Woody Heller is a broker’s broker. He is one of the most successful and well respected commercial brokers in the industry. He is executive managing director and group head of the capital transactions group at Studley. I had the pleasure of speaking with him about the challenges in the market,  where we might be headed, and his insight as a broker.

In 1973, Barbara Corcoran created what was eventually to become New York City’s top real estate brokerage company. Her entrepreneurial mind, common sense approach to building a business, creativity and tenacity set her apart from the field. She sold the company seven years ago and started applying her creativity and knowledge into other endeavors. She has written two books and is widely considered a pre-eminent expert in the real estate and business world. I had the pleasure of speaking with her about the company she created and eventually sold and the general market.

THE INTERVIEW

Shaun: What was the most challenging part of starting your real estate brokerage company?

Barbara: Coming up with the cash, absolutely, because I was working as a waitress at the time and I lived off of what I earned in tips. Coming up with the cash to start any business was a major obstacle. But fortunately, my (what was soon to be boyfriend), came into the diner. I met him and he gave me the cash to start a brokerage firm. A thousand dollars.

Shaun: That’s a great story.

Barbara: That was a stroke of good luck.

Shaun: So you never became a real estate agent? You started your own company immediately and you never went to work for a firm?

Barbara: I started my brokerage firm in New Jersey immediately because my boyfriend had a friend who was an attorney, and as an attorney he was able to license me. So I just went and took the test. In those days, you have to appreciate 35 years ago, there were no barrier entries at all. If you could walk and talk you could pass the test. And I could do both, so I sailed through it.

Shaun: Is it any different now?

Barbara: Of course. It’s a pain in the neck now. In New Jersey, in New York, any state. Top of the list of course is California where fifteen years after I went to California five times to attend the courses I failed my brokers license five times in a row. I never got to move to California because I already had the Corcoran Group. I wanted to just move to California to just start all over again, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t pass the damn exam. In answer to your question; “Is it more difficult today?” It’s more difficult in terms of education, because you have to take courses and pass the exam, which is a pain in the neck.

Shaun: Did you have a mentor when you entered the industry? Was there someone who inspired you?

Barbara: My mentor, who I never thought of as my mentor, was indeed my boyfriend. And he was instrumental in that he gave me the $1,000 to start me. He took 51 percent of the shares. He was a controlling partner. I ran the business, he invested in it. He was a silent investor.

Shaun: What happened after that?

Barbara: I went along merrily, and grew the business until seven years out he married my secretary and that ended the partnership within one year. I ended it after one year because he wouldn’t let me fire her because he was a controlling partner. That’s how I learned the lesson on what 1 % means. That extra 1%, it’s lethal. I didn’t know that. I was very young and naïve. I’m still entirely grateful that he gave me that opportunity, but very upset that he found my secretary prettier and younger than I was (laughing).

Shaun: I’m sure. Did you then take controlling interest of the company somehow?

Barbara: I announced to him one year later, (it took me a year to build my courage), but a year later when I had enough gumption I walked in and said I was going to end the business and partnership and I had a plan already made on how we were going to do it. It was very simple. We were going to divide the 14 sales people we had at the time, like a football draw and I said “you pick the first one, I’ll pick the second”. He picked the superstar and I picked the medium producer that I knew would make a great partner for me down the road. She had all the traits I didn’t have. I picked my opposite in taking care of the future and in hindsight that was my single best judgment I ever made. And then we divide up the balance of the people. I said to him, “I’ll always let you pick first”. So now, the next question was, who gets to keep the phone number? We had a very snappy number, so he got to pick the number. One of us had to leave the office and one of us had to stay and he said “I’ll stay”. So I got to leave. I got the short end of the stick no matter how you looked at it. But I honestly needed to know that I gave him the best advantage, so that I didn’t have as much guilt about leaving.

Shaun: The name was Corcoran?

Barbara: It was Corcoran Simone at the time. His last name was Simone and my name was Corcoran obviously. So we named it Corcoran Simone. The only reason it didn’t end up Simone Corcoran was we both thought it sounded like one person. Simone Corcoran. His actual name was Simon and his first name was really Ray. When I met him as that handsome boyfriend, he told me his name was Ramon Simon, with an accent on both words. What a difference that made.

Shaun: He got you.

Barbara: He got me, and that was probably the first example of great marketing that I ran into as a real estate broker. I was like, “Ramon Simone….. oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!”

Shaun: One of the more difficult things for me to do was to come up with a name for my company. We picked our names. Cayre, Osher, Real, Estate, C.O.R.E. that’s how we came up with CORE.

Barbara: Is that right? And CORE is so easy to remember. Who cares how you came up with it?

Shaun: This is true.

Barbara: Well, you know the importance of a name. What really makes a difference is whether people can pronounce it. His new company name, because he put his new wife’s maiden name in the front end instead of mine (like overnight), became Pogue Simone. I realized immediately that no one will know how to pronounce it, nor spell it, and I thought that was a stroke of good fortune for me. At least I got to carry my name out.

Shaun: And your name is on it to this day. Corcoran Group is still one of the largest firms still in Manhattan. And it carries your namesake on it. How do you feel about that?

Barbara: Initially when I sold the company it was a source for anxiety. Now I realize that it was a gift. And why I felt that way initially was, I would walk by a store window and see my name, “Corcoran Group”. If I didn’t like the colors they used on the walls to decorate the office I would be annoyed. Is that ridiculous?

Shaun: No, I can appreciate that sentiment.

Barbara: Or if the flowers in the planters to the right and left to the door were not freshly clipped, I would be annoyed and wish my name wasn’t on the canopy above it. So that’s ridiculous, I realized. But when you start your own business, people think of it as a separate entity. When it’s your baby, it’s never a separate entity. It’s an extension of yourself in the same way a child, well maybe not the same way, but very similar to a child. Even though they’re supposed to be independent, you see them as an extension of you, when you’re taking care of them. You know.

Shaun: Absolutely, I feel that all my agents are an extension of me and it’s very important how they represent themselves, because it’s a reflection on me and my company.

Barbara: And you’re so right. Any manager or owner who doesn’t have that exact feeling is never good at their job.

Shaun: The month I started CORE, The Real Deal wrote a story on me, and right next to it was a story on your outlook for the industry. In the article you said “I think the future belongs to small brokers and I’m one of the few people to say that. The big guy clearly has the corner on the money and that’s the downside to being little but the little guy has the corner on creativity”. Can you elaborate a little on that?

Barbara: It’s exactly what it says. I found in growing my business, the larger it became the longer it took for me to execute an idea. And I would get an idea in a minute. I think that was a great forte. I had marketing ideas by the second. So when the company was little I would think of something, traveling to an airport. I’ll give you an example. I’ll give you a few examples. Well, I can give you a million examples. I’ll give you an early example (laughing). I was somewhere parking the car and there was a horse show going on, this is after I left Ray Simone, so I had like seven or eight agents, I walked into the horse show and they had these big gold ribbons, for first place, you know.

Shaun: Right.

Barbara: I said “Wow!” And that day online, when most people weren’t ordering online, I had a hundred gold ribbons delivered to my office the following Monday. By Monday they were on my desk overnight express. I had the idea that I wanted to push my company towards high end sales because we were a mid price firm. At the time, the interest rates in Manhattan were going up, I think almost 17 or 18 percent. I realized the only people that were going to buy property were the very wealthy. And so I realized I was in a bad spot as a brokerage firm, because I was in the middle rung and I was going to be left behind.

So I had to immediately get my sales people to believe they were million dollar sellers, and I used my ribbons to do it. I gave my big pep speech about “You can do it.” One young sales man with no experience went out and got a listing through a contact he knew. Who was a friend of a chauffeur for the Guggenheim Estate on Park Avenue, and he sold it for $1.8 million within two weeks. I awarded him the gold ribbon. That was Ron Rossi who then sadly passed away from AIDS. He was the first salesman that I lost from the AIDS epidemic. But Ron Rossi went in only as he could. When I gave him that gold ribbon it created envy and jealousy within the firm. No one thought that the new kid on the block had the right to be that guy, making that big deal, and I was giving out gold ribbons by the dozens for the next five years. I pushed that company. I’m off point, but the point I wanted to make is, I saw the ribbons at a horse show on Saturday and at the Monday morning sales meeting, I was holding them in the air. I had them custom printed because in the center of each ribbon I had a million dollar sign printed. Anyone who made a million dollar sale, or above, got a ribbon. As elementary as that was, in short order it became that you were almost nobody in the company if your bulletin board wasn’t full of ribbons. The competition was fierce. And so it took me only a day and a half to turn around an idea. That’s a little guy.

When the company got larger I had to work the system. This was my own system that I created, which was usually efficient, because I always had a good eye for efficiencies. But I had to inform the managers what the idea was. Think of who to delegate to. Sometimes it had to be legally vetted. And so idea to delivery was always slow and frustrating, and you even had to play politics of listening, giving audience to the nay-sayers. To be proper at the advisory counsel that I created, where you discuss things and include people. It’s not that it was not all important, but it slowed the process. Year by year my creativity output became slower, even though we were clearly labeled the innovator in the business and had a dozen ideas to everyone else’s number. It was still so frustrating to see that pace slow down.

Shaun: Why did you sell your company?

Barbara: At the time I was selling, I had a six year old son that I gave birth to at 46. I thought I was the oldest mother in the world. Now I have a 3 year old at 59, so I’m really the oldest mother for sure.

Shaun: Children are the best.

