get 120, 140. And we’re seeing that with the commercial stuff as well. you’re right. Municipalities got to get on board and they got to see what they’re lacking in that respect. tell us also about, you do a lot of education online as well for commercial agents. So if somebody was interested in that, tell us about that.

Why did you get an education and then how are you helping other commercial agents in other markets?

Michael Bull (16:00.499)
Yeah, I got into it because I’ve just been into training myself and my people since I started at 18 years old. And I’ve realized that’s what’s helped me and my people. I started and I have everyone’s training from everybody. And I’ve always had it and gotten it and had them in my office and on my show and all their stuff. then, but there was a lot of things that were missing. And so I started creating it years ago and then started perfecting it all the time for my people. and then I.

thought, well, one day when somebody will probably buy Bull Realty and they’ll buy it either to go national with the brand and or they might buy us to get rid of us. we’re getting too much market share. But then actually we did have groups want to buy and I just and I didn’t want to. enjoy doing this business. So because I originally thought it was business would sell and then I would go to more speaking.

Michael Stansbury (16:44.792)
to exhaust us. That’s right.

Michael Bull (17:00.423)
events all around the country but I would do more of that and then I would do agent training and then I realized well gee I don’t go ahead and do it I’ll be on the stage with a walker and I can’t this is how you do it Sonya so I’m gonna do it let’s go ahead and do it so I produced 21 approximately one hour videos with a live audience multiple cameras slide deck actually notes incredible information brokers love it they access it via the cloud online it’s at commercialagent6.com

success.com and they use it for sales meetings. Brokers and teams will get it and they’ll be able to show these over and over to folks and slide deck action notes. They can write notes, empower their sales meetings and then individual agents have a lower cost for the license and they’ll license them and listen to them over and over and over. So they become innate. They’re more powerful for experienced agents. A new agent, some of it’ll, you know, they don’t know the gold, but an experienced agent goes, wow,

that’s gold, they’ll know why, right?

So that’s it’s been interesting to get that out there. I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of us brokers have is that we get in the business three, four, five years and we think we know everything. I was the same way, but now I realize after 40 years, I still don’t know everything. So training is just, I think is great for the, for our industry and for our clients. And so, you know, I just love the, I love it. I’m still training myself.

Michael Stansbury (18:29.934)
That is a great anecdote for our audience is just to let people know that the education never stops. I remember getting my degree from the University of Arkansas and thinking, I don’t want to go back to school. I know everything I need to know. Well, that was just the most wrong thing I’ve ever said. It took me about 10 years to get out of that mode. But you’re still training yourself. You’re still listening to salespeople. You’re still reading books.

And it’s funny, you know, one of the things that you said is that, you know, you, sometimes you have to watch something, read something, three or four times before it becomes part of maybe your modus operandi, how you, how you sell and how you talk to people. So with that being said, who are some of the authors that you love, and who are, know, what are some of the books or maybe coaches that you’ve personally had, that people, you know, that you feel, that would be, impactful for other people to hear.

Michael Bull (19:27.487)
Yeah, well, I like all Rod Sentamassama’s books and his coaching. I like all of Mike Lipsy’s training and his in-person training is awesome. know, in some of the books, I like hard,

selling in a hard world. I think it’s a good one for commercial real estate. And then I think for brokers and maybe a lot of other professions, just really pure sales books are great because

It’s the people around us that make life interesting and interacting with them and fun. And if you learn how to do that better, life just works better. So I think the pure sales books, the Covies, the biggest selling sales books of all time that aren’t about commercial real estate are some of the best if you’re a broker.

Michael Stansbury (20:22.914)
Yeah, I find that too. I said, they work in any vertical. So Michael, what does life look like for you in Atlanta? I know I got some inside baseball. I think you work with your son there. But what does family life look like? What do you do for fun in Atlanta? Are you a Braves fan? Do you like the Falcons? What’s up with all that?

Michael Bull (20:42.101)
Sure, we love our teams here. For fun, I ride street motorcycles in the mountains and on tracks. I have a 130 mile an hour performance boat that I’ve had for two decades. It doesn’t have the same engines and drives, but it’s the same boat. So I like high performance boating. I like stand-up comedy. And I love doing transactions and helping clients and learning new things and learning how to do things a better way. So yeah, my son started with

me here. He’s worked with me over the years during the summer and things doing different jobs, but he’s been here now full-time two years. So that’s been very fun for both of us to learn from each other and work together. So that’s been awesome.

Michael Stansbury (21:29.896)
Awesome. Well, Michael, where can people find out more about bull realty and all the information that you have online? Where can people find that out?

Michael Bull (21:37.363)
Yeah, so for our commercial brokerage firm where we do all property types throughout the southeast, it’s bullrealtee.com, an easy one. And my contact and number and email is there on some people’s websites. And then if you’re on LinkedIn, I’m on LinkedIn under Michael Bull. And then our training is available at commercialagentsuccess.com.

and you can get those instantly. there’s, for people who might not realize how good the training is, because there’s a lot of commercial agent training that’s really bad. I know, I have to take a lot of CE credit because I have lot of licenses in a lot of states and it’s bad. But if you’re afraid it’s bad, I have a money back guarantee. If you try just one, let me know in three days, I’ll give you money back if you don’t think it’s fantastic. And then for our show, it’s CREshow.com.

Michael Stansbury (22:28.728)
CREshow.com. all this information will post in the show notes. So if you’re interested in learning more about the commercial agent’s success, get on it, folks. And then all the information about Michael will be in the show notes. So folks, get in touch with him if you need him, and especially if you’re doing deals in the Southeast. Michael, thank you for being on the Real Estate Pros podcast. Folks, remember, do all the things, like and subscribe. Comment, give me the emojis, all the things that the influencers tell you to do.

and we’ll see you next time. Thanks Michael.

Michael Bull (23:00.522)
Thank you, Michael.