Laurie Lustig-Bower
My mentor told me, "Every day when you drive to the office, try to think of a good idea." And one day, I had a really great idea that came into my head. And it was about how I was going to get business to sell apartment
March 1, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min
She Sold $12 Billion Without Cold Calling (Here's How) | Laurie Lustig Bower
With Laurie Lustig-Bower — Former Executive Vice President, CBRE
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What this conversation gets into
In this in-depth conversation, recently retired CBRE Executive Vice President Laurie Lustig-Bower shares decades of insights from one of the most successful multifamily brokerage careers in Los…
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Episode show notes
In this in-depth conversation, recently retired CBRE Executive Vice President Laurie Lustig-Bower shares decades of insights from one of the most successful multifamily brokerage careers in Los Angeles real estate. With over 36 years at CBRE (formerly Coldwell Banker Commercial), Laurie and her team handled more than $12 billion in multifamily transactions in the last decade alone. She built her business on the Westside of LA — specializing in apartment buildings, condo conversions, and development sites — consistently ranking as a top national producer in CBRE’s Private Capital Group. Key topics include:- How she chose multifamily and the Westside LA niche as her "blue ocean" path to expertise - Building a referral-based business without ever making cold calls - Networking strategies with residential brokers, appraisers, internal CBRE colleagues, estate attorneys, banks, and more - The power of internal referrals and paying generous referral fees early on - Daily habits, discipline, and idea generation that drove consistent deal flow - Preparing killer listing pitches: underwriting depth, rent comps, creative value-add strategies, rehearsals, psychology of the seller, and why most brokers skip rehearsal - What truly makes the ultimate broker: drive, persistence, emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving, and gut-level numbers mastery - Pricing psychology — why overpricing kills momentum, the dangers of long market time, and why multifamily buyers think differently than residential - Lessons from iconic deals and market cycles (without specifics)- Advice for new or growing brokers: pick a tight lane (product type + geography + price range), reverse-engineer your business plan, brand yourself clearly, become the go-to expert - Why specializing beats being a generalist in today’s information-rich marketWhether you're a multifamily broker, investor, or anyone in commercial real estate looking to level up prospecting, client relationships, preparation, and long-term business building, this episode is packed with timeless, battle-tested principles from one of LA’s most respected multifamily pros. Timeless wisdom from a true multifamily legend in Los Angeles commercial real estate. Subscribe and Stay Ahead! Stay informed and empowered in the multifamily real estate market. Subscribe to the channel for exclusive insights, rental updates, and expert analyses on the Los Angeles market. Sponsor — Citizens Bank Connect with a banker at https://www.citizensbank.com/novacancy Sponsor - AI for CRE Collective AI for CRE Community: https://www.skool.com/ai-for-cre-collective/about?ref=3b3ff2c0ccce44ba8039fafd54bf291a Connect with me: Website: https://www.thegroupcre.com/ Email: taylor@thegroupcre.com X: https://x.com/TAYVAY_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayloravakian/ #realestate #commercialrealestate #podcast
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Episode transcript
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0:00–10:00
Taylor Avakian
building. CBRE Executive Vice President Lorie Lustigbower, one of the top brokers in the United States for the past 24 years, have handled more than 12 billion dollars in real estate transactions with her team in the last decade alone. Someone told me a long time ago, my mentor actually, he's like, "Every interaction on both sides of the equation when you're sending a deal to a buyer who's going to buy it or when you're communicating with an owner, like that's an audition for you and how you
Laurie Lustig-Bower
work." And a lot of the seasoned brokers, believe it or not, they don't rehearse. A lot of them were frustrated when we teamed up together and I wanted to do a whole rehearsal and they're like, "You're kidding." Like, I'm not kidding. I looked back and said, "What niche could I fill that would be an easier path to success?" And at that time, it happened to be multif family. What was really interesting on my first deal, there was no other agent in the transaction. So, I had to handle both the seller and the buyer. It was scary for sure. At one point, I thought maybe I should just open a flower shop or do something a lot
Taylor Avakian
easier. This episode is supported by Citizens Private Bank. Citizens believes your attention is a force. It's built your world, your vision, your legacy. But wealth brings financial complexity that can consume the most valuable asset, your focus. That is why Citizens Private Bank, now in Los Angeles, gives you a dedicated team with one point of contact who understands your full financial picture, including specialized real estate financing. I'm a client myself, and I have been impressed by how seamlessly they bring everything together with thoughtful, tailored support. Let citizens focus on your wealth so you can focus on your world. Connect with a banker at citizensbank.com/novacy. Member FDIC equal housing lender. We had an incredible show today. We didn't get into it, but my guest today was Lori Luskbower. She is a legend when it comes to multif family brokerage
Taylor Avakian
in Los Angeles. She's recently retired and was generous to come on and give away all her secrets. If you are in brokerage or have anything to do with the Los Angeles real estate market, this was an incredible conversation. We talked about brokerage. We talked about how to grow your business, how to prospect, how Lorie never made a cold call, and how she generated a ton of business, her unique aspects of becoming friends with appraisers and getting referrals from inside of her own company. There are a ton of unique aspects of how to grow your business. Even if you're not in brokerage, there's some things that you can learn in this that'll help you whatever you're doing in your business. I'm a multif family broker here in Los Angeles. If you or anyone you know is just curious to know what the value of their property is, give me a call.
