Come take a look around the newest Tommy’s Tavern & Tap currently under construction in Staten Island, NY. Follow Bennett Realty & Development for updates to the progress!
VIDEO: Tommy’s Tavern & Tap Staten Island Mall Construction Update April 2018 Read More »
More context is needed in these blogs before I jump into a topic I’m passionate about. Bennett Realty & Development does a lot of development work as principals and although my past experiences have been the hard-core salesman, I have learned that development requires so much more. Being a great salesperson can lead to much success but what happens when your business requires that and more? Being a good salesperson will only take you so far towards being a successful developer. In fact, many developers can “over-sell” and hurt their prospect of securing a site or a tenant. As the developer, you are the person with the vision of what can be accomplished, how to go about it, and who to hire for each phase of the operation. Without a developer, the project can fall apart at any stage. It’s like having a major league sporting team with no general manager or an army platoon with no general. One of the most important aspects of success as a developer is building the right team. Development deals require a large team of specialists – experts in their respective fields. Knowing exactly which of these experts you need from the following list could make the difference between success and failure.
• Architect – turns the vision behind the project into a detailed blueprint from which the general contractor and builders can work.
• Engineer – working with the architects, they create the process by which the project can come to life.
• Environmental Consultant – assesses any environmental impact the construction, the presence of the completed building, or property usage might have.
• General Contractor – using the work of the architects and engineers, they oversee acquiring the proper builders and the day-to-day work on the project.
• Land Use Attorney – investigates laws and zoning to prevent expedition of a project that zoning or law will not allow. And perhaps more importantly is a commonly-seen face to boards if they are active within the town. These are the “relationship” people.
• Lender – Often, large commercial real estate ventures require more operating capital than the investors have. Lenders provide this additional funding and sometimes exert some level of oversight to ensure proper usage of the borrowed funds.
• Project Manager – maintains the plans, scheduling, and budget for the property. They work with most of the upper echelon of the team, making sure they have everything to complete the work on time, within budget, and at a high quality. They are also responsible for reporting the progress of the work to any stakeholders.
• Surveyor – hired to show the exact boundaries, access, and any easements that the city, county, or state may have in place. They will then stake and/or flag the corners of the property.
• Title Agent – makes sure the land is free and clear of any claims or liens against it.
• Traffic Engineer – determines whether a property is viable for the intended usage, and then plans access to the property based on the existing roads.
• Planner—while not always needed in a site plan application, planners can be the “cherry on the top” in testimony to boards to explain the practical effects of a potential new development. In some cases, towns & cities have their own third-party planners to provide insight into the overall character of the project and how it fits into the towns’ master plan or vision.
The success depends on you, the developer, choosing the right people for the jobs!
Creating the Perfect Development Team Read More »
Come take a tour of the new Fitness Factory location currently under construction in Somerset, NJ
VIDEO: Fitness Factory Somerset, NJ April 2018 Read More »
To succeed in business (and life), there is one thing that’s constant: CHANGE…This isn’t a rah-rah motivational blog about getting you moving, its simply about a “Constant Variable” (you like how I just used those both!) …which is CHANGE. I could write the next 2 pages about the complete collapse of Toys R’ Us or rising interest rates but this is wayyy more important.
By way of example, Toys R’ Us was a casualty to the inability to CHANGE, not Amazon or ecommerce or high debt or VC…Yes, they borrowed too much money on an inflated value and ultimately could not get creditors to approve a restructuring because there was no turnaround in sight. I grew up going to Toys R’ Us, took my own children there, bought many gifts for others and while I always walked out with something, the stores looked the same in 1994 as they were in 2018. Piled with STUFF in a chaotic way.
What prevents most people from CHANGE is FEAR…this is the real silent killer if you ask me. Some think that if they are happy and healthy, why would you want change? You’re missing the point if you’re saying that, looking at it from a very granular level. That is what I call having a “Delusion of Change,” meaning you think it won’t happen just because you’re satisfied with your current life. Seasons change, incomes change, relationships change, the car you drive changes, the shoes you wear…you get the point.
