For decades, a standard cliché about the three most important factors in real estate are: location, location and location. A valuable insight in general.
About 10 years ago, the head of CBRE capital markets, with over $60 billion of assets under management, asked me if I was aware the new three most important things in real estate. He told me “timing, location, and timing”.
Having just been through the harrowing experience of the 2008-09 recession, I was receptive to this wisdom.
It is a sobering truth for real estate investment professionals. After all, a company like GreenLine Ventures cannot control the timing of market cycles.
We can, however, understand when the market is about to shift, or has shifted, in a way that will create opportunities for a company like GreenLine to make especially advantageous acquisitions.
We are at precisely that moment today, in the middle of 2020, and we believe through the end of 2021.
It is a humbling fact for operators like ourselves to realize the movement of the market will have much more to do with our ultimate success or failure, than any brilliance of our own.
But almost all experienced operators will acknowledge that this is the reality.
GreenLine Ventures is setting its platform to increase acquisitions significantly through the end of 2020 and into the first half of 2021. Timing!
GreenLine Ventures is attuned to the grave environmental crisis in the world. Our scale is small in proportion to this problem. But we are committed to doing what is possible at our own buildings.
We go out of our way to improve energy efficiency at our buildings, and reduce energy consumption as much as possible. This can take the form of solar panels, more efficient heating and cooling systems in our buildings, and the use of insulation to reduce energy use.
In the case of GreenLine Ventures, “environmental” also includes the environment of the block and the neighborhood where our buildings are located.
It is a coincidence of our business strategy, and our commitment to the environment, in this local sense, that we seek to enhance our buildings with plantings and landscaping.
While we operate at a modest scale, our philosophy is that every plant and every tree, and every bit of exterior and interior biota, is both a tiny carbon reducer, and an aesthetic enhancement. Interior plants and exterior landscaping are also a reminder to all of our tenants and investors that we care about having a green world.
The social policy of GreenLine Ventures is to affirm the value of our communities, and honor the rights of all our tenants. We believe that the stringent rent control laws in the Bay Area in the state of California are actually counterproductive to the goal of producing more affordable housing. Despite that view, as a matter of both social policy and fiduciary responsibility, we stay up-to-date and informed about rent control laws, and adhere to all of them.
For many of our years in the real estate investment business, we have attempted to provide home ownership opportunities for individuals who may not have the requisite income and down payment to buy a home of their own. We have offered both discounted prices and concessionary financing to tenants in place who want to buy their own units.
Lastly, one meaning of “GreenLine” is that we seek neighborhoods that were once moribund and subject to “redlining” at one point in their history, but are now vibrant and thriving communities. When Peter Lynch began investing in the Mission district of San Francisco in the 1980s, many investors declined to participate on the basis of the quality of the neighborhood. The Mission district is a thriving multicultural community today. We have have made a number of successful investments in the Fruitvale district of Oakland.
GreenLine Ventures is heavily invested in communities of color throughout the Bay Area. We have been investing in these communities long before it was politically correct to do so.
The compensation structure of GreenLine Ventures is extremely flat. The highest paid person in the company makes no more than four times as much as the lowest paid person.
GreenLine is also in “open source” company. We have weekly meetings to discuss all aspects of our operation, and everything that is happening at all of our properties. Donna Noah, the founder of GreenLine Ventures often states that the only viable method of managing a company like GreenLine Ventures is knowledge of what is occurring at the ground level. Donna herself spends much more time at the properties than in the office.
GreenLine Ventures is a small company, with the equivalent of perhaps seven full-time participants. All seven of these people are intelligent, educated, and cooperative. We are not at risk of becoming a “top down” management group that is out of touch with our operations. We all spend significant time at the properties, and communicating with each other.