Taylor Avakian
Happy to help. Please like, subscribe if you like the channel, share this. That's the only way that we grow this channel and it means the world to me that you guys listen and watch. So, thank you very much. Enjoy the episode. the best brokers that I've seen and that I've been around, they they're not necessarily the smoothest talkers. They're not necessarily like the smartest with the numbers. They're not, you know, genius as savants. They know how to get deals done and they'll do whatever it takes to get a deal done. When you were starting the business, was that always your mindset or was that something that you've learned or picked up from someone? How did you cultivate that? just do whatever it takes obviously morally but to make sure the deal gets done.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I think it's just part of my personality of being very um disciplined and I guess persistent and just always wanting to persevere whenever there was an obstacle on the way whether and it started when I was you know even a child like if it's Halloween and I'm you know 10 years old and the goal is to get as much candy as possible I would map out the best route in the neighborhood the night before to know that I was efficient with my time. I went to the houses that had small properties so that I didn't have to do as much walking to get to each door. So, it's more about it's just, you know, your personality, who you are, and and then it translates to, you know, how do you get deals done? How are you efficient with your time as an adult in your
Taylor Avakian
career? What do you think makes um the best broker? If you had to build a broker, like in a lab, right? What skill set or tools would they have that would make them the ultimate, you know, brokerage machine, I guess you could say?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Wow. I think, well, first of all, I think they have to have a sense of drive. They have to have a fire in their belly to want to see things through. Uh, I think they have to be passionate about what they're doing. Uh, I think it they have to have that emotional understanding of how other human beings act and respond so that they can be persuasive when they need to be and know also when to back off. Um, I think that they have to have a certain intellectual capability to to run the numbers uh to be bright enough to know how to manage the deals and business. But in addition to that, I think um it also helps to have a creative side in problem solving because there's a lot of times when uh a lot of people see things as black and white and there's a gray area where
Laurie Lustig-Bower
you can satisfy both parties, the buyer and the seller by meeting them halfway, you know, in between or three/4ers and one quarter. and how do you get them to both come together and blend the colors black and white so that you have a a solution as opposed to two opposing sides. And so I think you need that skill set. Um I I also think um a good understanding of the numbers so that you can talk intelligently that why why should somebody pay this price for this property or why will the value increase? um where do you see the rents going? And being able to talk the numbers legitimately as opposed to just having relying on an analyst and not really like feeling it in your gut why this rate of return is appropriate for this
Taylor Avakian
property. Did you ever when when because you've probably had analyst for a long time um since you guys you were at CBRE and so I know they set them up structures where you can have analysts help you out with the underwriting. Did you make it a point to go and study the market at certain times? Were you like, "Hey, let me go underwrite a deal every now and again to figure out where are the rents, what the comps are." How did you think about educating yourself to feel like you knew what was going on? What was that process look like for you?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Well, back when I first started at CBRE, which was in 1988, it was a long time
Taylor Avakian
ago.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Was it was it CBRE in 1988 or was it It was called Cobalt Banker Commercial. Okay. Okay. But same company, just different name. Yeah. And the um and I had an opportunity to work on a team with uh a gentleman who was one of the top brokers in the country for for the company. Okay. And he did uh he sold all different types of products um office buildings, industrial shopping centers, hotels, apartment buildings. And there was an office building that needed to be underwritten. and um he had uh a partner and I was just this junior person kind of what they called a runner. I was sort of a like an intern but I was paid and it was uh it was a full-time career and uh they and I wanted to really understand the numbers and so
Laurie Lustig-Bower
uh we had to do a 10-year internal rate of return on an office building and um they I told them I would underwrite it and they both were like you're really so but I met with the gentleman who wrote a software program for the company um which was similar ort of like an Argus, but way back then they didn't have Argus. Got it. Uh or maybe they did, but we weren't using it. So anyway, um but I I I went and I spent time with this gentleman that wrote this software for our company. Yeah. And he taught me how to where the numbers would get inputed and then I had to abstract all of the leases and put everything in. And I spent night and day doing it until um and I remember I spent the whole weekend in the office.
Taylor Avakian
Wow.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And in and it would back then the computers were slow. So when you press a after you enter everything in and you want to see what the IRR was, it would take a half an hour. Oh my gosh. For the computer to pop out the return. Mhm. Half an hour. Holy crap. Yeah. So um but I got it done and um and they were they were really surprised. But I really got to understand the numbers when you throw yourself in the firing pan. Totally. Yeah. And you just and then I unders I knew how to do it.