Barbara: It’s the best and it puts everything into perspective. So I had two reasons; one although I was spending all the time I could with my son, I was tired when I was with him, because I put 150% into everything I did. Parenting and my business, from the minute I walked in. Even in bed thinking of things, I was 150% in love with my business and I was 150% in love with my son and so that was a conflict. The other reason was my goal from the beginning, which was to be the number one firm. And the minute I could prove myself in market share, which in New York how do you really do that? I simply had more listings on the books in the sellers market when I sold than anyone else. You know, you never really knew what the buildings were worth, but I knew I was number one or two, but I could clearly see I had a good 15% margin over Douglas Elliman’s listings. I realized I was number one, the best way I could measure. And I said “Okay, now what do I do?” I accomplished my goal and I couldn’t think of anything. I thought “Okay, I got to where I wanted to go, and now what? Oh, I guess it’s time to check out.” I decided that month to sell my company, and I had a buyer within a week, and it was closed four months later.

Shaun: Do you have any regrets?

Barbara: I had regrets after I sold the business. Not regretting the decision per say, but regrets that I didn’t think about how difficult the adjustment would be for myself. What I terribly miss more than anything are the people. I had roughly 850 sales people, another 200 somewhat clerical support people, managers, and marketing people. I had a huge family and I had hired not every one of them, but almost every one of them. I had trained at least a third of them and they were my babies. And so, to walk away from a family you raised for 30 years was very difficult for me to make that adjustment. Very difficult. I felt broken hearted, and yet I thought I would feel free. But instead I felt empty.

Shaun: What have been the main changes in the industry since you sold your company 6 years ago?

Barbara: Well, the main change is, there’s been a shift in the population of buyers in the city. More dramatic than when I witnessed it through the years. It was starting, but it wasn’t as dramatic, which is the traffic from overseas. It became more of an international city by far. It became more of a wealthy city by far. Not that those changes weren’t on foot anyway and they were markets that I was always hiring people specifically for, but the percentage of wealthy foreigners coming to the city, I would classify as a dramatic change. I think another change that happened, not that it started when I sold because it certainly started years before I sold, but even to a greater degree became more true, is the caliber of the typical salesperson that came into the field got better by the year. Truly the caliber of the individual, both in terms of education, dedication and hustle. And those are important cards.

Shaun: We are going through a global financial crisis. What is your outlook for the real estate market in Manhattan, short term or long term?

Barbara: It’s nothing more than a blip in a continuous line that keeps going up. I mean will it blip down? I really believe that, I think it’s got to blip down because our worst enemy to the real estate market is not a bad Wall Street as people always say it is. The worst enemy is uncertainty. When people are uncertain, it’s havoc on sales. So the uncertainty is a terrible card right now that’s playing out. But despite that, New York, I’ve learned to believe in heart and soul. There’s always someone who wants it. Let this group leave or that group leave. The families abandoned the city years ago and then they returned back. Corporate America left New York and then that stopped. You know the Japanese came in and then they lost their shirts and then the Taiwanese came in and bought their apartments from them. There’s always someone who wants New York. I used to, for the first maybe four years of my business, worry myself because my initial customer base was corporate America. I had two good accounts. I had Union Carbide and Citibank. They sent me all their trainees, young engineers and young bankers and I’d rent them apartments. Renting them apartments was my blood line. And then Blue Cross and Blue Shield moved out. Union Carbide moved out in those first four years and I’m like “oh no, oh no”. And all the bad comments about New York in the early seventies. And then everyone was wrong. And then after 911 everybody said again “New York, New York, oh poor New York” and then the whole world fell in love with New York. And the international community embraced it.

Shaun: 1987 through to 1993 were really difficult for real estate in the city.

Barbara: I remember when prices first went down, after the stock market crashed and it took 11 years to recoup that loss. And we recouped it in the last three years, so prices tumbled 8 years. But then we recovered within three years, and that is something that’s true about New York and not true about other real estate markets. I never believe when people say, oh New York is different. In the end New York is not so different. But the one difference I do see about New York is it’s much slower to unwind, it happens later here. We recover faster here and when it picks up it runs like gang busters. It makes up the loss over night.

Shaun: Time will tell. Once again, congratulations on all your success.

Barbara: I appreciate it. I wish you luck with your company, even though you don’t need it. But it’s nice to have luck anyway.

Shaun: How old is the company?

Michael: The company is almost 3 years old.

Shaun: And your title is?

Michael: CEO

Shaun: How many people is the company comprised of?

Michael: Ten. A big group of ten.

Shaun: Must be ten very efficient people.  What hours do you work? (Laughing)  Is there some advantage to owning a web based company, where your hours are not traditional?

Michael: I think so. We have an employee in California.  Today we’ve been able to do a lot with very few people. Ten for us is actually quit a big number.  For the first two years it was much smaller than that.

Shaun: Why did you start the company?

Michael: In a very basic sense, we started the company because we felt there was a real lack of actionable data for consumers, when it came to residential real estate.

Shaun: So is your primary focus on this site data?

Michael: I think traditionally the real estate industry (as far as listings) have really treated something that is on the market as being on the market today.  And if it’s on the market tomorrow then fine. And if was on the market yesterday, we don’t haV much to say about it. It’s a sort of status quo market place.  We felt that data in all forms, historical, current, and related, is an important part in making a purchase decision. I think fundamentally we believe that you should be able to look at historical data, as far as real estate is concerned.  Whether that it be historical within a building, what does the other apartment sell for and when? Is it historical in terms of the neighborhood? How was the neighborhood performing at the time? Is it historical as far as how has that neighborhood evolved over time in terms of what’s the type of inventory and the pricing levels for that inventory? Some of which we addressed and some of which we are still very far away from addressing.

Shaun: That’s a monumental task.  I know that a lot of this information is held very close to the vest.

Michael: I think it is.  But I think a lot of the information was always out there and it was a question of whether one could organize that information well.  There’s tons of public information.  Most of it very poorly organized and most of it of highly variable quality.  What happens when you start to build a repository of data is you have the ability to cross reference it. Tomorrow if a broker puts a co-op listing into a building that we have 20 condo listings we’re pretty sure that listing is wrong. We’re pretty sure that building didn’t get converted into co-op.  And if it did then that’s an event also and we need to know about that. We have a data base of all of the current years’ tax assessments for every single borough, block and lot in New York City. If we get a tax number coming up in our listing that’s marked differently than the one we have recorded for, then something needs to be fixed. In which case we are providing better information for the consumer and to the real estate professional who’s got that listing; someone maybe keyed it in the wrong way. But also I think in terms as far as historical information nobody was counting.  I mean at the end of the day some of the bigger brokerages, we all know who they are, were doing it for their own listings.  So they were looking at how their listings were performing, but this is what they’ve done historically and then of course, there were systems that only real estate professionals had access to, which also collected information over a longer period of time but, didn’t really have to analyze that information. For New Yorkers, it just seemed like there wasn’t a lot of data for the consumer.

Shaun: Is it similar to a hybrid of what Miller Samuels did as far as data collection and giving a current market report?

Michael: No.  To take it from a Miller Samuels point of view or even Halstead, Corcoran, Douglas Elliman, they all produce a quarterly market report that looks back.  Well, if you’re an equity investor in Wall St. today you’re not likely to take somebody’s annual report and make an investment decision based on old data.  You’re probably looking at the news on that company today and the news on the company last week. And seeing what the upcoming schedule is in terms of executive announcements around that company combined with that historical information. We’re taking the exact same approach.  What we are saying is the listing discount of last years inventory in the Upper East Side doesn’t really help me to make a decision on how much I want to bid for this particular unit.  What might help me is knowing that trend in terms of where things are going, also knowing where are the last three apartments in this building listed. How long did they stay on the market? How many price changes were there? What was the ultimate listing discount, between where they started and where they ended? Were those apartments in buildings where you really needed to know your way around the building?  Did the same real estate professional sell more than one unit in the same building because they happen to know the building well? Or was it a very democratic building like the Trump Place buildings where there are lots of brokers involved? Those are all bits of information that get you to the point of being able to make a decision as a consumer. We’re not going to become a brokerage. That was never the idea for the business.   We believe that New York City is a city served very well by real estate professionals.  The idea is to support consumers so when they engage with a real estate professional they can spend some quality time together, if you will.

Shaun: So how successful have you been in collecting this data from an historical and from a current stand point?

Michael: I think successful on both fronts. There will always be more data that we want to get.

Shaun: So would you say that your current site is a complete MLS type system for the consumer?

Michael: I think as far as Manhattan is concerned, there’s no place that you can go and get better information than Streeteasy today.

Shaun: New York Times online?

Michael: Absolutely not. New York Times online is advertising supported listings. So if you’re Corcoran, you have an annual advertising contract with them and X amount of listings that you can show. Some portion of your inventory you don’t have in the New York Times.  If you’re a smaller firm, as you know, then you’re definitely paying on a per listings basis, in which case you’re going to advertise not the listing you’ve had for four months but the listing that you got last month. They’re showing the portion of inventory which they’re paid to show. So in terms of completeness, we feel we are much more complete.  We have participation from 90 plus percentage of all brokerages in Manhattan.  Whether that be for the biggest to the boutiques and I don’t think there is another site that can make it like that today

Shaun: How challenging was that to get participation of all of the large brokerages?

Michael: We had a few guiding principals.  One of them was that accuracy is way more important than volume.  So we never took the approach of getting listings from lots of different sources.  If you have the same apartment, the same listing from four different sources and you produce a heat map, you have a very bright spot over that apartment. Believe me, we see it over and over and over. So our guiding principal has been to have really high quality data and support the real estate professional. On the consumers side we’ve tried to keep things as open and as free as possible so that consumers can do their own analysis and can get in touch with real estate professionals easily.  I think all that goes to our benefit in terms of your original question, which was how difficult is it to get listings? I think when you treat both the consumer and the professional fairly then they’ve been very giving in terms of there willingness to participate. Consumers are moving away from print and they’re moving online..

Shaun: How do you differentiate yourself?