You have to accept CHANGE, embrace it, and control it as best as you can. This is what creates growth…there is literally NO OTHER WAY. Once you realize and acknowledge that its constant, you will fear the change less and less. Many people make general statements s about change but often don’t practice what they preach. I believe that in business you should actually seek out CHANGE, want it, and enjoy it. Let me explain. Scenario 1 is that I grow my company to a multi-million dollar a year revenue producer in however many years it takes. I hit my plateau, where things are good and believe all I have to do is to “keep it going.” This is DEFENSE. Scenario 2 is I grow the company comfortably to cover all annual expenses and stabilize and then I constantly am looking for alternative income methods, new clients, new ideas and never settling…this is called OFFENSE.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a Fortune 500 company or a one-man operation, this rule and outlook applies to all. When you do not believe it does, you end up like Toys R’ Us…PERIOD.
Delusion of Change Read More »
Start a business. Be your own boss. Make lots of money. Be the only one that controls your destiny. It all sounds great at the start. But then the reality sets in. Entrepreneurship is not as easy as it was made out to be, little things that looked easy turn out to be difficult, and the smallest setbacks look like mountains that are impossible to climb. So why do other self-starters seem able to overcome any obstacle? It all starts in the attitude.
The truth is that everyone faces roadblocks and setbacks when establishing themselves in any business. The ones that overcome them and succeed all have one trait in common: the ability to remain positive in the face of adversity.
This isn’t to say that you have to be happy and accepting when faced with, for example, an unexpected $1,000 repair bill. But a positive outlook from the “grand scheme of things” point-of-view will take the sting out of the invoice. Look at a one-time bill is a setback, and believe you will overcome it.
You have probably heard that attitude is everything in business, but you might not have given much thought to how this applies. Here is an example. Have you ever gone out for a meal, but the service was not up to your expectations? You could somehow “just tell” that the waitress would rather be anywhere but there? Did it affect how you tipped?
Your own enterprise is the same way. Employees, customers, and partners can all sense your attitude. Feel defeated? Everyone responds to it, whether they know it or not. Exude confidence, regardless of the situation? The people around you will feed off that confidence. Your employees will be more productive, and your customers will want to do business with you.
Self-confidence and positive thoughts are self-building entities, as long as you start with a kernel of them. When you believe in yourself and your potential for success, you have a greater capacity for realizing ideas, which leads to a greater capacity to bring them to fruition, which builds your positive attitude, which… well, you get the idea!
But what about those times when you just cannot see that light? How do you take yourself out of that darkness and back into positivity? Here are a few tips.
Spend some time thinking about what you want to accomplish, rather than how you failed. No venture is 100% successful. Instead of dwelling on what didn’t work, concentrate on fixing it to minimize the chances of it happening again.
Look to the future, not the past. Similar to the first suggestion, but this encompasses both the successes and failures. If you spend too much time on “It used to be so good,” that is less time you spend on figuring out how to make it good again, or even better than before.
Spread the weight. When you an’t see any solutions, it does not mean your partners, spouses, and employees can’t. Sometimes you are too close to the problem, and someone that is just slightly more removed can see an immediate answer that you overlooked.
Take some time. Most problems that are severe enough to affect your attitude are not things that require an immediate fix. Walk away from it for an hour, a day, or a weekend if you cannot see a solution. I guarantee the issue will still be at hand when you get back, and you might bring a new perspective back with you.
Don’t give up. It is the easiest thing to do, and probably the most common initial cause of any entrepreneurial failure. Once you stop believing, the rest of it crumbles around you. Until you give in, there is at least a kernel of positivity left.
In high times, low times, and every moment in between, your venture will be at its best when you infect it with your own positivity. That positivity will spread outward from you into an ocean of success.
Now go out there and take over the world; you know you can!
How Entrepreneurship Requires Positivity Read More »
Some would say I expect too much out of what I read, watch, or listen to because I expect VALUE. This stems from how much I value my time and time in general. It is the most valuable commodity in mankind. We all have it, want more of it, and hope it never runs out but it does for everyone. Obviously, there are exceptions to always wanting VALUE such as a funny movie, which I haven’t watched in 5 years…. Warren Bufffet said “Price is what you pay for something, value is what you get out of something” ….I couldn’t agree more with the “Oracle from Omaha”…Now to be clear the “giver” of the value is as much responsible as the “receiver” extracting the value. What do I mean by that?
My whole business has been based on providing more, greater, and unmatched value to every transaction/situation. In this instance I am the giver of the value and have chosen to provide such value. I have created value for Tenants, Landlords, Sellers, and my partners. I am truly critical of my own self-responsibility to provide this value…that’s because I KNOW if I do not provide value than I have not met my responsibilities.
