Welcome back to the She’s Wild the Podcast. Today’s guest is Lesley Deutch. Lesley is a Managing Principal based in Florida for John Burns Real Estate Consulting. She has more than 25 years of experience consulting with executives in the finance and real estate industries throughout North America. She works on a wide spectrum of development projects, including apartments, for-sale housing, high-rise, urban projects, single-family rental, and commercial developments.
Welcome back to the She’s Wild the Podcast. Today’s guest is Lesley Deutch. Lesley is a Managing Principal based in Florida for John Burns Real Estate Consulting. She has more than 25 years of experience consulting with executives in the finance and real estate industries throughout North America. She works on a wide spectrum of development projects, including apartments, for-sale housing, high-rise, urban projects, single-family rental, and commercial developments.
Throughout her career, Lesley has always been drawn to data. As a result, she's made a name for herself as a trusted consultant to major land developers and for leading all custom consulting projects in the Southeast. In today's episode of She’s Wild, Lesley and I discuss her career journey and how her team collects data to provide valuable insights to their clients. We also talk about the unique ways in which they use data to help their clients make better decisions. Throughout the conversation, it's clear that Lesley is passionate about her work and truly believes in the power of data. As a result, she is an inspiration to all women who are looking to make a difference in their careers.
Thank you, Lesley, for sharing your story with us!
Memorable Moments:
6:30- My favorite type of project would be to take a large piece of land and say, what should go here? What's the path of growth? Where do we see the world in 10 years? And what kind of real estate do we need?
10:30- We have a whole building products division that's still forecasting double-digit increases in construction costs over the next year, and that's going to be very difficult for builders to push that through. So I think that's a very big concern. We're watching it closely.
12:34- My job right now is probably the hardest it's ever been to really understand what the market is because it's all over the place.
17:58- I think being able to learn from other people, whether they're just out of college, or the most experienced people, 30 years in the business, everybody has something to teach you.
22:07- Every young person wants to get to be a developer, and that's really exciting, right? That's a really great job. And it's, you know, super high end, but I think learning how to do a deal, learning how to research a deal, and all the pros and cons behind it really helps you understand.
23:05- Really the key to staying employed, to getting a job, is showing someone what you can do for them, and what your worth is.
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: www.nancysurak.com
Connect with Lesley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleydeutch/
John Burns Real Estate Consulting LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-burns-real-estate-consulting/
John Burns Real Estate Consulting Website: https://www.realestateconsulting.com/
Lesley’s Podcast Recommendation:
The Big Man Can't Shoot
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-big-man-cant-shoot/id1119389968?i=1000371650194
She's WILD Sound Production by: Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak 00:00
Welcome to She's Wild the podcast for women in land and development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. I created this podcast as a way to collect conversations of women in the land and development industry. I've been a land broker on the west coast of Florida for nearly 20 years. And I love to empower other women and to tell them about this amazing industry. But I find often that there just aren't enough women being featured on big stages, whether that's at local conferences, or nationally. So I set out to find these women myself that are killing it in my business across North America that are changing the communities that they live in every single day, whether they're building condos, multifamily, single family, office, or industrial projects. I hope that you will find this space to be inspirational, motivating, and educational. From time to time, I will feature women who are not only in my business, but also career coaches, and motivational speakers. Hi, welcome to She's Wild the podcast for women and land and development. Today's guest is Lesley Deutsch of the John Burns, real estate consulting firm. Lesley, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. Why don't you go ahead and do a much better introduction of yourself. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do at John Burns.