Michael: We put our heads down and stay busy. We put our heads down and say, “How do we produce quality data? How do we make sure we get everybody involved?” Regardless of what association they are a member of.  If you’re a boutique three person firm that specializes in a four square block area of Tribeca, we’re interested in you. This gives the boutique company a lot more power than before. I think the larger companies have realized that the boutique firms may have an edge.  Technology has evened the playing field and the boutique firms that are creative enough to understand this will move with technology, while the huge 10,000 lb. gorilla is going to take time to adapt. I think it’s going to be hard to disagree with that. I do think that the advantage the larger firms continue to have is they’ve always had a presence.  Whether it’s their brand, their signage, whatever it may be.  It’s vertical. There’s still a signage advantage that comes along with having a big retail operation, which some firms do.

Shaun: How are you getting your data? Let’s take an example of a large firm you work with.

Michael: The majority of the sites send us a feed.

Shaun: Do they have to give you permission to send you a feed for you to use on your site?

Michael: Right.

Shaun: What about historical data?

Michael: We’re keeping everything. We’re creating our own historical information. We’re not asking people for historical information. Some people have given us historical information.  I don’t want to slice this to be gentle with this.

Shaun: How much traffic do you generate on your site?

Michael: Today we’ll do about 4 million page views a month.

Shaun: And most of those page views are coming from?

Michael: New York City and its surrounding area.  We have lots of people from Europe and other states but the large share of our traffic is NY metro.

Shaun: Do you know if it’s brokers?

Michael: Mostly consumers, about 10% brokers and 90% consumers. We have great participation as far as the number of brokers that are in the city and brokers that go on the site. The consumers generate a lot more page use then brokers. The consumers are going through listings and trying to learn about a neighborhood.  Learn about a building.

Shaun: Where do you want the company to go to in the next two years?

Michael: We are in the process of building out of metro New York, so we’ve going to have all the surrounding counties information. There are some other cities we are looking at as well.  But our focus remains New York City.

Shaun: Would you ever go internationally?

Michael: No.

Shaun: Where do you see the future of online connection between buying a home for the consumer? And what do you feel is really missing right now for the consumer online to make the connection to the real world?

Michael: It’s a great question.  I think consumers really want to understand two things.  A consumer who is looking for a place to live wants to understand real estate in the context of where they want to live.  To tell someone to buy in Tribecca or Soho or the Upper East Side doesn’t really tell that much.  What they really want to know is where they can get the best value.  Where’s that value going to appreciate? So if it’s not the center of any one of those neighborhoods, it’s really going to be the edge. But is it really the edge that’s going up or is it the edge that’s going down? And I think that’s what they want to understand. But I think they also want to understand the chemistry of the neighborhood.  They really want to understand on a much more granular basis. What is my life going to be like if this is where I live from the point of view of my commute and from the point of view of the businesses where I spend my money?  Because as we know in New York people spend the lion share of discretionary income a few blocks from home. So whether that it be the restaurants to the services that are available, they want to understand that. And I think that the kind of data we’re collecting today ultimately benefits consumers, because they’ll be able to do that.  I think for real estate professionals that the same thing is also true.  They become specialists and I think they can make a really strong argument, boutiques and individuals, can make a really strong argument that they’re the best real estate professionals for this particular building, this particular block, this particular neighborhood because there really going to have all of the data that’s available.  Not just through conversations on the street not just conversations with their own client but also the information that comes from other peoples clients. What is the view like? How many windows are there relative to the size of the apartment? What kind of renovations where made over time?  That’s all really important information because it lets you know; what can I do with my bucks? Is this a building where you have 90 days in order to complete a renovation otherwise you pay a $1,000 a day fine? Or is this a building that’s more liberal in terms of the rules they put on renovations? What has been done to the apartment in the recent past and how should that affect its value?  Where you can start putting data around those conversations, then you start producing actionable information.  You start making the consumer become far more educated and you make a real estate professional deal with a consumer that’s far more educated, which is far more efficient in terms of their compensation.

Shaun: I noticed you have a section on the site that has blogs and discussions.  What do you think about blogs?  Is there a place for it? Do you think that it maybe makes the site lose a little bit of credibility if you’re opening it up to a forum where anyone who is educated or not educated say whatever they want in this open forum?

Michael: In general discussion is good.  I think that everybody understands when things are posted on the internet at this point they understand exactly how serious they should take it.  And what happens online is people’s reputations are built over time just like they are in the real world.  I think that if someone who has a history of making credible and reasonably intelligent comments, people online take it a lot more seriously than someone who has no track record or has a track record of quite the opposite. I think there’s a bit of self filtering that goes on.  I think that it’s been difficult, when we’ve had comments we considered to be very cheap shots, which it’s very easy to go online and track somebody else by name.  And by and large we don’t permit it. We reserve the right to edit whatever we want and if we think that shots are taken that are unfair we will remove them.  But our principle has always been that the bigger the discussion, the better it is, especially because it’s New York, where people absolutely respect and participate and debate all day long every day.  It’s not a city where you’re expected to think like the guy right next to you. And everyone in the city knows that great ideas come from that kind of conflict.  So I think to the extent that we believe that conflict is more positive than negative but obviously we reserve the right to delete stuff that we consider to be counter productive.  Our editorial principal is to say what you want but be kind to others. When you look at either the blogs of real estate professionals, individuals or the real estate blogs like Curbed and Brownstoner that exist in the city, I think that they serve an enormously positive purpose in terms of what they are providing.

Shaun: How do you promote yourself? How does the consumer know about Streeteasy?

Michael: We have no consumer marketing what so ever. We’ve done a small amount of industry marketing, but consumers find us through word of mouth, blogs and media. We spend a lot of time developing relationships with writers.

Shaun: In terms of the way people use the site, what surprised you the most?

Michael: How passionate so many people are in New York about real estate.  I mean it’s really amazing how passionate people are. You have to have your real estate conversation every single day.  We all understood that going in, but I think the level of passion from consumers has been really incredible. I also think that the quality of information coming from consumers has been quite high.

Shaun: Do you find that people are surprised by how much information is public?

Michael: Everybody loves public information unless it’s about them.

The world at large is flattening and our mechanisms of communication have evolved. Not since the Alexander Graham Bell era, more than 130 years ago, have we seen this extent of innovation. The internet has allowed pioneers to navigate through unchartered territories. Lockhart Steele is one of those pioneers. In a few short years he has created Curbed.com, which has become one of the leading industry (and non-industry) related blogs. Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it. I sat down with Lockhart in West Soho and discussed his creation, opinions and vision.

THE INTERVIEW

Shaun: Where did you grow up?

Lockhart: I’m a Massachusetts native.

Shaun: Did you go to journalism school?

Lockhart: I didn’t actually. I went to Brown. I’m a little older than I look. I’m actually 34. I graduated in 1996. I moved to New York immediately, so this is my 12th year here. I’m almost being accepted as a New Yorker.

Shaun: Why did you start Curbed?

Lockhart: Well, I’m a journalist by trade. I used to work in magazines and I love to write. At my core I’m a writer and I started writing on the web. I had my own personal website back in 2001. I live on the Lower East Side at Rivington and Ludlow Streets and I started writing about the neighborhood in 2001. It was right in that period of very fast transformation. 71 Clinton Fresh Foods opened, Schiller’s was just opening and the whole neighborhood was really changing. Everyday there was a new bar, a new restaurant. Lots were being sold, buildings were going up, and I started writing about this because it fascinated me. What I found was that people in my neighborhood discovered the site and started reading it. Because the stuff I was writing about was too minor to ever appear in NY Times even on the bottom of page B7. It’s just the stuff that is happening in your block is fascinating to you. It might not be with the bigger media. So I did it for a few years and I had the idea that it would be fun, the way I chronicled the changing of that neighborhood, to do for all of New York.

Shaun: When did you start Curbed?

Lockhart: I started Curbed in spring 2004. First and foremost my inspiration for the whole site was really to chronicle neighborhoods, and of course so much of what happens to neighborhoods in New York is tied to real estate. First and foremost, Curbed is about the neighborhoods of New York and telling the stories of the neighborhoods of New York. I am now in Los Angeles, San Francisco as well. Each of these cities is neighborhood driven. We tell the stories of how these cities are evolving and changing and what are they in the process of becoming?

Shaun: So it’s not only real estate related?

Lockhart: Some of my favorite stories on Curbed are the really stupid ones. Like, there’s a guy selling meat from the back of the truck in Park Slope. You know there are certain stories that make the site fun. People love to debate absurdities about neighborhoods. There’s so much happening in the real estate world in New York that obviously there’s a lot for us to write about and the site does end up being a lot about real estate. We have 2 full time writers who do most of the writing on the site and they’re both really funny, brilliant guys.

Shaun: Who goes on your site?

Lockhart: I think real estate for a lot of people is intimidating and scary, especially for those who have never bought a place before in New York, or if you’re renting. Curbed’s typical reader is actually about 15% from the industry. So 85% of our readers are Wall Street guys, lawyers, media people, people that sit at that their desk all day with a computer in front of them. People take a break from their job and they’re fascinated. A lot about what we try to do is write about real estate from a perspective of assuming that you don’t know what F.A.R. is, or that you don’t know what a 421a exemption is. Those are the kind of things we try not to talk a lot about on the site. If you’re just an average New Yorker, you don’t care about that. You care about why a developer can build a tall tower next to me. New Yorkers are smart, so we can be smart and we can be funny. We don’t want to bore them with a lot of the gory details, which is very appropriate for a trade magazine like The Real Deal to really dig in because it’s being read by brokers and people, this is their business. Curbed is foremost entertaining. People read it because they find it amusing. They love architecture and they want to see what’s going to be built next door to them.

Shaun: Where do you get your stories from?