Taylor Avakian
Was there a time when it shifted? Because that's surprising to me to hear that he was kind of a jack of all trades because I think nowadays most people advise of specializing, right? Which you eventually did end up specializing in multif family. So was there a turning point when that shifted from a company culture or did you always know that you wanted to specialize or how did that come for you to then become a multif family specialist?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So that was interesting. He was a jack of all trade and surprisingly a master at quite a few of them. Yeah. Um he was a very good broker and I realized that when he left the company um I was supposed to go with him. We were going to go to a competitor. I decided to stay back and at that point in time I had to invent myself because now I just wasn't somebody working on his team. Got it. And I felt like I needed to specialize. I needed to find a lane that I could become an expert in
10:00–20:00
Laurie Lustig-Bower
and I needed to um brand myself that I'm going to do I'm going to work on and I picked you know multif family and I'm going to specialize on doing it on the west side of Los Angeles and I'm going to become the expert at that and so uh and I also looked around the office and I realized I didn't have that much competition at that time for that product type in that location whereas there were plenty of other people selling industrial buildings or shopping centers or office buildings. So, I really I I looked back and said, what niche could I fill that would be an easier path to success? Um, and and at that time it happened to be multif
Taylor Avakian
family. So, it's like a blue ocean strategy. You're like, where is the competition not? And I'm going to go there and swim.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Right. Right. Right.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. Right. Which makes a ton of sense. What was uh what was the first I guess do you remember that first year or what was it like you know being on your own and and trying to do your own thing? What was that like?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
It was it was scary. Yeah, for sure. At one point I thought maybe I should just open a flower shop or do something a lot easier really. So you questioned it too. Oh yeah, I did. I did. I thought, wow, how am I going to do this? But um I wrote a business plan for myself.
Taylor Avakian
Okay. And I said, 'Okay, I'm going to this is what my focus is going to be and what am I going to do to get business? How am I going to get it?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And put it all down on paper. My mentor told me, "Every day when you drive to the office, try to think of a good idea, as many as you can, but at least come up with something." Mhm. And one day driving to Sentry City, I had a really great idea that came into my head. And it was about how I was going to get business to sell apartment buildings. And so I implemented that and that's what landed me my first deal. And then from there um I just started working on a lot of other ideas that would come to fruition. And I really worked my my business plan a lot and I stayed disciplined and uh and then it started to snowball.
Taylor Avakian
You can't leave me hanging. What was that? What was the idea? What what popped in your head that bright morning?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
It was that I felt as though there was a big divide at that time and there still is between commercial brokers and I'm going to call them single family home brokers. Yeah. And there really is this line where if you're if you're selling houses, you're selling houses. You're not crossing over or very rarely. Yeah. And at that time when we were Coldwell Banker commercial, we had also the Coldwell Banker residential side. Ah, and those brokers I felt in this particular area like um Beverly Hills, Bair, Santa Monica, Brentwood, really high-end neighborhoods where we had these residential or house brokers. A lot of those house brokers were selling these million plus I mean, you know, multi-million dollar homes.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Massive prices. Massive prices. 20 million,4 million,$50 million homes. and thinking that those those clients probably own a portfolio of commercial properties and those agents that have these relationships with those clients don't have the wherewithal to sell, you know, one of their properties that's a commercial property.
Taylor Avakian
Totally.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So, my goal was to network with the house brokers to have them introduce me to these clients and then I would pay them a a nice referral fee. Yeah, of course. So, I said, "Okay, well, how am I going to network with them?" So, what I ended up doing was going in on Tuesday mornings, these um um single family home brokers typically would have their big meetings where all the agents come and each one talks about their new listing and at that time there could be 75 or 100 of them in the office. Yeah. And then after that they all get in their cars and then they drive to the different houses and they caravan and they go look at these houses. So, I made arrangements with the manager of the of several of these offices in these high-end neighborhoods.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Let me come in and do a presentation to all of your agents as a guest speaker during your sales, you know, Tuesday morning meetings and um let me explain to them what I can do for their clients and how they can make an extra commission by referring me business. Wow. And so,
Taylor Avakian
and that's just like snowballed that you're doing those presentations that people were like, "Right, oh man, I have a client who has this like I only know one person, Lori, come come help
Laurie Lustig-Bower
me." Right? And after I finished the presentation, I'm not kidding you, the line was like 25 people long waiting in line to talk to me about this client or that client. And gosh, then boom, there I was. Next thing I knew, um, working putting a deal together and we it was my first deal that I sold.
Taylor Avakian
Do tell me about the first deal.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Everyone remembers their first deal. First deal. Well, it was it was a offmarket deal actually. Okay. So, my mentor had taught me that um we were when you're look we had a client as a a buyer. It was a it was a celebrity. Okay. Um who I'm sure everybody listening to this uh podcast would know this person, but I will keep it confidential. um but in a lot of action movies and this celebrity wanted to buy um a building and uh we knew what the criteria was and so what we did was we did a search for all the buildings that met that criteria and we mailed a letter to the owners saying that we represent a client that wants to buy this this type of property. We're not looking for a listing. Our client's going to take care of our commission.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So, we definitely wanted to make it sound like we're not looking to sneak around and try to get you to list, right? That this was legitimate.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And in fact, we got the client to write a letter to us saying that they were interested in that property and we attached it with the cover letter that we sent to the client so that they knew this was real.