Leslie Deutsch 01:28
Okay. Thanks, Nancy. And thanks for having me on. It's very exciting to be here. So I My name is Leslie Deutsch. I'm a managing principal here at John Burn's Real Estate Consulting. I'm based out in Boca Raton, Florida, which is also where I was born and grew up. But actually my my career took an interesting turn I spent 10 years on Wall Street doing real estate research for Wall Street investment banks, moved back to Florida, I realized it was a more affordable place to live. I think I beat the rush of people. But back to Florida around 2003 or four 2003. And really have been doing real estate research ever since I met John about 15 years ago, I joined the firm. And I was the first out of it was a California based company. I was the first out of California Office. So I started that geographic expansion of the consulting group. So it's been a fun ride. My background is in commercial real estate, but then I switched to residential with John Burns on the day I started 15 years ago, I said I didn't know anything about residential. And now I think I know more more residential real estate than commercial. So as a company, we are an independent research company. So we help builders and developers and banks and private equity groups and bankers really understand the real estate landscape. So we're out there looking at sites at homes and apartments, anything.
Nancy Surak 02:56
So how did you first get into this space originally? Did you go to school for real estate or economics or what? What's your educational background?
Leslie Deutsch 03:07
So I went to University of Pennsylvania. I thought I was going to be a history major. But I found out that I loved business. So I actually transferred into Wharton, I graduated from Wharton undergrad. And then what happened was I went to Wall Street did investment banking, realize that I love the pace, didn't love finance as much as I loved economics and research. So I actually sent a I'm dating myself a To Whom It May Concern letter to every investment bank on Wall Street said I wanted to work in their economics department. And I ended up with Bankers Trust, I almost ended up with the Fed actually, but ended up with Bankers Trust, which turned into Deutsche Bank and reef and all other companies a lot of mergers during that time. But I've always loved research, I've always loved really digging in and understanding something. So that's where my research background started. And it kind of it morphed into real estate over time through the investment banks.
Nancy Surak 04:02
So you touched a little bit on commercial, you touch a little bit on residential, and we had a little bit of dialogue before we started recording about my definition of those two things. And I go by what in land we define anything more than four units of residential is commercial. So in my world, I think everything is commercial unless the single family, lot that's a standalone. In your background, why don't you take us through you said you started off in commercial and now you're focused more on residential? What do you mean by that? Like, tell us a little bit more about where your background started in the commercial space.
Leslie Deutsch 04:37
That's an interesting point that you make, because I think one of the biggest problems in real estate today is that there's a split between the commercial real estate executives and workers and the residential, and there's very few people that actually work on both sides of that spectrum. And that gives you such a huge advantage. When you understand where the houses are going. You're going to understand where they're retail was going to come. And so we've had such a great and even apartments are considered commercial because they trade right as an asset. But um, but we do housing here and apartments, and it's been a great beneficiary to my clients because they, the apartment clients can say, Wow, do you know where all the new new for sale developments are going? So there's such a mix between the two, but the industry is so divided. And there's conferences for commercial real estate executives and conferences for residential. So I think that's a huge advantage that we have companies don't have that dual role. So it's a huge advantage to clients.
Nancy Surak 05:36
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I even as a land broker, I have to know, you know, I tell people, I have to be quite a generalist, I have to know what's happening in the single family, even resale space, not not even I mean, new resale, I have to know because those trends precede the demand for the vacant land. And vice versa. You know, like, what's happening in the vacant land space affects what's coming next and every other asset class. So tell me, what's your favorite? What's your favorite thing to type of asset class to work on?
Leslie Deutsch 06:07
Oh, I don't, I don't know if I have a favorite. I used to love industrial because it's just to me, it's like this true definition of real estate. And just to understand how things move from one one end of the world to the other. But I I liked all, I hate to say that, but I really enjoy what I do. And I just I really like learning about different types. So I don't really have a favorite what I love. My favorite type of project would be to take a large piece of land and say, what should go here? What's the path of growth? Where do we see the world in 10 years? And what kind of real estate do we need? So I no favorite real estate, but definitely favorite type of projects? I love those puzzles.
Nancy Surak 06:47
Yeah, I think I, I would 100% agree with you. The Masterplan communities or the big acreage pieces, or are always just very creative oriented. And you can really imagine, like, significant change for geographic areas, which is really, really cool. When you look at the current landscape of the market, and you talked about kind of leading, maybe proceeding by a little while, people coming down from New York. What, what are the biggest trends Other than that, even for the state of Florida, or even the South, the you know, the southeast? What are other trends that you're seeing right now, in your business that you think we should be paying acute attention to?