For the receiver, things aren’t as clear but they’re way more exciting. People try to monetize the value of something all the time. But sometimes the value you receive from something is impossible to quantify. The best part of value is it is LIMITLESS in terms of how much and how long it can last. If you went to a Tony Robins event in the 90’s and apply something you have taken from him to the success of your business that’s nearly 25 years of value being used over and over again.
In an era when every person believes they are an expert entrepreneur, motivational speaker, or master vlogger there is A LOT of substance out there to sift through but if processed the right way, there is more value than ever before right at your fingertips…
My commitment is to always try to provide value. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to change the world one conversation at a time but it DOES push you to fulfill more and give more in business and your life and has proven to attract more opportunities. From the other side, I ALWAYS try to spend time on things I think will provide me value, even in challenging deal-making circumstances or on deals that fall apart, what you learn from those experiences is the VALUE proposition.
Recently I had a great conversation with Mayor Jimmy Davis of Bayonne. He and his administration have done some incredible things in helping the growth and renaissance for his city. By any measurement, The Peninsula City, as its called, is going through a BOOM… now here is why…
Positioned between Staten Island & Jersey City, with four light rail stops within the city limits, Bayonne is geographically second-to-none for commuters and the like. The Mayor is a big supporter and is actively working with the Port Authority to add ferry service from the former Military Ocean Terminal base to lower Manhattan, a move that would surely drive the high-paying Wall Street commuter to pay closer attention to Bayonne. These community amenities increase desirability and, combined with lower housing costs than those found in Jersey City and Brooklyn, the arrival of many thousand new units will attract new residents to the city. According to the Mayor, by July 2018 Bayonne will have over 1,100 residential units and a new Costco under construction.
When I asked Mayor Davis what is different between his city and others that have boomed on the Gold Coast, he said that the millennials moving to Bayonne and renting a new apartment and “trading up” as their life events advance, into single-family homes. His administration’s progressive outlook on the city and hands-on approach to spur growth epitomizes how public officials can create growth. The mayor concluded the conversation with a personal invitation to city hall for a tour of Bayonne. I gladly accepted and look forward to it.
Bayonne: A City of Happenings Read More »
There is a lot of smoke and mirrors being employed by both sides of the aisle when it comes to the recently passed tax plan. Some would have you believe it is the end of the middle class, while others all but guarantee a golden age for those who would climb higher. But how will it affect the commercial real estate market? Ultimately we will have to wait and see, but the plan as it is designed to work looks good for investors and appears to avoid a cataclysmic event that some have predicted.
While there are still a lot of questions about the overall benefits, the investment and commercial property sectors have reason to rejoice, to the point that they are consistently being called the “big winners” in this tax reform.
First of all, of course, is the corporate tax rate cut from 35% to 21%. This is an instant savings for all incorporated investment property owners and retailers alike, allowing them to further invest or provide larger bonuses. The examples to date include; Apple, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Walmart to name a few.
The new law limits interest expense deductions to 30% of adjusted taxable income, but most operations that would incur interest for investment property owners are exempt from this rule.
While home equity debt is no longer deductible for most people, there is a clause that allows the proceeds of such a deduction to be used for the acquisition of new properties or improvement of an existing rental property. Excess capital gains can be deferred by similar means.
Investment property owners can also fully expense some investments, rather than having them spread out over years – a process that will allow investors to consider further expansion.
There is also a “freebie” deduction of 20% of qualified business income for pass-through entities, and those making an income of less than $157,000 if filing single or $315,000 if filing jointly will be automatically qualified for this deduction without the requirement of a wage and basis calculation.
There is one missed opportunity that would have been an additional benefit for investment property owners. At one point, there had been a proposal to change the “useful life” of commercial property to 25 years from the current 39 years. This would have increased the annual amount for this deduction. Unfortunately, we will not be seeing this, as it did not make the final bill.
One thing that is not changing, that will be of benefit to investors, is the IRS Section 1031 exchanges. Investors can still immediately reinvest gains in property sales to similar properties in order to defer that gain. Many had feared that 1031’s may have been greatly impacted or revised but fortunately that was not the case.
Finally, because this is a huge tax bill and it was pushed through relatively quickly, it is almost certain that there will be loopholes to be taken advantage of. Hopefully, we can all find them soon!