Taylor Avakian
Oh, wow.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Smart proof. So, right. So, so, um, one of the the, uh, the the house brokers had a client that wanted to buy a building. So, I did the same thing and ended up writing this letter to ownership. Ownership contacted me and said, "Actually, we're we're interested in selling." Wow. And so, um, I put the deal together. And what was really interesting on my first deal, there was no other agent in the transaction. So, I had to handle both the seller and the buyer.
Taylor Avakian
Wow.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Okay. And that was that was a that was like I couldn't lean on a listing broker to sort of help through the figure it Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
I had to do the whole thing. You had to do the whole thing yourself, right?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Wow. And it closed and it and everything went well. So, it worked out.
Taylor Avakian
It did. And then the the Do you remember your first uh like listing listing? Do you remember how that came to be?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
The first listing was on a street called Kaa.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. In Brentwood and it was only a sevenunit apartment building. So nowadays that's that's mo probably the most expens one of the most expensive areas in in LA for apartments. But that's incredible. Okay.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So you got a seven unit in Kya. Yes. And it was at that time um there was there were a lot of foreclosures. This is the now the early 90s. Okay. And so um it was the FTC. Is that is that what the It was was it REO with um wasn't the the FDIC that that sold it. It was uh one of the local banks. Okay. And so they listed the property with me and I remember when I went for the listing presentation. I I just put my heart and soul into this presentation and I had worked with my mentor before and we were listing big properties like we were competing against some of the the best in in in uh in town.
Taylor Avakian
Massive buildings too.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
massive $50 million office buildings. And so for this little seven-unit apartment building, I did spreadsheets. I did a whole spiralbound comprehensive marketing program. I mean, it looked like what we would have done for a $50 million deal for institutional and right and they weren't used to seeing that. And I'm sure my competitors had come in with a a four-pager or something and I was, you know, I just did what I knew how to do. So, it's much more sophisticated. Mhm. And so I got the job and uh the listing and then um I did everything possible to market that property and of course it sold and it went very well and the bank was happy and they uh called some of their friends at other banks and said you should meet Lori. She did a great job for us.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So all of a sudden the word started spreading and I started working with other banks and more business started coming in and then word of mouth it just sort of spread and then and as you get more listings listings breed more business, right? So you end up talking to buyers that are impressed with what you're doing and they have a building that they want to sell. So it's a domino effect.
Taylor Avakian
Someone told me a long time ago, my mentor actually, he's like, "Every interaction on both sides of the equation, when you're sending a deal to a buyer who's going to buy it or when you're communicating with an owner, like that's an audition for you and how you work because the people who are buying also own buildings, right? And so maybe one day they want to sell. And so the way that you write your emails, the way that you get back to them in responses, all everything is super important because every communication is an audition. And so it sounded like for you you had had a good enough mentor where he had instilled that in you where it's like this the every little interaction is very important. Right. And it clearly ended up working because you took it seriously and
Taylor Avakian
then more people saw that and they wanted to work with you.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think so.
Taylor Avakian
I think that's very true. What So I'm curious to know on the
20:00–30:00
Taylor Avakian
actual pitch itself like give me some ideas of how what what level of depth did you go into? What what did the preparation look like for you to come and pitch uh a building? And this isn't to be that one in particular, but just in general, like what is the your process to get ready to pitch uh to earn the the listing?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Well, there's a multi-step process to get the listing ready and we actually had a check sheet for everything that we need to do. So, smart, right? So, you know, from uh obviously doing a diagnostic study of the building, understanding what's going on with it, understanding the history of its operations, looking to see if there's upside potential, um looking at the competition for the building, how are how are how is the building's rents compared to the competitor's buildings rents. Um trying to be creative. Is there something that we that we could uh tell buyers that they could do to improve the building to add value? Uh so that we might come up with a creative strategy like, oh, you could create storage lockers in this extra space that you have and you could charge $25 a month and you could make x
Laurie Lustig-Bower
number of dollars, you know, per year, which would translate to this much more value for the building. So little things like that that we would come up with. But then getting ready also for the pitch. Um after you do all your homework, you figure out what the value of the building is and then you put together your marketing strategy. Um of course you have your background um your track record that you have put together for your pitch. But then I think what a lot of people do is they they spend so much time putting the actual visual presentation together that they forget about what the in-person presentation is supposed to look like. Mhm. And so they don't realize that when they go to meet with somebody that they really are almost like an actor going on stage and they don't rehearse for themselves. Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So what we try to do is do a rehearsal. Yeah. And and actually videotape it or film it so that we could see what we looked like as we were talking and presenting. And did we you know, were our hands in the right spot? Did we say um too many times? Things that you don't really pay attention to when you're so focused on just putting your presentation together, you remember you you forget that there's a big component in how you make that presentation and how you come across to a client.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
100%.
Taylor Avakian
You're watching Game Tape. Yes. Right. How much of your process was thinking about the psychology of the owner you're meeting with? Like would you tailor your presentation depending on the I'm going to call it an archetype or like the the type of person their personality I guess that you were meeting with. Would would that come into account the psychology of who they were as a person?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yes, for sure.