Leslie Deutsch 07:35
Good question. There's a lot of them. I think, what I've been saying to a lot of clients now and people that I've talked to the industry, it's, it's the time for caution. Now we've had this wonderful run up in real estate unlike anything we've ever seen. But right now, the main drivers of all of our demand right now are migration and migration from New York and California and everywhere, really, the Midwest. And investors and investors are out here, and they're out here in mass. And it's not just the big institutional investors, it's local people buying homes and looking for that home price appreciation. But I think we've reached that point of the cycle right now, where, when your largest portion of demand is from two sources that aren't guaranteed, investors can flip on a dime when there's another good investment in another asset class. And in migration is is a wonderful thing for Florida, but we don't know when it's going to slow or end. So I think it's a very, very cautious time. I think there's huge growth potential still for all housing, markets and commercial as well. But we are definitely teetering at sort of the top of the cycle. I would say.
Nancy Surak 08:44
I would agree with that. What are your clients? Are you guys particularly zoomed in on? What are you really watching in terms of what could make or break kind of where things go?
Leslie Deutsch 08:57
We talked to the builders, we talked to builders every day, almost every week and survey them weekly. So we're starting to see a lot of feedback from the builders saying, hey, you know, the track we still have a waiting list, but it's not quite as long as it used to be and and, or even the realtors were speaking to them to I had an open house this weekend, but didn't have anyone show. So you're starting to see this. These are the the elements that happened before the data comes out. Right, that's what we're really focused on right now is almost qualitative, you know, I had a couple more cancellations than I used to this week, or Yeah, it's definitely harder to get a mortgage. So these things don't come through in the data because the data is usually monthly. They're a little bit lag. So we're watching for those factors that and they are starting to come through that happened early on.
Nancy Surak 09:45
Yeah, unfortunately. So how much is construction cost really playing a role in what you're seeing in from the concern from the you know, from the builder, you know, what are what are they saying? regarding these outrageously increased, you know, large increases in construction costs,
Leslie Deutsch 10:04
So they're trying to manage it as best they can, it's a little bit unpredictable because one day, they can't find windows one day they can't find. So it's it's a, it's a bit of a game and a process. Labor is also becoming much more expensive, which is an issue and a lot of that cost previously can be pushed forward to the buyer. So that was a good thing. But now the buyer is pushing back on the cost. So that is going to make a big difference. Yeah, we have a whole building products division, that's still forecasting double digit increases in construction costs, you know, over the next year, and that's going to be very difficult for builders to push that through. So I think that's a very big concern. We're watching it closely. There, Hart, there have been industry participants that are I don't want to use the word hoarding, if you will, like saving, you know, inventory. So that will help with some of the costs. But it also could hurt if demand slows. So there's a lot of funny things going on. But the costs are generally being pushed through to the to the ultimate consumer, although I will tell you, from a consulting perspective, very different fields. So more and more, I have clients that will yell at me every day saying, Hey, I can't build it for I can't build it with your revenue inputs, with your rents with your housing prices. The costs are too expensive. So what do you want me to do? And so that's not really my job. But you're starting to see that that fight go on now where you can't really raise the prices that much to counter the construction costs. So typically, that would mean a slower pace of sales or a slower construction activity. But it's an interesting time. Sorry, go ahead. So
Nancy Surak 11:44
Let's talk about that a little bit. So you or your clients are saying, hey, we want you guys to research this and tell us what's going on. From an economic standpoint, when you deliver the results of that research. They're saying, Hey, we can't do this.
Leslie Deutsch 11:57
Well, it's, well, their own thoughts in mind, and sometimes, it doesn't make sense. And sometimes they ask us just to confirm what they're thinking, because they don't want to make a multimillion dollar investment, and then realize that they don't really want any end users, if you will. So they do use us for that. But sometimes it's a bit of a shock to the system. You see that a lot in apartments right now. So most of the apartments are fully occupied, there might be three or four units on the market. Well, that's on the market, those are the three or four units that have a huge premium on them, because they're three or four units. So we're being really careful. I mean, our job, my job right now is probably the hardest it's ever been to really understand what the market is because it's it's all over the place. And there's just not a lot of vacancy.