Lockhart: We get our stories from three places. One of course we’re always keeping an eye on, is what everyone else is writing about. A lot of what we do is link. We want to make Curbed the place where if there’s a story about the New York real estate world published anywhere, we’re going to find the link to it. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the Dubai Daily Paper or if it’s on an architecture website or if it’s anywhere else. But the thing that makes the site, the second place we get our information, is our editors doing their own reporting. The third place, that’s probably the most interesting, is the relationship we have with our own readers, which is pretty crazy. We have readers who send us hundreds of emails a day.

Shaun: And how do you filter everything?

Lockhart: The way it works is: a typical kind of email we would get is “Hey Curbed, I was just walking down 11th Avenue in Chelsea and I was checking out the progress on three new developments and here are some photos I took”. And what’s amazing is these are people we don’t know who are so fascinated by the way New York is evolving. They love their city and they will take the time to take these photos and write us an email. A lot of the stuff we get is questions which become the stories for our editors to investigate. A lot of them are really great and our readers are doing the reporting for us. So our editor’s job is to track all this information, sift through and decide what we think the readers want to read today. You have to have a big bullshit filter and it’s surprising people always ask me; “How are you sure you’re getting this stuff right?” and I say we certainly make our share of screw ups (laughs). There is no question about that.

Shaun: So, how do you control the quality?

Lockhart: Blogging is a different way of doing journalism. I used to be a reporter and when I was going to do a story, I would make ten phone calls and I’d write 1,000 words and it would probably be published in the New York Times (or whatever) and that’s the end of the story. If I got something wrong, then I’d run a tiny correction on the bottom of the page a week later. The way we do it on Curbed, you get a little story tip from a reader, we hear this happened; we kind of throw it out there. We make sure if it’s something obvious or scandalous or it seems like it’s probably too good to be true we always check that stuff out. That’s what I mean about having a good bullshit filter. We have the fundamental assumption at Curbed that our readers know more than we do.

Shaun: So you think that’s a filter in and of itself?

Lockhart: Our readers know more about real estate than we do. We want to bring that knowledge out in to the open. That’s what the comments section on Curbed is. It can get crazy at times, but it’s the internet. People go off the handle, but I think more often than not the information that pops up in the comments is from people who know. Some of them will pop up and write a two paragraph comment about the entire history of the property. Obscure information that you would only know if you had developed that property or if you were so plugged into to it that you would know these crazy details. We’re never going to know that.

Shaun: I guess the genius of it is that you’re able to harness the power of all your readers.

Lockhart: That’s it. What makes us great are the readers sending us these tips and commenting. You know, a lot of ways we’re a conduit for the reader. We don’t know what we are going to write about tomorrow.

Shaun: Which I guess it’s a double edged sword, because you do have readers who have an agenda.

Lockhart: Of course.

Shaun: I guess that’s the entertainment factor.

Lockhart: Absolutely. As long as we’re always clear on what information comes from the readers, what information we’ve vetted and what information we are putting out there essentially unvetted, and we try to be good about that. Like I said, I assume people that read our site have a functioning brain. And they also have the ability. I think more often than not we get it right. That’s the power of this medium. It let’s information rise up.

Shaun: According to Quantcast, you get 2.5 million paged viewers per month.

Lockhart: That’s on Curbed New York

Shaun: And over 800,000 unique visitors.

Lockhart: That’s right.

Shaun: What do you attribute that traffic to? I don’t think you do any marketing?

Lockhart: We never started any marketing.

Shaun: That’s amazing.

Lockhart: It’s pretty crazy. It blows my mind to be honest with you. I mean this is something I started as a hobby and it’s just grown. Now I run it as a business. But four years ago I literally started this thing because I thought it was going to be fun.

Shaun: So how good of a business is it?

Lockhart: In the last year and a half I decided, like, oh shit! I should quit my job and do this.

Shaun: What were you doing at the time?

Lockhart: I was a magazine guy then I used to run the website, Gawker. I was the managing editor at Gawker media. I didn’t do any of the writing over there, but I was mostly responsible hiring all the writers. Gawker turned itself into a wonderful business. Nick Denton who runs the show over there is an incredibly smart guy. And I learned a lot about web publishing and how to turn a highly trafficked site into something that can actually make some money. It was only a year and a half ago that developers, a lot of developers, were discovering Curbed. And we started getting emails, Hey, can I advertise with you? Sure. And suddenly the site was making some money.

Shaun: Has anyone ever offered to buy the company?

Lockhart: We have had someone, but not that big. My mom has offered $20 for the whole enchilada. The summer of 2007 I started this full time and we built a team and we took a little bit of investment money last summer and this year we finally feel like we are set up now. 2007 was about turning what was a hobby into a business and now 2008 is a lot about getting out there in front of the industry in New York. I went to L.A. for two weeks. Curbed L.A. is not as big as New York. It’s about half the size.

Shaun: You have San Francisco, L.A. Is Miami one of the target cities? Are there any other cities?

Lockhart: We want to do Chicago next, because it’s another great neighborhood city. People in Chicago are obsessed with their neighborhoods. You know Miami, I love Miami. I think what we are going to do there is what we’ve been doing this site in the Hamptons in the summer, called The Beach. I think we’re going to re-do it – we haven’t even announced this – but you can put the information out there. We’re going to do a new version of it and launch it on Memorial Day. Cover the Hamptons really obsessively in the summer and then in the winter it’s going to be sort of like high end resort spots. Aspen, South Beach, Hamptons, you know kind of like Jason Binn’s magazines.

Shaun: Do you think blogs and online media is killing print?

Lockhart: I don’t think it’s killing print. So much of what we do is symbiotic with print. If we didn’t have all these print things to link to I think Curbed would be very diminished. I see the two of them kind of merging. I think print is dying on its own.

Shaun: Why?

Lockhart: It costs a lot of money to buy paper to run these giant presses. Then you print this thing and then it has to be delivered all over town. You have to put it in the mail and spend postage money. To get a new magazine for profitability you have to be making from 3 or 4 million bucks a year to cover your cost of printing and marketing. On the web we spend 5 grand a year on our servers. We’ve compressed that entire thing to 5 grand, which means we can run a lot leaner. Curbed is a small business obviously, but we run really lean. We’re sort of at that hungry boot strapping stage of any business. I’m sure you’ve been there.

Shaun: Yes I have.

Lockhart: You’re obsessed about your expenses. You’re obsessed that every penny really matters. You can’t eat lunch at fancy places like Giorgione 508.

Shaun: In order to have credibility in journalism, you have to be impartial. Once you bring advertising into that equation does it change? If a developer is paying you $10,000 to run a banner ad is there a conflict of interest?

Lockhart: I think there is. You can say the same things about magazines and news papers. Any media that accepts advertising has the potential conflict of interest if you don’t build your company the right way. We’re obsessed with making sure our editors have the right to write whatever they want. The first magazine I ever worked for was run by an entrepreneur who made a lot of money in the business. He said you serve your readers first and if your readers start to feel we’re pulling punches or that we’re favoring one guy over the other guy, readers are going to be like, “Fuck you Curbed.” We’ve had some big developments advertising on Curbed where we’ve gotten emails from someone moving in complaining, “Hey, the roof leaks here,” and we run that. I’m happy so far that the developers that have advertised with us kind of get that. Blogs are happening.

Shaun: You’ve grown exponentially very quickly. Where do you see yourself in two years?

Lockhart: I think a lot of what we have to do right now is expand what we started. I don’t think we’re going to see Curbed in twenty cities. We want to focus on the big cities where there’s enough going on everyday to warrant a daily news segment.

Shaun: Are you interested in venturing out internationally?

Lockhart: I think Sydney we’d love to do. That could be a couple of years out. I’m a news guy. If we could afford twice as many editors right now, I have tons of ideas of things we could be doing.

Shaun: What daily news do you read, watch or listen to?

Lockhart: I’m a newspaper guy. I’m the one that buys newspapers. I read The Post and The Times religiously every day. I can’t start my day without a newspaper. I use a piece of software that lets me follow about 400 blogs everyday if you can believe that.

Shaun: How do you think the web has revolutionized our world? We are clearly in a revolution as powerful in my opinion as the industrial revolution?

Lockhart: First of all I think it’s a hell of a lot of fun. In my world the web has brought so many people together. I met so many friends through it. I chafe at the idea when people say oh, the web is making us all hide in our rooms alone. I think it’s helping us be more social than ever.

Shaun: What’s next?

Lockhart: Here’s what I would really like Curbed to do next. I have a vision for the next few years. I don’t know exactly how we can do this, but something we’re thinking a lot about is finding ways to let people interact with each other on the site more than they do now. Right now we’re kind of topped out. We’re kind of old media in that we have writers that do all the writing and fact tracking, which is fine. I don’t want to lose that. What I can see is the site getting deeper. What if we can create some better tools?

Shaun: I look forward to seeing it.

Walking into Pandiscio Co. gives credence to the old saying “if you want to get something done, ask a busy man.” With 14 real estate projects under their belt in only four years, Pandiscio Co. is in the business of turning properties into valuable new brands (or reinvigorating old ones).

I sat down with founder Richard Pandiscio at his headquarters in the Meatpacking District to discuss his pioneering work in real estate branding.

THE INTERVIEW

Shaun: How did you get into this business?

Richard: Long or short?

Shaun: Whatever you’re comfortable telling.

Richard: Short. André Balazs and Louise Sunshine.

Shaun: Where did you study?

Richard: Exeter. Tulane School of Architecture. Rhode Island School of Design. Before there were assistants there were secretaries and my first job was as a secretary at Condé Nast for the Design Director of House & Garden. At that time, this is the mid eighties, the magazine believed that quality was everything, and it took precedence over style. By the time I was 26 I had worked at Vogue and was Art Director of the new start-up, Condé Nast Traveler. One day out of the blue Tibor Kalman, whom I had never met but who was brilliant and a real design anarchist, hired me as Creative Director for Andy Warhol’s Interview — a magazine I was obsessed with as a teenager.