Taylor Avakian
Okay.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
For instance, uh I would slow down if I was talking with somebody who talked very slowly or was an older person. And I would also not get into too many details if I felt that they really did not understand what a cap rate is or all the different numbers. So I didn't want to overwhelm them, but I wanted them to know that I did my homework. So I would give them what I thought they needed to know to appreciate the numbers but without taking a deep dive into a specific line item. Whereas if I were with somebody who was um highly versed in understanding valuations and I wanted to show them a nuance with the numbers and that we could make a decision to go this way or that way and we could change the cap rate by 25 basis points.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
and I wanted to let them know that I really dug into the numbers and had a good grasp on pricing this asset, then I would draw them into looking at a 10-year IRRa and let's look at year five and what the assumption was that we needed a new elevator cab.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And we could put it in year five or we could move it to this or how do you so then I could take that deep dive. Got it. So, and I also paced the presentation depending upon if I was with somebody who was very in their, you know, young 20s, 30s, you know, they want to move quickly. You know, they're used to um everything being instant for them and they may not want to hear the stories like the older generation wants to hear how you did it for this client. Yeah. So, then you want to keep it moving quickly and keep their attention. So you definitely have to adjust to the the demographic of your of your audience.
Taylor Avakian
For sure. So it's so funny cuz like I think people try to reinvent the wheel and it's like no people have been doing this very well for a long time. Like people want to be very good and so a lot of the tricks or the tips and stuff it's like this this has been been done for a long time, right? And I think it's just um it's probably youth trying to think that they can, you know, do things better than everyone else. I like to think that I'm, you know, unique and special and whatnot, but um it's it's cool to see that. Yeah. Even even back then, like you were going to the nth degree, which I'm curious. So, let's say you have a pitch, you know, Friday, like how much time do you spend? What's the preparation total time for you in prepping to for a pitch?
Taylor Avakian
Because I know, you know, some some pitches I've done two hours, some pitches I've done like three days, right? And I'm spending all my time, but also have to make calls. And it's you you got to find a balance of how much time to prepare for the pitch versus uh do your other responsibilities and obligations because we have those too. So what did a typical preparation period look like for you?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Well, it depends upon the asset.
Taylor Avakian
Okay. So, and it depends upon how big the pitch is going to be and if you know you're competing versus not and stuff like
Laurie Lustig-Bower
that. Well, not so much whether there's competition or not, but more like the underwriting itself could take a full week. Ah, it could take it could take days just doing getting the rent comps. Yeah. walking other buildings, going to see what they're charging, posing as a prospective tenant for the competitor buildings. Yeah. Putting together a chart. Sometimes we would call, we couldn't get in. People don't call you back and you really need to get that rent comp. Um so it would that could take a long time. Then pulling the sales comps and vetting them. Um and then once you get all that then you have to get all the books and records from the ownership and get that all loaded in. So we'll go back two or three years and load every line item. How much did they pay for water or electricity or what was the
Laurie Lustig-Bower
elevator cost or you know and then see what the trend was for the last three years and then make the projection for what it's going to be next year. Wow. So a line item audit on on on everything that so the numbers took a long time. Got it. And then and then there was writing the marketing strategy. Now a lot of times we knew already because we have our standard marketing steps that we go through but sometimes we would you know tweak it for different properties. So that all so there was a whole marketing strategy that had to be written and so I would say in a in our typical let's say 20 to $50 million listing probably two and a half to three weeks wow is what we would work on it and we'd have different people working on it. Right? Because I had an analyst.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So I wasn't doing the rent survey anymore like I was when I first started. And so the analyst would be at it for a, you know, seven day or five days a week. Yeah. And working, you know, hard in and we had other uh listings that were being underwritten at the same time. So it's hard to quantify it, but the turnaround time um if you're really going to take a deep dive Yeah. and put it together. And then once you have everything together, then you want to rehearse and setting up the room, figuring out a lot of times I would call ahead to the client if we were making at the client's office and I would ask the receptionist if she could or he could take a picture of the room that we were going to be pitching in. I wanted to see how big the table was.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I also wanted to see what kind of screen they had.