Nancy Surak 12:44
And I say the same exact thing. You know, if people ask me, like, oh, he must love it right now. And I'm like, I don't love it right now, this is where it's really challenging, I can recognize where landowners can, can definitely get hurt. I remember what this was like, in the last run up, you know, and what I'm trying to educate my sellers on is, hey, like, the, the music might slow down, it may stop, we don't we just don't know. But you know, it might be better off to leave a little bit of money on the table and get your deal closed and moved into into something else if that's really what you're seeking. But you know, it's an interesting time right now. Nobody wants to leave any money on the table. And as a result, it's just a waiting game to see what ultimately will happen. So tell me when you what are the different asset classes that you're most working on? So you mentioned residential, but in the residential space, what does that look like?
Leslie Deutsch 13:40
We do a lot of housing for sale housing, so masterplan communities to you know, an infill townhome or to a high rise, you know, high rise, Miami Condo. But we'll also look at apartments, General, traditional apartments, and then we spend a lot of time in the built for rent sector, which has been booming all over Florida and the Southeast, and really across the country. But we tend to focus here on Southeast Florida. So we do a lot of that and then sprinkle that in with a little bit of commercial and traditional retail and industrial and office. But most of that is really in a mixed use environment. Right? What kind of retail is needed to support the houses that we're planning?
Nancy Surak 14:20
Yeah, so let's talk about mixed use. I'm glad you actually brought that up. Because I know at least in my business, I'm seeing more and more of that and that's normal I think I would say for this stage in the market, especially in the market on the West Coast, so you don't have as much land so you're looking more creatively at what remains. What are you guys seeing in terms of being able to balance like the commercial side and the in the residential side which one's leading right now?
Leslie Deutsch 14:51
For the most part residential is leading we've done a few looks at existing mall so there's there's some trends in retail that are changing. And these malls, these indoor malls aren't nearly as popular as they used to be. And what we're realizing is that when a tenant leaves the mall, there's really no tenant to replace them, there used to be a whole waiting list of tenants that wanted to be involved. So we're starting to see big pieces of real estate that can be used for residential. And then the retail still stays, but it stays in a different form. So I think that there's more demand on the residential side. And that can include specific living or 55, and older apartments, and then kind of transforming the retail into smaller spaces. And I think that's really where we're seeing more more of a trend
Nancy Surak 15:41
Gott it. So let's turn back towards more towards your background. And you being a professional, executive woman in this business space. When you look back at your career, even when you were a younger girl, Could you have imagined where you would have been where you are today?
Leslie Deutsch 16:01
No, I couldn't, in fact, so I started out in investment banking, I did it because it was sort of the path. I loved it and the pace. But when I came down to Florida to live, I said, you know, I'm just going to do a couple of projects here and there. And in fact, when I joined this company, I said, you know, I'll just take a few projects, I'll be fine. And I worked for a little bit. And then after like, two years, the business started to pick up. And, and John turned to me and said, it might be time to grow or, you know, what are you thinking? So fast forward 15 years, I have an office with 10 people, I've got someone in Texas and DC and, and and a whole division here. And it's it was almost it just kind of opened my eyes I'm I've been hiring very inexperienced young people training them up. And I've had found such joy and such excitement in building new people's real estate careers. Because I, to me, I was just going to be that person that sat down and did the research report. And then I sort of found this calling of where I can be mentoring these people and helping them join this real estate because it's not a field that everybody knows about, right? It's sort of, it's getting more and more popular. But back in our day, it was a very quiet field. So it's been a lot of fun. I mean, I love the training aspect. I love having a young office where people are really trying to find themselves and their voices and going out and doing research. So very different if you had asked me 10 years ago to today, but I'm very, very happy where I am.
