My guest today is Tony Cardoza, a principal and Managing Director of Cityview which is a vertically integrated institutional asset manager and multifamily developer based out of L.A. Tony has over 20 years of experience in real estate. Prior to Cityview he helped acquire and develop 5,000 units for Real Estate Capital Partners, he also spent time at Prometheus in a land and multifamily acquisitions role. Tony holds a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
While I only know Tony in the professional sense, I consider him a friend and I think you’ll see why that might be. His personality is undoubtedly an asset for his acquisitions role.
This pod’s a bit technical, and Tony’s saying a lot in short periods of time. I really tried to open up his thinking around the entire topic of development to show not just how complex it is, but how top-tier developers think about the component parts of the business.
Listen in as we cover topics that include:
How Cityview doesn’t invest in markets (say LA) but only sub-markets (Hollywood).
The implications that obsolete office space has on their development pipeline.
The magnitude of the decline in apartment values over the last 24 months.
The financial and physical qualities viable development projects portrays at this point.
How Cityview interfaces with the community, endeavoring to truly listen to those affected by their projects.
How to assess and manage costs when building, and that fact that you never really know costs until you execute a contract with a builder.
Why Cityview takes a partnership mentality with their general contractors.
How flexibility and agility play into success in finding property that’s suitable for development.
Why knowing a deal inside out and front to back is table stakes to the game of recruiting equity capital.
How to deal with dishonest people.
How winning the day, personally, as your first accomplishment, can make the workday seem almost inconsequential.
And finally, how some good winds are coming to the commercial real estate market.