Taylor Avakian
Is the screen big enough?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
If not, I brought my own screen that I could, you know, expand. Yeah. And um and then I brought a projector and I would run the the the presentation that way. Wow. So, and I always like to I like to stand when I'm presenting. And um and I don't pass out the written material until after I call the show is over. And I try to be entertaining. I try to engage them. I try to ask them questions while I'm presenting to keep them um interested. Mhm. And if I see that they're looking at their watch or something, I'll speed up the presentation. Um, but I like to when I'm when I know I'm prepared, I know exactly what I'm going to say on each slide. And if I'm pitching with other people on my team or with another team, then for sure I want, especially
Laurie Lustig-Bower
with another team, I want to rehearse and I want them to know who has which slide. And I have them do it in front of me.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
and I'll sit in the back and pretend that I'm the client. And then I'll make sure that they're that their script is that they're saying what they should be saying on that
Taylor Avakian
slide.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
It's aligned with what the whole presentation is. Right. Right. And we time and we're timing it. Especially when we're going in and we know that it's if it's a very institutional pitch where they're interviewing so many companies, they're
30:00–40:00
Laurie Lustig-Bower
giving us one hour. We have 45 minutes to prep, I mean to make our presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A. Then I want to make sure we can get through the whole thing. I also want to make sure that somebody on the team doesn't go off on a tangent and talk about something and waste two or three minutes totally going down a rabbit hole that then we can't finish our presentation. So I think it's really important. Yeah. And a lot of the seasoned brokers, believe it or not, they don't rehearse. No, they don't. And they don't realize they don't come across as polished as they should for the reputation that they have. And a lot of them were frustrated when we teamed up together and I wanted to do a whole rehearsal and they're like, "You're kidding." Like, "I'm not kidding." Yeah,
Taylor Avakian
we need to do it. Like, this is why I win because I I prepare like this, right?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And and so much of the time the client's just getting a feel for people. And if it looks like you're op you're pitching and it's going very smooth and you're polished and you're well prepared that almost has a more important message than some of the stuff that you're
Taylor Avakian
saying about the slides. It's how much that you care, right? It's they I I I always believe this too. It's it's Yeah, it's not really about the price. Like most of it is not about the price. Most brokers will come within a certain range, right? So it's not we're not differentiating oursel because you can have some creative strategies which I've actually heard you've uh from owners you've been able to find.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Go ahead if you No, I don't know what that is and I put it on do not disturb. That's okay. Um
Taylor Avakian
no worries. Yes. Um that that you've found creative ways to pitch the property with value, but most most of the time they're going to get in the same range, right? So it's it's on the feel. It's how do they feel? Did this person care enough to repair? Did they think about something different ways? I had a story of a broker one time where he was doing a pitch and he walked he took photos of every property on the block and every corner within like three, you know, street radius and showed all the pictures of the properties and said, "Hey, here's your property. It's the best looking property on all these corners, right?" And like that's ground and pound old school stuff. I don't know a lot of brokers that are willing to to to do that stuff. And I think it's been lost with um everything is virtual emails
Taylor Avakian
again, people want things quick. Send me the PDF, send me the email. But I think the actual practice of of having a presentation, doing um your rehearsals, like taking it as a professional, you got to act as a professional athlete almost in a sense like what would what would the top of the top do? And if you're not doing that, then how do you expect to beat the people who are right? And was there a moment that you had lost a deal that made you question or made you retool um certain ways that you did things? Like do you remember a certain loss that stung maybe a little bit more than anything else? Or was that like back of the mind? You just let that go and move on to the next?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Um I'm trying to think. Nothing's coming to my mind at the moment other than sometimes we I felt like we didn't have a chance that we were just being used because they already had a relationship. Yeah. And I tried to tell myself I knew going in. I tried to tell myself, let's let's try let's see if we can, you know, beat this. But um but you know I I couldn't
Taylor Avakian
What's your opinion on that now? Do you think it's worth going in there and trying to win even if you're the straw man right there to just like because they have to invite three people to come in and speak or do you think it's worth going and doing the effort or is it better to say hey we appreciate it but you know I think our time is is better spent on other
Laurie Lustig-Bower
opportunities. I think that it depends upon what your opportunity cost is. Okay. So if you don't have much going on at the time and it's good practice for you to make the pitch and who knows maybe something goes wrong with the other team that was going to get it then you have an opportunity and you've done it. So but that's if you have the time and if it's not going to cost you um other business because all you've got is your time. Mhm. And so I would say there was one time when we we were up against that and we made the decision to go for it. And in hindsight I regret it. Yeah. because I spent a lot of time and we moved mountains to try to overcome and we couldn't and that
Laurie Lustig-Bower
was and I think it would have been better if I had at at that point said you know we appreciate the offer but I think you know yeah we'll we'll stand out on this one.
Taylor Avakian
Do you remember the first uh client who you denied um taking a listing or saying, "Hey, I appreciate the opportunity, but I don't think were willing, maybe because their price expectations were too high or, you know, there's there's a multitude of reasons. Maybe their values don't fit with what you're doing." And do you remember that feeling? I remember the first time I was like, you know, I I have enough business where I don't need to take on this listing. It doesn't feel like I'm, you know, trying to survive. Um do you remember that?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yes, there were a number of them that we've turned down. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. And was it just kind of like because you valued your time so so much, you figured out what where you it wasn't worth your time to take on something that was not going to transact. Is that how you thought about it?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
That and also to tell the owner that now if that's the price that you need, I don't think you should take the property out to the market. So, I don't think it's good for ownership. um the building's going to get, you know, um uh that extra exposed for a reason. I you know, so it might be wait until the market improves if they're holding out for a high price and I I just don't think it's within reach. So I would tell them that that would be my advice for them. And uh and sometimes they would listen and other times they would list it with the broker that told them the number they wanted to hear and
Taylor Avakian
and sometimes they'd probably come back to you after that thing.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So sometimes they right right because you're being honest with them,
Taylor Avakian
right? What uh what is your opinion on um taking like putting a property on too high? Like what do you how do you feel about if an owner is going to list a property, they say they want this, you know, they're realistic, but what's the what's bad about putting a property on that's too high on the market?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Well, a lot of times people don't take the listing seriously and they don't want to spend the time. So, you don't even get um you don't even get a real look for somebody to do the underwriting if they think it's already over the top. Then a lot of the buyers won't even waste their time going because it does take time for a buyer to put in an offer and to get their head in the deal, understand the underwriting, you know, look through all the income and expenses and and they're making a commitment of their time when they could be analyzing another deal. And so if it's way out of line, they're not going to do it. Now, if it's a little out of reach and people still think, hey, if they're 5% over where they should be, um maybe even 10,
Laurie Lustig-Bower
people would think, well, they're just putting it there, but they're willing to come down.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
There's a negotiation. Exactly. So, sometimes it's a it's a delicate balance between when something's really out of whack and something is just, you know, a little on the high side, but still within the realm of somebody taking a stab at at making an offer.