Nancy Surak 17:36
That's awesome. So when you think back through that whole process, what's a lesson that you've learned that you're really grateful that has occurred, either something that you've had to work through or a challenge you faced? What's something that you can think of that you're like, Wow, that was really meaningful in my career development, or in my, the growth of my business?
Leslie Deutsch 17:58
I think listening to other people like having, being able to learn from other people, whether they're just out of college, or, or the most experienced people, you know, 30 years in the business, everybody has something to teach you. Sometimes, sometimes it's not. But a lot of times if you're just letting other people talk, and people also ask me a lot, what's your number one requirement of when I'm interviewing people, what general recipe be able to think for yourself, because I want to hear your opinion, because there's a lot of really good information from everybody. And you just have to either sift through it or find it. But I think the best thing I've ever done is not to say I know what's right. But to actually hear what other people have to say and then put it together in a better form.
Nancy Surak 18:44
I love that. I'm still working on my listening skills. And believe it or not, this podcast has really been very helpful for me.
Leslie Deutsch 18:53
Oh, interesting. Yes, yeah.
Nancy Surak 18:56
Incredibly helpful just to let people finish their train of thought. You know, my kids used to always say, Mom, you're like cutting us off. And I'm like, Yeah, but I think you know, you talked about the pace of life, right? Or pace of work like I'm, I'm, I like the fast pace conversations. So. Okay, so when you look at where you're at, and you are training these younger people coming in, is there anything sticking out to you, which is different than say, You're I may have learned earlier in our career. So there's something that you're like, wow, they have this? And it took me years to learn it.
Leslie Deutsch 19:40
I think a lot of it well, it depends on the environment, too. So the environment that I grew up working in is you had to be at the office till midnight every night. It wasn't. It wasn't you didn't ask a question. I in fact, my first job I was shocked when I went into my second job and realize that Sunday wasn't a workday, because it was just I was I was you know, Lehman Brothers investment banking, it was nonstop. And it was much more, you know, you were told what to do, and you had to sit around and wait for instructions. So that was the environment I grew up in my environment is very different, where it's yes, people may be working from home for a day or they're traveling, but they're getting stuff done. And I'm finding that, you know, if you give someone a deadline, and it's a week out or two weeks out, they're, they're very resourceful. So I think and that's I'm learning more and more from from them about how to be resourceful how to get information, that's the key to our business, right? It's more efficient you have the better, and it's not the old, I'm gonna go buy this data, it's, let me see how I can talk to this person to kind of, you know, you're not ever allowed to ask people about who's buying, but you can look in windows and see if there's, you know, like stored on the balconies or what have you. So getting information, we have people looking through Instagram accounts to see if someone told me the other day in my office, if you can look at Instagram to see how many people are looking for roommates, it's a good sign of whether people are starting to bunk up again in the apartment industry. So just being creative, I was never allowed that opportunity I had work to do and to get it done. And I love how creative everybody is and learning from it every day.
Nancy Surak 21:17
That's great. I wonder if the I'm gonna have to start digging into that myself. Are there any landowners on Instagram via like, what should I do with my land? Maybe I can help them. Leslie, I love to wrap up every interview with three questions you touched on the first one a little bit, but I'm going to ask it again anyway. If a young woman or young person were to reach out to you and say, Hey, I love research, or I'm very much attracted to development as a career, whether it's commercial or residential. What would be your advice for me? What would you tell them?
Leslie Deutsch 22:01
So certainly, I would tell them that they should consider some type of research before they start, every young person wants to get to be a developer. And that's really exciting, right? That's a really great job. And it's, you know, super, you know, high end. But I think learning how to do a deal, learning how to, to research a deal, and all the pros and cons behind, it really helps you understand the so I that would be one thing I would tell them. And the other thing is just make yourself heard. It's very hard. I mean, we've gone through downturns, we've gone through COVID. You know, we're in this environment now where we don't know what's going to happen. And I tell everybody, just be relevant. be out there and tell tell people why you're worth it. Because I think that's the hardest thing to do. But you always have to sort of be out there, especially, you know, in COVID hit, we got our team together. And for those two weeks where we didn't know what was going to happen. We said, how do we make ourselves relevant? How do we make ourselves really important and that's, that's really the key to staying to staying employed to getting a job is showing someone what you can do for them, and what your worth is. So it's it's hard to do easier to say, but that's, that's what I would say.