Shaun: It’s all connected.

Richard: In retrospect, yes.

Shaun: Let’s talk about going from Interview to starting your own company. There’s usually some impetus or driving force into starting your own company. Was there some moment that drove you?

Richard: Magazines, to be sustainable and profitable, are always built on a formula that can be repeated ad infinitum. A magazine can experiment with its consistency only so often before advertisers start getting nervous. I always found working beyond the confines of a Creative Director’s duties the most enjoyable part of my job. I reported on the fashion collections in New York and Paris; I wrote often about design, photography and celebrity; and I had my own monthly column in which I had the freedom to identify undiscovered new talent wherever I found it. It was called “Ones to Watch,” and it ran for about six years. Even with these opportunities, I was limited to what was right for the magazine. So, to answer your question, I wanted to move beyond the magazine world and have the freedom to try new things. The goal of starting a company was to be as experimental as possible, which is something we’ve managed to achieve.

Shaun: Who were some of your prime “ones” that you recognized?

Richard: Some are now inextricably part of that culture, like fashion designer Alexander McQueen, film director Jim Mangold, or writers such as Rick Moody and David Sedaris. But I just as much enjoyed people who had no expectation of fame but who were wonderful, who had a natural gift for gab, or who could do something amazing with a ball of string, things like that.

Shaun: Clearly one of your talents is your ability to recognize trends ahead of their time. Things that stylistically change the way we see the world. Products or people. Whether it’s a piece of real estate or something in the design world. How do you keep in touch day to day with what’s going on out there?

Richard: Cocktail parties, mostly. Just listen to what your friends are starting to talk about and you will get all the new information you really need. But I also find trends to be exhausting – and exhaustive. A trend can become more refined, but rarely becomes more interesting as time goes on unless it mutates into something else entirely.

I’m able to accept that I have very good instincts as well as internal radar for what people are ready to accept next. About five or six years ago, real estate prices in New York were escalating and friends who otherwise would never be caught dead talking about real estate were beginning to tune in. Mostly for my own amusement, I wrote a four or five page proposal for a new magazine that wasn’t about real estate, per se, but rather about the culture that surrounds it: how real estate shapes lives and industries and design and economics. I threw the proposal in a drawer and forgot about it.

A few years later I was at a dinner party and the woman sitting next to me turned to me and asked “what do you think is interesting right now, really?” A lot of times people are afraid to talk about something they fear no one else has any interest in, so when I said “real estate” I was surprised to hear how much she had been thinking about it, too. She was the legendary magazine editor Alexandra Penney. I sent her the old proposal and she forwarded it to S.I. Newhouse, the Chairman of Condé Nast, and to Adam Moss, the editor of New York Magazine, who immediately bought the concept and turned it into “Vu.”, which couldn’t have made me happier because I knew his team would do a brilliant job with it, and they have. I continue to work with them as a consultant. Fast forward to The New York Times’ “Key”, the New York Observer’s “Location”, etcetera, etcetera… So yeah, cocktail parties, definitely.

When I first started marketing real estate, I brought in really great artists, writers and photographers that I had worked with in the past. They would ask me to omit their names from the credits, as they somehow found it lowbrow. Now the same people are stipulating that they must be credited. Prominently. That’s a huge shift in the culture for the industry.

Shaun: How much of your company’s work is real estate-based?

Richard: Four years ago it was nearly nothing. Today, maybe 85%.

Shaun: Do you think that’s partly because real estate has evolved and has become more sophisticated? Your creative input and your talents are more necessary to make a project more successful and resonate with our buyer of today.

Richard: Well sure, and Pandiscio Co. has had something to do with that. But like most things, the driving forces behind it are the economics. Competition in the marketplace necessitates finding radical new means for grabbing attention and adding value and allure. The usual tactics — more amenities, more expensive finishes and slicker renderings — just weren’t doing the trick. The more sophisticated the renderings became the more the projects looked the same. The bigger the amenities package and finer the finishes, the more the projects were the same.

I have to be honest, when we first started, we really didn’t strategize as we do now — we just did what we thought would make us want to live in each respective project. And the projects were wildly successful and the developers were able to raise prices beyond any of their expectations because the buyer interest was so strong. And nearly all of these buyers were focused on the qualities we had underlined, or in many cases invented. And the subsequent side effect was that our work also generated an enormous amount of press on its own merit, which in turn gave journalists a renewed interest in covering the projects and propelling the real estate media frenzy.

Shaun: The projects that you’ve worked on, you clearly have an identifiable signature on all of them, yet every project is unique.

Richard: Thanks, but it’s really just common sense. Nothing can be unique if it is the same as something else, right? Every project is built differently, is in a different neighborhood, is in a different in moment – the headlines in the news have changed. Why would anyone want to spend a premium for a generic home?

Shaun: What inspires you? How do you get started with a new client?

Richard: We start with the proposition that’s put on the table and consider it the way I think any buyer would consider it – and then we start to pick it apart and look for its strengths as well as the weaknesses.

Shaun: I agree.

Richard: This process of testing the project for its weaknesses is something a good developer — really an experienced developer — welcomes. The public and the press will sniff out a project’s shortcomings in a heartbeat, so it’s important to correct weaknesses early on. Nobody wants to deal with a dog of a building once construction is complete.

The developer’s personality and personal preferences are something you’re going to have to deal with throughout the project. You need to understand what their comfort level is or what their particular interests are, so that the process can proceed as smoothly as possible.

It’s important, too, with every project to develop a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar grabs attention for a project and the familiar offers reassurance. As a company we have been able to flourish not only by positioning our projects in the public consciousness by being provocative — a black billboard celebrating a recently deceased architectural icon, or short films starring a martini-swilling cartoon beaver that run in movie theaters, or dancing cowboys on the roof of 246 W. 17th — but also by refining and reinventing some of the less celebrated staples of real estate marketing: better interactive mapping, more effective scale model designs, new production methods, energetic cosponsorships, and more efficient targeted mailing campaigns. One of the most interesting innovations is the software we pioneered and helped developed for The Laurel called the “Residence Finder,” which allows potential buyers anywhere in the world to pre-select the residence that is right for them, pretty much guaranteeing the sales agents a qualified buyer.

Shaun: How challenging is it when you have a developer, a marketing group, a bank, and many different parties trying to tell you what they want?

Richard: f you find you are being treated like a service provider rather than as a creative partner you have to put a stop to it or you might as well pack your bags and walk away -the game is over. It’s a big part of the overall challenge, and it’s not always a comfortable one, but if our vision is clear enough, and it’s presented in a way so that everyone can recognize its potential value, then we have a better chance. There’s nothing like the prospect of adding 200, 300, 600 dollars a square foot to a project to get everyone on board. And we’ve delivered on that promise many many times.

Shaun: I look around your office and I see all kinds of literature. I see a portrait of Philip Johnson, art and furniture by Donald Judd, and a lot of books on art and architecture. Is all of this your inspiration?

Richard: I share the studio with Todd Eberle who is the great architectural photographer of our time, in my opinion, and who has been covering the art and architecture terrain for Vanity Fair as their Photographer at Large for the past ten years. Commissioning great photography for a project, by the way, is something that few developers understand for some odd reason.

Shaun: It seems to me that the more sophisticated we become, the smaller the world becomes and the more connected everything is. Do you find that to be true in your business?

Richard: As you know more than most, it’s the global market that’s driving real estate right now for reasons that are largely economic. There are political and social reasons as well. The result of this makes the world appear smaller, but really the neighborhood is just getting bigger, and undeniably more connected. For the marketer though, the promises of status or power or sex or comfort or security are universal. And timeless. The trick is to avoid marketing those promises with clichés.
Shaun: How do you feel technology has shaped or helped what we do and what you do specifically? How challenging has it been to adapt in the last seven years with the internet and with the ability to reach an international global audience.

Richard: Nobody in their right mind denies the power of the Internet and its ability to reach enormous audiences economically. But how the message is shaped and how it is received will always be at the heart of the matter no matter what the medium. We’re just now seeing how effective online advertising can be, and the results are surprisingly good. When we were working on Cipriani Club Residences I made an icon of a house that could be dropped into a shopping cart ready for checkout. For whatever legal reason we couldn’t actually execute the idea, but the spirit was right and some day I’m sure it will become a reality.

Louise Sunshine is not only a good friend, colleague and mentor, but we’ve partnered along with her son Paul to develop a means of aggregating media and marketing to cater to global real estate investing by taking full advantage of the Internet. The company is called Domineum. I’m really excited about it and you’ll be hearing a great deal more about it soon.

Shaun: It will be very interesting to see where we are five years from now. With globalization in real estate, marketing, branding, and architecture.

Richard: One of the most positive aspects of this renewed interest in residential building are the opportunities it has given architects. I believe we are entering a golden age of residential architecture. My generation grew up with considerable mainstream appreciation for architecture, but saw very little great architecture built. But that interest has broadened thanks to people like Herbert Muschamp, the great Times critic, who was able to relate architecture to anything: art, music, Hollywood. I also think this emergence of a public fascination with design owes a lot to publications like Wallpaper magazine, which was able to correlate architecture with fashion; also Todd’s work for Vanity Fair, which has made architecture speak to the powerful and influential.

And yet for most of our lives architecture has felt archeological – a relic of of other generations. The great urban residential buildings by Candela are nearly 80 or 90 years old. Even great commercial buildings like Lever House and the Seagram Building are now 50 years old, and The Lipstick and AT&T buildings nearly twenty-five. So there’s a real pent up demand for good modern architecture from a generation that is now reaching an age where they are able to afford it – not to mention recognizing its value and cultural cache. I expect that the developers daring enough to work with the best of the new generation of architects will be very well rewarded. That process, thankfully, has already begun.

Shaun: To me it’s important because it impacts the way in which we live our everyday lives.