While I can spend time predicting market trends and changes for 2018 in what is The Bennett Blog’s 1st Edition of a New Year, I think it’s worthwhile to put things in Perspective….one of my favorite words and a practice I live by. If you read our Bennett Blog you know these blogs have lacked some personal content from who is actually writing them, me. And there has been a void in the “Story.” Well here is my massively condensed story…
Entrepreneurship has been engrained in my DNA from the start. My mother was, and still is, a residential realtor and my father the owner of a nursery and landscaping company. Both were self-made. There was never any doubt, if you wanted something growing up in our house, you worked for it, PERIOD. Especially when you have two older brothers like I did! You didn’t complain or look for blame, you worked harder. The point is, you control your own destiny. When my brothers and I turned 14 we were given a shovel and sent to work digging ditches with our Father so that we could save up enough money over the summers to buy each of our first cars…that was the rule in our house, you buy your first car, period. I remember playing in my high school basketball summer league and showing up to the games with dirt under my fingernails from working for my father all day.
Having played sports my whole life and excelled in basketball, I played at Albright College in Reading, PA. This was my first experience to realizing there was way more to life than sports. After my freshman year, I transferred to Montclair State University and had to redshirt my Sophomore year. To fill the void from not playing basketball, I started a mobile detailing business and that was the end of my NBA aspirations. We detailed high end cars and boats in the summers, but it ultimately turned in to a full-time business and my first serious endeavor working for myself. I had my appointment calendar, would display my business cards all over my town, created pricing brochures, and hustled non-stop. By my senior year I was packing a full semester in to 2 days a week of classes so that I could run my business the other 5 days and commute from home to be closer to my customer base. For a 20-year-old, I was making money. Then I graduated, and reality hit me. After stumbling to find my way and working full time for a international metal company, I took the leap and went into real estate full time. Starting at a local commercial real estate company, taking every meeting, listing, or opportunity that I could to get my name out there. I remember saying to my broker, the harder it gets, the more I want to succeed. I made $30,000 in the first 2 years and even living with your parents that is NOT a lot of money.
I started Bennett Realty with one main purpose in mind; no more partners, no more distractions, and no more unnecessary BS. I want to go full tilt! Having a fully integrated brokerage and development platform, an approach that is not commonly seen, has left no dull moment and has been the most exciting time of my career.
After less than 2 years, we have continued our successful record of accomplishment of growth for our existing clients, secured new ones, and signed multiple development deals that are expected to start construction in 2018. During that growth, we launched a major social media campaign and plan to raise that effort to new heights in 2018. We won’t stop being uncomfortable…. part of the reason I wrote this!
The past 12 months will surely go down as a memorable year in the real estate business and perhaps be viewed as the year of the “pivot”, or the first significant change in the market in a generation. The creation of the social media explosion and ecommerce have forever changed the game. Many people and retailers continued to play catch-up and reacted on a situational basis instead of adopting long term plans to coexist and thrive in this new world. Others greatly benefited from this and we saw, and will continue to see, online “e-tailers” open brick-and-mortar locations. Inevitably during this change, the market had its casualties. In 2017 there were more bankruptcies in a 12-month period in the retail sector than almost any other time. Acquisitions by both online and brick-and-mortar retailers was a HUGE part of industry change, from Amazon buying Whole Foods to Walmart buying jet.com. A big part of this is driven by millennials who also greatly impacted the multi-family and residential market, and created a boom in the mixed-use transit projects from the suburbs to the urban areas.
We close out 2017 with the first tax reform bill in the U.S. in 35 years and while pundits and experts are debating the potential impact, many retailers are already predicting a near 15% reduction in their Corporate Tax Rate adding to their bottom lines, which means more growth, and ultimately more jobs and commerce. I have spent a lot of time discussing and writing about what has been coined as this “Retail Armageddon” and its hyper-reaction to admittingly big changes that have occurred and mostly from the position of disagreement. Its not that people don’t have money to spend on retail, like they did in the Great Depression, they HAVE the money, the consumer is there, they are just getting things and their information in a different and diverse way today.
I’m excited about next year and some of the very BIG things we have in the pipeline. We will likely be under construction on a new development project, continue to push and succeed for our existing clients in an unrivaled way, and continue to grow and perfect our infrastructure in all aspects. Thoughts become things and that will never change….wishing everyone a Happy Holiday and Prosperous New Year.
Not an ‘End’, Just a Reflection….2017 Wrap Up Read More »