Taylor Avakian
What do you think happens when a property sits in the market for too long? Do you think it gets this this like stench, this like what's wrong with it? You know, why hasn't someone bought it? What's what's going on? Because I've that's when I talk to owners. I'm like, you don't want your property sitting on the market for six months because look at what happens when these it always sells for lower than where the initial if you just came out and took momentum at your side. Do you feel that way too?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yeah, I do. I mean, I think it's better that you price it appropriately. Yeah. And get it going. I know with the um the single family home brokers sometimes their strategy is to price it under what the value is. Now I have never done that before. It doesn't work and they in commercial in commercial. I've never done that but they tell me that you know they'll price it low so that people end up over bidding it. But I think the with the human psyche that if you knew that the property was priced at I'm just going to make this up at at $10 million and that was low and it was really worth 11. Mhm. And you end up paying 11 and a half because it got over bid. You feel like you've paid, you know, a 1.5 million or 15% more than what
Laurie Lustig-Bower
the owner really wanted when actually maybe the property really was, you know, the property was worth a lot more. Totally. But the buyer doesn't feel good about it. And I'd rather the buyer close and feel good. So I'd rather have priced it at 12.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Have the buyer get it for 11 and a half and feel like, hey, the owner came down. Yeah. And we got, you know, we got half a million dollars off the price then feel like they paid overpaid a million and
Taylor Avakian
a half. I think the psychology of investors when it comes to multif family is different than single family homes because I've I've actually tried it once and I've lost the business and it ended up selling. I told the story previously. It ended up selling at the price where I suggested we do it, actually below that. But there's a psychology with I think the buyers in multif family where it's almost this unspoken rule of wherever you price it, we're I'm we're going to meet in the middle or we're going to we're going to negotiate. Like I'm not paying above. I don't care where you price it. Even if it's lower for the most part, 99.9% of the time, it's it's kind of this unspoken rule. And so I don't think it works
40:00–50:00
Taylor Avakian
to price it way below because buyer Yeah. They don't want to do they don't want to be the the fool, right? They're they're supposed to be sophisticated. They're supposed to be investors. They're supposed to know their numbers. Like they don't want to be that that person.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
They're not going to live in the building, you know, as their home. Exactly. It's different. That's a good point. It's an investment, not an emotional purchase when it's the home that you fell in love with and this is where you want to have your family. Exactly. And you've already figured out which kids getting which bedroom and then you don't want to lose it.
Taylor Avakian
Yes.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And so and that's different when it's emotional.
Taylor Avakian
Tell me. Okay, so we have to talk about 9900 Wilshire because I think this is one of the most legendary stories of just incredible real estate sales um in history. Tell me what is the story of 9900
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Wilshire. Well, it's um my favorite story uh of my career. So, in 2004, uh, New Pacific Realy, uh, bought a property called the Robinson's May Department Store. It was an 8acre site in Beverly Hills and, uh, was just a a traditional department store that sold houseares and clothing. And they bought it for 33 million. And the department store had a long-term lease, um, which they inherited this long-term lease. The problem with the lease was the rent was way below market. So, they were paying very cheap rent and they were going to be paying very cheap rent for a long time into the future. So, fast forward a few years later, um things shifted for the
Laurie Lustig-Bower
tenant, the department store, and now they wanted to get out of the lease. It was just coincidence. Mhm. So, the owners, of course, were happy to have them break the lease because it unlocked the value of the land. It wasn't going to be encumbered by this long-term, ridiculously low rent lease. So the uh once the department store closed and they moved out, the owners went into the idea of well now we have 8 acres in, you know, in Beverly Hills, pretty much the the western entrance to the city of Beverly Hills surrounded by Santa Monica Boulevard on the south and Wilshire Boulevard on the north. Just a prime location. So they thought um we we should um basically sell this as a development site. So they um
Laurie Lustig-Bower
contacted me and for we they figured one could build 252 condominium units in two towers with like 40,000 square feet of retail. Wow. So this is going to be a big project. And uh I searched throughout the world for a buyer that would be the right buyer to build this condominium project. And through my networking found a broker in London who um had a very good relationship with um this buyer called Candy and Candy.