Richard: Precisely. I don’t understand architectural critics who are dismissive of residential architecture and who go out of their way to apologize for covering it — those who don’t take it as seriously as they would a museum or some other type of cultural institution. Good residential architecture is incredibly complex and requires an incredible level of understanding of the nuances of human behavior in a way that more academic endeavors do not. Residential architecture needs more serious criticism, not less.

Shaun: Every development and every marketing campaign that I see says “luxury” on it. The word “luxury” is probably the most overused word in real estate right now. But, as you know, the luxury market has definitely grown leaps and bounds. Where do you see that luxury market going?

Richard: Yes, and so few of them actually are. Of all the consumer protection laws out there, none protect against hyperbole. True luxury is, quite literally, rare. But the “luxury” market will to continue to grow because so many people consider themselves a luxury buyer. And that has less to do with wealth or taste and more to do with attitude which brings us to that other overused word, lifestyle. Right now that’s a popular arena to play in, and more affordable and easier to pull off. But within that luxury market of buyers there will always be a segment that’s going to want, or rather insist, on separating themselves from the crowd. There’s really no dollar limit per square foot if you create the right product. On the other hand, if anyone out there is using good architecture to develop better low- and middle-income housing, you’re probably the future. Call me.

Shaun: My favorite part of any project is first sitting down with the architect and defining the needs of our buyer. We try to give them something that will make their jaw drop so when they walk in they say, “I don’t care what it costs. I want it”. How did you assemble your team of people? I know you’re very hands-on, and your team works as an extension of you.

Richard: Well, yes and no. I’ve never hired anybody because I thought they were or could become a mini me. It’s actually quite the opposite. I hire people who can do things and think things I never could – people with specific expertise and interests. Each is his or her own person with their own way of going about things. My job is to set the goal, convey the parameters, help them understand the schedule, budget, and hazards and potential pitfalls. Other than that, I pretty much try to get out of their way.

A person can be extraordinarily creative but without being grounded in the reality of a production schedule they are just spinning their wheels. When it comes to being able to get a job done under very tight deadline, I’m very experienced with that. That is something you have to really train people to be able to do. It’s not something that comes naturally – everyone wants more time.

If somebody has what I think is an excellent idea, I will do everything in my power to make it happen. I’m the biggest cheerleader for a well thought-through idea no matter who proposes it. With the right team anything can be accomplished, and right now I have the best team of experts in the business.

Shaun: Other than real estate, what’s been your most exciting account product branding creative experience?

Richard: With branding, it’s time that tells. We’ve done a number of projects that have passed that test. Ronald Lauder’s Neue Galerie New York Museum for German and Austrian Art is one, Sharps Barber and Shop men’s grooming products is another. We also did the creative development and branding design for the Core Club, which was enormously successful. Plum TV is expanding quickly. We launched Cipriani’s real estate efforts, and they have quickly expanded into other cities very smoothly. And we’ve laid the groundwork for other properties which could, if they choose, expand into other cities or other areas. The Mark Hotel and William Beaver House in particular.

Working with artists is also something we consistently enjoy doing. The work is always exciting and we’ve done books with the best: Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, John Currin, George Condo, David Salle. Artists are relentless in their need to make the experience challenging, always pushing to make it better and unique.

Shaun: I’m starting to see some brands become diluted. Brands that meant something at one time now mean something else.

Richard: That’s probably just poor brand management. I don’t like to get involved with already established brands. The outward appearance of a brand can change so long as the brand message is kept intact. The fashion and automobile industries tend to do the best job at brand management because they must constantly produce a new product every season, forcing them to really recognize who they are and what they represent.
Real estate offers the same opportunities to savvy developers – you can create a very rich and varied set of properties without losing a consistency in the quality of the experience each one offers. A poorly managed brand is often stiffly consistent stylistically, but without variation it quickly becomes stale. You can be a developer and do very different things. André Balazs, Richard Born and Izak Senbahar do it well. No two of their projects are ever the same, but you can depend on them to steadily deliver a best-of-breed experience.

Overall though, branded real estate is still in its infancy. I’m often in a situation in which I have to convince a developer who has to convince a bank who has to convince their shareholders that constructing a brand while constructing a building is a worthwhile expense. The value of a strong brand is money in the bank that will pay huge dividends in the future.

Shaun: Absolutely. I think you’re a huge part of that and your company has definitely raised the bar. That’s why I’m sitting here having this conversation with you.

Jason Binn is the CEO and Founder of Niche Media. In a short 15 years, has made it one of the most prominent and powerful publishing companies in the United States. As such, he is a pioneer that has helped bring thousands of people together.

THE INTERVIEW

Shaun: Why did you start Niche Media and how did you get into the business?

Jason: Out of college, you can do a lot of things. If you fall down, or if you run into obstacles it’s easy to get up. You don’t have your family and financial obligations, so it was a time to take on risk, seek opportunities. I love publishing, marketing, and there was a gentleman by the name of Jerry Powers who I knew, who came to me and said “You know, there are great people I see everywhere. There’s a bigger picture for you somewhere”, and at that point we moved down to Miami together and started Ocean Drive.

Shaun: Was that your first magazine?

Jason: Yes. We moved down to Miami in 1992 during a very challenging time. Two weeks after hurricane Andrew.

Shaun: You’ve been in you in business for 15 years?

Jason: Ocean Drive is embarking on its 15th anniversary.

Shaun: What was your second magazine?

Jason: I ended up moving out to the Hamptons and took over Hamptons Magazine Newspaper. And I started publishing Hamptons.

Shaun: What did you study in college?

Jason: Communications. I went to Boston University.

Shaun: So, you were an entrepreneur and said, “I’m going to start my own business.”?

Jason: I’m going to start my own business and do something that I feel provides entertainment to people. It’s something you can see and feel and touch and enjoy and put smiles on people’s faces. It’s a lot of who I am and what I am. It’s just connecting the dots with the people and the places that make each of these cities so special.

Shaun: How many magazines do you publish?

Jason: Now we have 16 individual titles and we’ll be publishing over 140 individual magazines. We ship around three magazines a week.

Shaun: Where do you see your company in five years?

Jason: I see it consistently growing and expanding into new markets. Not just big cities, but also resort communities. It began with Aspen Peak and Hamptons. Obviously, this is not just a magazine that works in major cities. It’s a magazine that works in resort communities and it’s a magazine that can really work outside the country. In Paris, Milan, London. It’s an exciting business model that has great growth possibilities.

Shaun: And how do you select your Niche markets?

Jason: When I first started, it was about cities I knew or loved or wanted to be in more. Now you create such a foundation and there are only so many cities in the country. Now it’s more about starting to look at the DNA of the market places. Top 10 Markets. Markets with disposable incomes.

Shaun: I would say the perception of Niche as a company and all of your publications are very cutting edge. How difficult is it to stay at the forefront of this competitive industry?

Jason: You’re only as good as your last magazine. You’re only as good as your last event. And there’s no getting around it. You’re always under the scrutiny of the media. You are always under the scrutiny of the consumers, the readers, your friends, and your family. When the books are thin, times look rough. When the books look thick, you are doing well. When you go to events that get at least 80 people, they are hot and people want to be a part of them. When you go to events that look like a bowling alley, you know, a ball going down the alley with nothing in its way, that’s when times aren’t great. So it’s always important to keep on top of your game and to always reinvent yourself. That’s what we do.

Shaun: And how are times now?

Jason: We just secured a 45,000 plus square foot office at 100 Church Street. We’ve moved offices now four times in the last eight years. We’ve grown by pages, revenue and staffing roughly 15 to 20% a year since the beginning. So it’s moving. Moving strong.

Shaun: Regarding the day to day operations of your company, how actively involved are you in every publication?

Jason: I try to be as active as I can based on time and travels and the needs of other markets. You get pushed in a million directions, but I go in with the head that I want to see and touch and be a part of everything, whether it’s directly or indirectly. How many things you get to feel and touch and be a part of is a challenge.

Shaun: How many people do you have working for you?

Jason: Over 300 full-time employees and around 200 contributors/freelancers.

Shaun: One thing that really sets you apart is your covers. Are you involved in the selection?

Jason: I challenge the editors. I want the covers to be exciting. I want them to be current, but I also want them to be relevant to the marketplace. So I try to push the editors as much as I can to get the best product.

Shaun: Over the last 15 years I’ve seen the luxury goods market evolve. It’s reflected in your advertising and to a large extent some of that has been influenced by real estate. Now with real estate being marketed as a luxury product, how much have your magazines changed to cater to the real estate market?

Jason:  When the real estate market’s hot they want to buy ads. They want to build the momentum. I’ve also seen when the real estate market is challenged. In many markets they feel if they don’t get their name out there and they don’t advertize, they won’t be known and they look like they’re having problems. So it’s a double edged sword.

Shaun: Do you find yourself turning away advertisers because a certain advertiser might not fit the certain brand?

Jason: Sure. Sometimes there is a business or categories or creative which doesn’t complement the magazine or doesn’t fit well. One of our magazines, Wynn, actually approves all the ads himself

Shaun: Steve Wynn approves everything himself?

Jason: Yes

Shaun: How challenging is it competing with the internet and online media with your primary focus being print? Is that a medium you see yourself segueing into and capturing part of that market?

Jason: I think everyone is looking at the internet right now to figure out how to drive people’s businesses. I think very few magazines, if any, locally and or nationally, have truly proven to make it a successful model financially. But, it’s a game that we all have to play and put millions of dollars into it and put real staffing behind it.

Shaun: Other than your publications, what would you say is the best icon in the industry? Not necessarily a competitor but someone that you find inspiration in.

Jason: I think a great publication that’s really captured a “niche” is Woman’s Wear Daily. It’s become the trade publication for luxury goods, cosmetics, beauty and fashion. They’ve done it in a way where everything they run is exclusive, so nothing you really read in there is going to be somewhere else.