Nancy Surak 23:16
Yeah, thank you. And then I always like to ask if my guests have a particular book, or podcasts that they like to listen to, that keeps them either pumped up or motivated in their, their business or in their personal life. Is there anything that you'd like to share with my listeners?
Leslie Deutsch 23:34
And I told you this on in our earlier conversation, I wish I had more time to read. I do have three children that are all in school right now. So it's a little crazy in this job. I do listen to some podcasts. It's always a bit of a mix. When I'm driving and traveling and there was one that stuck with me and I made my entire family listen to it called the big man can't shoot. And it's about Wilt Chamberlain. It's a wonderful podcast, because what they're saying, well Chamberlain was one of the best basketball players in the country. He probably was but he couldn't shoot a free throw the right way. And they taught him how to shoot it underhanded and he hit it every time. But because that wasn't cool. And that wasn't mainstream, he wouldn't do it. And he could have had that perfect percentage. So I think just that message of you don't always have to do what everyone thinks is the right thing. Sometimes it's a little bit different and it works. So and I even had my son shooting underhanded in his middle school game back in back in the day after he listened to that podcast because it does go in but people make fun of you because you're shooting like granny. But it's a great podcast just to just to be yourself and sometimes the smartest way isn't the isn't the most popular way if you will.
Nancy Surak 24:48
I absolutely love that. As a woman who's sort of I take I say you know, I sort of blaze my own trail. I've never had a problem with With being like, you know what they can say whatever they want to say, and it's fine, as long as I'm doing what I want to do, and I'm making a good living, I, it doesn't matter, I'm doing it for me. And someone once said to me, you've, you have a very strong mental ability, then because a lot of people can't do that. And so I wouldn't 100% agree that it's okay doing something that, you know, people might laugh or chuckle at. If it works, it works. I mean, that is ultimately the goal. So I love that I'm gonna have to check out that podcast. And then finally, if, if the listener is, is listening, and they're like, oh, wow, I want to follow Lesley or I want to follow John Burns, I sound like they're a great company to pay attention to I know, my company has a big subscription to you guys, you guys have a ton of research available. With all sorts of data points that I consume regularly, where would be the best place for somebody to follow you guys on social media.
Leslie Deutsch 26:03
So our website is always good. We have tons of great content on the website, it's really easy. It's realestateconsulting.com. So that's an easy one. But I'm also on LinkedIn, and we share we have John Burns has LinkedIn and John Burns, real estate Consulting and our head of research, Rick Palacios has a great Twitter account where he's constantly commentating on the economy, what's happening. And so I think that's probably the best place. We're all over the place. I'm very active, I'm thinking LinkedIn is probably the best one to find me. But I'm always sort of watching that and responding and, and our website, and I'm always happy to respond, especially you know, to young people that will email me or text me or what have you, I usually, as long as I'm not traveling, we'll be happy to talk to people, because that's really how you get people interested in into this into this environment. And you can tell, you can tell right away whether they're, they're serious or not. So anyway, so that so that's, that's that I'm happy to speak with anyone. And this has been a lot of fun. Thank you.
Nancy Surak 27:07
I'm so glad that you join me it's really important, I think, to continue to raise other professional women up on stage as I mean, you do a great job of of getting speaking gigs and are super popular in your space. But I really created this podcast because I wanted to share people like you with with a different type of audience. So I really appreciate you spending the time with me and helping us get to know you and your work a little bit better. Have a great week ahead. And I'm sure I'll see you here in the next few weeks really soon at one of these conferences coming up.
Leslie Deutsch 27:44
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Nancy Surak 27:48
Thank you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of she's wild the podcast for women in land and development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feature her on an upcoming episode.