Shaun: What would you say is the one thing that has been the reason for your incredible success?

Jason: In any business, you have to really believe that what you’re doing is providing a value for someone. I think you can sell the sizzle without the steak only so many times. Sooner or later, youv’e got to sell the sizzle with the steak. I truly believe that with everything we’ve done here, we’ve provided value, a good product, a good place for people to have their businesses showcased, a great way to have them connected to consumers and a great way to activate their brands. I feel passionately that no one is doing what we’re doing here today, in the past and in the future, I don’t see it. It makes me feel I have something special, and it makes it so much easier to stand behind and to be inspired by, because I really believe we’re doing something that’s never been done.

Shaun: I would agree and I think you’re achieving it. I wish you continued success. Anything else you’d like to add?

Jason: I think in today’s day and age, it can be hard to get up every day and want to go to work. When you’re really passionate about what you doing and are entrepreneurial, the passion and the dedication takes over. Then you’re not thinking about how much money you’re making. It becomes more of an art and a passion for that art, and the financial success comes after. I think that’s a lot of what happened with me here.

THE INTERVIEW:

Shaun: Where do you live?

Alex: Hudson Street in Tribeca.

Shaun: You could live anywhere in the world. Why have you chosen to live downtown Manhattan?

Alex: First of all, New York is by far the greatest city in the world. New York has something to do anytime of the day for anyone in the world. It’s the financial capital of the world, one of the entertainment capitals and it’s the world’s melting pot. People from all over the world come here for a reason – this is the world’s greatest city. People can make a life in New York they couldn’t make anywhere else. That’s why New York is so magical. I look at my father who came from the former Soviet Union and knew that he had to go to New York. He didn’t say “I have to go to Chicago”, he didn’t say “I have to go to LA”, he didn’t say “I have to go to Miami”, he said “New York”. In the former Soviet Union they said New York was a city where the streets were paved with gold. There’s a reason they were saying that. If you look at New York City history, it’s had its downtimes, but compared to the rest of the world it’s really been a city in its own league. There are few cities in the world (London in the last couple of years, and Paris) that offer what New York has, and it’s a 24 hour city. I think the most energy anywhere in the world is happening in Manhattan, and Downtown New York City is by far the most vibrant exciting place to be.

Shaun: You talk about New York and the history of New York and the fact that it’s always been in international melting pot and destination. Where do you see New York 10 years from now?

Alex: I see it with a continued growth. I think that one thing financial services have provided is its innovative way to create new products and keep being innovative across-the-board. Wall Street is what drives New York. Wall Street is what drives the economy. So I think whatever downturn we’re seeing right now, we’ll figure out how to be innovative and create new products and create new ways to drive the economy again. I see New York only continuing its growth. There is not a bad part of New York City anymore. People remember New York City in the 60s, 70s, and 80s when there were a lot of bad neighborhoods. You don’t see that anymore. You’re going to see a really modernized city, a mega city that is not comparable and there is no other city that can do what New York can do.

Shaun: Just as New York is an innovative city, you are a developer who is innovative in a number of different ways. This is reflected in the projects you’re developing. The Trump Soho hotel condominium you are developing with Mr. Trump and Bayrock is the first of its kind downtown. It’s going to be the tallest building in the neighborhood. This has obviously been controversial, but whenever you have innovation there’s always going to be controversy. A lot of people are afraid of innovation, even though the city is famous for it. What led you to be this innovative with respect to this particular site, and build a hotel condominium?

Alex: Well, thank you. What has helped me develop as an individual is growing up in a loving family and having traveled a lot. I’ve been to so many places in the world. Some rich, some poor, and some somewhere in-between. Before the early 90s my family wasn’t poor, but we weren’t very well off, so whether it was getting in the car driving to Vancouver or Montréal, my parents always took us to different places. They wanted us to see different cultures and how different people live. I have always traveled, seeing different surroundings, seeing how people interact with each other. This has expanded my mind to want to do things in real estate. When I looked at this site in Soho with no height restriction, I realized that Soho and Tribeca downtown have been known to be cool, but have never had a luxury product to point to. There are a couple of hotels (that I won’t name) that are well known hotels, but none of them are known for their luxury. I think that the way the world has gone, with the world’s wealth being such a substantial part of real estate, we wanted to build something that was not only luxurious but in its surroundings cool. You can’t beat a luxurious product that is cool, and in a cool neighborhood. It was really the point to marry the two concepts together, and I think that’s done through design and done through the different amenities and elements that we have created. When the building is built, it will be known as the premier hotel in the city and I think it’s going to be known for being “the luxurious cool place”.

Shaun: Do you think this building will stand the test of time? How do you see this building 10 years from now?

I think in 10 years people will be talking about it just as much as today, probably more. It will be even more established and I think that it is an irreplaceable asset. I don’t think there will be any other 45 story five-star cool hotels being built anytime soon. That’s what makes Manhattan real estate so valuable. New York City has no room to expand. We’re not building any Palm islands, like they do in Dubai and Manhattan is an island. That’s why you’re seeing the outer boroughs get more expensive as well. They can’t build to meet the demand that New York City has. The need to be close to New York City is driving the outer boroughs. What’s happening in New York City is this resurgence of people that once left the city to move to the suburbs are now coming back, whether it is to live or spend two or three days out of the week here. There’s an urgency to be in New York. People are now working 24/7. It used to be you worked your 9 to 5 job and the day was over. But technology, (the Blackberries), has enabled people to do more business. The hours that they are doing business are really endless and more flexible. The point is to be close to New York regardless if you have a place in Connecticut or Montauk. Wherever it is, you still want to have a place in New York City. Or if you have a home elsewhere to have a place to hang your hat temporarily in New York City is a great thing to have.I think it’s necessary for anyone who comes in to New York once or more a week to work. If you have a late-night and you’re out with clients and you don’t feel like driving home, you can go into your luxurious suite and stay there for the night. If you’re married and you want to get away from the kids, you can bring your wife to your place and have a romantic weekend. Having a place in New York isn’t about just real estate, it’s about your identity, and I think that’s what Trump Soho is. It’s an identity. It’s not just bricks and mortar.

Shaun: You Mentioned the 90’s before you were as successful as you are today. I remember selling real estate in the 90’s at $400 a square foot. It’s the year 2007 now and we’re seeing deals in excess of $6,000 square foot. Where do you see that trend in the next five years? Do you think the market has peaked?

Alex: No. In the 90s, $1 million was a lot of money. $1 million today is still a lot of money but it doesn’t have the same value as it did in the 90s. And in the 70s $1million dollars was really a lot of money. I think you’ll find in the next 10 or 20 years $1 million will have less value. Real estate is a long term hold. You have to have the staying power, and if you want to hold real estate, what you buy for one dollar today is going to be worth a lot more later on.

Shaun: Let’s shift gears to another project you’re doing downtown which I think is equally as innovative. The project you’re doing with Andre Balazs and Larry Davis. It’s innovative because of the amenities. It’s almost hotel-like but it’s strictly a condominium. It’s also the only ground up residential development in the neighborhood, which is a very historic. The numbers are showing a huge success on that site, but I guess at the time you purchased it, the project was considered a risk. Is that the nature of your business?

Alex: If I’m not being called crazy in some part of the day then I’m not having a good day. The financial district is the financial capital of the world. You have the major financial institutions on Wall Street and you have this resurgence of young people going there. We followed that trend and we said “You know what? We’re going to build a really luxurious building in what has become New York City’s hottest market”, and it’s been proven, through its sales and the numbers we’re achieving that we are right. That building is so special because of its design and the ambience created through the amenities. Having André and Larry as partners has been a great added value. This is a residence. This isn’t a hotel, but it has a hotel-like amenities. Again, it’s all about the vibe of what we try to create. The development process takes a long time. The construction process is probably half the time of the development process and throughout the whole thing you surround yourself with creative innovative thinkers and the final product should be creative and innovative. I think we’ve had incredible teams on both projects that have led us to develop premier assets in New York.

Shaun: The majority of the industry and non-industry people will consider the two projects you are working on to be the two iconic projects in Manhattan at this time being built. Let me shift gears a little to the commercial side of the business. How many square feet of commercial space does the Sapir organization own, control and manage?

Alex: We currently own over 7 million square feet. One of the first properties we bought was 2 Broadway, which is the MTA headquarters. We bought that building in a very depressed time of real estate in New York. At the time we signed the largest single lease in New York City history and the building now stands somewhat as a landmark in the city. You see it in a lot of movies. Some people don’t realize that they are actually looking at 2 Broadway which is the building that’s in front of the Bull in Bowling Green. We own 100 Church St which we actually just signed a big deal with Niche Media.

Shaun: Congratulations.

Alex: Thank you. Signing the Niche Media deal was an important image for the building and it proves that Downtown is real. After the tragic events of 9/11 everyone was saying “Don’t touch downtown”, but we had some really great leaders in the city saying, “We have to rebuild and we have to build it better than it ever was”. Thanks to people like Larry Silverstein and the other leaders in this city, and thanks to our government, downtown is here today, and it has a huge presence in every aspect of the economy. You have Goldman Sachs building their headquarters. There are major tenants moving downtown and the World Trade Center will be a true symbol of what America is: strength and versatility. We’ve only been around since 1776 and we’ve seen so much. We are still a young country and we have a lot more to prove. We’re a superpower and we have to continue to be super power, and having New York City as an anchor proves how great we can be. We are there but, we still have a long way to go.

Shaun: I have met many successful second generation entrepreneurs who are living the American dream. You have a very strong work ethic. What do you attribute that to?

Alex; It all comes from my childhood. My father drove a taxi for 19/20 hours in a day. When he had his electronic store he was there for 18 hours a day. He used to take me to work with him on the weekends and watching him come to this country with $80 and do what he’s done, it would be a shame for me not to have the work ethic that I have.

Shaun: What advice would you give to someone who is looking to get into the real estate market now whether it is a developer, or just a regular buyer?

Alex: Call Shaun Osher, (laughs) you can quote me on that.

Shaun: Thank you. Other than your father, where do you find inspiration from?

Alex: My love for life is an important thing and my love for my family. I really am blessed because I enjoy what I do. If you don’t enjoy what you do, you can change it. At the end of the day you need to feel every time you sleep and every time you wake up that you’re happy. I find a lot of inspiration from that. Being lucky enough to be able to go travel the world and see different things and see how small the world really is. As many miles away as the city is, the world is really small and it keeps getting smaller. If you’re a business leader, you must give back a portion of what you earn to those less fortunate out there, and the only people that can help them are people with the means. The more people you help, the smaller the world becomes, and the closer to people you become. I try to let everything inspire me. I try to surround myself with great people, great partners, and live life to be happy.

Shaun: Where would you like to see yourself 10 years from now?

Alex: On a beach with long hair. No seriously, I think you will find me in New York, I love New York. I will always have a presence here. On the business level, I obviously want to expand our portfolio, expand our reputation, be known as one of the top names as a Landlord, Developer, Manager, and Business Person in the industry and have a real brand loyalty. On a human level, continue to do the things that my family has been known to do. It’s really growth, expand on what we are doing today, and continue to be happy, surround ourselves with good people, and enjoy the treasures of life.

Shaun: What is next in the pipeline? Is there anything imminently in the future that you’re working on right now that you can discuss?

Alex: Well, I just signed a deal in Miami. I can’t talk too much about it, but it’s a small deal, but it’s a deal with a lot of character. The size of a deal is important, but character and other great traits are really important and important to our brand. It’s going to be luxurious and it’s going to be cool. It’s going to be fun and it’s going to be what Miami needs. It’s going to bring on things that Miami doesn’t have. That’s all I can talk about. Other major markets, whether it’s nationally or internationally there is still great potential. Bringing the world closer and taking our name to become a household name. And working with Shaun Osher more.

Shaun: Thank you.

THE INTERVIEW

Shaun: What role do you have in the NRDC as Chief Energy Economist?

Ashok: I’ve been with the NRDC for 15 years now. Right now I am the director of the air and energy program. All the work that we do on issues related to energy efficiency with Noble Energy, Green Building, and Smart Growth, are part of the program. We have about 40 people waking up everyday on a national basis trying to figure out how to make our buildings more efficient, our cars more efficient, and use cleaner fuels. Anything related to clean energy technologies in all the sectors, building, transportation, and industry is really what we do. NRDC was an early leader with this office space almost 20 years ago. We were part of the beginning of the modern Green Building movement.

Shaun: Is this the Green Building that we are in?

Ashok: The four floors that we occupy were built out to be both super energy efficient and have great indoor air quality. At that point, there weren’t many Green Building materials available, so our emphasis was on energy efficiency and our indoor air quality and water efficiency. Over the years, we built different buildings. Our new office in Santa Monica is LEED platinum. We’ve set the bar again for what people can and should be doing, so all of our offices are green and this was the first one of them. It’s still probably one of the most energy efficient in the city. We use 50 % less energy than a normal office space, mostly by having really efficient windows. During the summer time the heat stays out, we don’t have to cool it.

Shaun: How does this compare to the Conde Nast building?

Ashok: Well, the Conde Nast building was the first really big commercial scale Green Building (developed by Douglas Durst). The idea was to really have it take off in the market place. Now with the new Bank of America Building (also developed by Douglas Durst) we are always studying the new bench mark with the private sector in terms of building green. There are all different shades of green, and it’s ok for people to build as green as they can. In terms of the developers and the architects, Fox (architect) and Douglas Durst are leading the charge and the development of green buildings in the NYC market.

Shaun: On a personal note, what provoked you into working in this environment for the environment?

Ashok: I grew up in Washington DC in the late sixties/early seventies. I was in high school from ’68 – ’71 which was a really active political time and the environmental movement was just starting. I was a physics student in college and it was obvious to me in terms of using my science background to get involved in environmental issues and energy issues. I’ve been interested in energy issues from the beginning and this was the perfect place to come and use those skills and apply them. Right from college I’ve been interested in environmental issues.

Shaun: When I think back to the seventies I think of solar panels for heating swimming pools. I think of windmills on a very fundamental level. What would you say is the iconic image for the new millennium?

Ashok: I think that is a good question. The interesting challenge here is, if you walk into this office, there’s nothing that hits you about how energy efficient we are. The idea here was to have a very normal looking office space and many of the things that are done are quite hidden – basically better windows – lighting is a key part of the design. Some of this is about design and using off the shelf technologies and not really about a particular technology. It’s a combination of a lot of different technologies used in a smart way. It’s the integration of technology with design that really makes a green building.

Shaun: A collaboration of different things…

Ashok: Yes. It’s much more about the process of integration of design; the integration of the design and engineering teams working together. It’s much more about collaboration and integration than some fancy technology. It’s going to start first with things that really allow us to reduce the energy intensity of our economy by using a lot less energy to get the same things we want. A refrigerator that uses 400 kw hours a year compared to 750 kw hours a year is not going to look that much different. You can’t tell why it’s more efficient, but that’s where the big environmental benefits are.

Shaun: Here is the key question… does the one that is more efficient cost more?

Ashok: It costs a little bit more in the beginning, but the payback maybe one year, two years at most, and it is going to be around for ten years. So yes, the challenge from a consumer perspective is looking at the operating cost as well as the initial cost and in the context of the building, to look at your rental cost, or purchase cost and again the utility cost. If you combine the two, are you paying more or paying less? You may end up having to pay a little bit more for the housing but you pay less for the utilities.

Shaun: Do you think this is why you see a lot more commercial buildings that are green? A property owner is going to benefit in ten years/twenty years significantly from building a building that’s this efficient. On the residential side, a rental property would be the same.

Ashok: Right

Shaun: However, a residential real estate developer sells his condominiums immediately and is not the beneficiary of this design, unless the end user identifies the return and feels that there is an associated benefit worth paying for upfront.

Ashok: I totally understand the problem and it is a challenge when the person who pays doesn’t get back what they’ve invested. The way to really deal with that issue is through a good financing mechanism. The banks need to step in and offer a mortgage product that says, if you buy an efficient home or building, you will get a higher mortgage for the same income.

Shaun: Or maybe a better rate?

Ashok: Yes, so you can qualify for a better mortgage.

Shaun: Why would a bank want to do that?

Ashok: Because they should be looking at your ability to afford the house based on the operating cost. If you are paying less for the utilities, you can afford to pay more of a mortgage. If your utility costs are lower, you can afford a higher mortgage, for the same income. This is something that actually Fannie Mae allows, but banks are not marketing it, so there is a product that is called an energy efficient mortgage and there is also actually a product that we helped work on called the Location Efficient Mortgage. The same is true if your house or building is close to mass transit and you don’t have to buy another car, you can also afford a higher mortgage.

Shaun: Another way would be to educate the buyer. You could help them understand the long term benefits, financially, even if it cost more upfront…

Ashok: People would focus more on energy costs if their banker was asking if they were buying in an efficient building or a non efficient building. That’s just another way to think about the barrier of this problem, which is we all know is there. Why should a developer build a more efficient house if the savings will all go the tenant or occupant? We just have to be creative and we can address that problem.

Shaun: What would you say, on a percentage basis, it will cost to build a green building as opposed to a non-green building?

Ashok: Again, because of different shades green it depends on what you are focusing on. If you want to put solar panels on your house, or if you just want to make it more energy efficient, it may only cost 1% to 5% more. It also depends on what you’re defining green to be.

Shaun: The benefit to cost ration is 10 to 1…

Ashok: Yes. That is saying you get a payback that’s pretty good. There has to be some way to create a labeling program. If you tell them this, will they even believe you? There has to be some independent way to label apartments and buildings and homes in terms of their efficiency. (There is a program it’s just not used).

Shaun: Why is it taking 35 years or more for these changes to come about? Even now, anyone that does this is considered a pioneer.

Ashok: Because energy costs are pretty low. Most people don’t think it really matters how much energy costs, and what the environmental impacts are. It comes down to what people value when they are buying homes and whether energy costs are a significant factor for them. Some of my friends who are solar architects say… “why do people always ask what a payback of a solar panel is, when they never ask what a payback for a marble lobby is?” Not everything should be sold on its payback or cost effectiveness. Some marketing has to be done on the basis of the values associated with a green building. This is a building that is going to be great for the planet. It is also going to be a building that is going to be great for your health.

Shaun: Why do you think this has become such a divisive issue?

Ashok: Some parts of the environmental agenda are more divisive than other parts of the environmental agenda. I think the question ends up being about trying to create change. There are winners and losers and some of the old technologies don’t come out as well as new technologies do. People who are trying to hold on to old technologies, and profits that come from old technologies are really not going to do well and may overuse their political clout to keep market share. In economic terms, it’s about market share, and losers and winners, and when we are talking about solutions to the environmental problems they are usually talking about new technologies and new ways or better ways to do something.

Shaun: Yes.

Ashok: So, you are trying to encourage clean bio fuels instead of petroleum; you are trying to encourage wind power instead of coal. You are trying to encourage solar energy instead of natural gas. There are in this equation, winners and losers, and the question is how to make that transition.

Shaun: I think evolution is inevitable, but unfortunately takes time.

Ashok: I’m not discouraged about divisiveness part of the educational process. You have to build the coalition and get people to agree.

Shaun: I can tell you are from Washington.

Ashok: (Laughs)…It’s something that everyday I look forward to finding: How to solve the problems for the business community.