Taylor Avakian
Okay.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
two brothers that um were known for building the most luxurious, highest price condominium in the world back at that time. And that was in London that and it was called OneHide Park, very super exclusive. And back then the highest price that they had gotten was uh $10,000 per square foot for the condos back then too. Back then gosh. Yep. So crazy. Yeah, I think it was the condo was like 140 million just for the one condo. So, they were really super exclusive, high-end. And so, Candy Candy met with me. They flew out to LA. Um, we took them through all the highrises along the Golden Mile of Wilshire Boulevard and showed them the site and they knew they could make magic here.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Mhm. And so, um, New Pacific Realy wanted a half a billion dollars for the site.
Taylor Avakian
Great. So, from 33 million to $500 million in a span of five
Laurie Lustig-Bower
years pro or less, actually
Taylor Avakian
less. Oh my gosh, that's
Laurie Lustig-Bower
crazy. So, um, we ended up closing on the deal in 2007 and it was the height of the market. Everything was rosy and then and by the way the property was not entitled yet. Not entitled. No. No. It did not have any plans approved by the city. So Candy and Candy set to get it entitled and they worked very hard on it. Um by the following year but 2008 they got the entitlement. They got it approved and then the market crashed. We had the big subprime meltdown. And it was the whole housing market, everything. Everything. And they had put on short-term debt to buy the project for $500 million. So, they had borrowed from different places including the Bank of Iceland.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And um their short-term, they thought they'd be able to start building and they would take down a big construction loan, which would pay off all the short-term debt to buy the land. Couldn't find a construction loan. Nobody wanted to invest, you know, give a loan to build condominiums when the market was being foreclosed all over. Everybody was losing properties. So, they couldn't find a construction loan and they were having how are they going to pay off their short-term debt? So, they ended up borrowing money from Carlos Slim, who is a billionaire out of Mexico. Carlos gave them like 145 $150 million. um and plugged a hole because they needed to pay off one of their lenders and um but then shortly thereafter they defaulted on their loan to Carlos.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So Carlos then it's a bad man you want to default to. So Carlos wants his money back. Yeah. So he goes ahead and forecloses on them and now he takes the property back and he wants his um 145 million. So he quickly sells the property off and I wasn't involved in that sale in terms of representing anybody as a broker, you know, as a broker. But what I did was the buyer that ended up purchasing it was based out of Hong Kong. They came to LA and they sought me out and said, "We want your advice. You know, should we pay 145 million for this site? We have an opportunity to buy it from Carlos."
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So I consulted with them. Got it. And I encouraged them. I said, "This is an amazing opportunity." Yeah. So they bought it. Now it's 2010. And there they were called Joint Treasure. Uhhuh. So they bought it and they sat on it because the market still was it was recovering um from the downturn in 2008, but it was still pretty painful. Still froy. Yeah. I mean, no, it wasn't frothy. It was Oh, it was still uh a rough market. We were still low. We were not It was not frothy yet, but it was starting to become a little bit better. Okay. But they um they just sat on it. They did not advance the the plans at all. They just stayed with it. Um so nothing was being done. and the property sat vacant and and um we waited and waited and then in
Laurie Lustig-Bower
2014 the market had now improved quite a bit. Mhm. And joint treasures said I think we should sell the asset
Taylor Avakian
now. Was it entitled?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yeah, it was entitled from when Candy Candy entitled it. Got it. So entitled for 250 con 252 condominiums and 40,000 ft of retail. Wow. So joint treasure now decides it's 2014 let's take it to the market now we do a global marketing program for this property and uh it was very exciting to market the property and we went to all different countries and we ended up with 19 offers. Wow. And the at that for properties like that you don't put a price on it. You don't there's no published price on the brochure.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
It's just really what they call a whisper number. Buyers want pricing guidance. The seller gave us permission to say tell people we want around, you know, in the $350 million range. Okay. So, that was the whisper number. Got it. That we were able to talk to people about, but the competition was so fierce for this prime piece of real estate entitled Beverly Hills. Amazing. So, um, after rounds and rounds of bidding, it got down to the top three buyers. Um, two of them were foreign, one was domestic. Okay. And then in the final bid bidding, the price got pushed up higher and higher and it closed at 420 million. My god. And that went to Wanda, which was based in Beijing. Yep. And Wanda had aspirations to change the entitlements. They wanted to put a
Laurie Lustig-Bower
hotel on the site and that took some doing. So they went back to the planning department and after a while they were able to reduce the amount of condos by approximately let me take that off. It's funny I put the do not disturb on through. So they um so they went back to the planning department and uh got the planning department to approve reducing the amount of condos by about 50 or 75. So they went down to just under 200 condos
50:00–1:00:00
Laurie Lustig-Bower
but then they got a 78 room all suite hotel um and they branded it Oman. Ah, and it's a very high-end exclusive brand. And so they were going to have, let's say, 190 uh condos with 78 suite hotel rooms. Got it. And about a 100,000 square ft of like membership space for people who part of the Oman membership hotel group. Got it. So with a spa and restaurant and beautiful gym and and everything. Yeah. Yeah. So that got approved and um Wanda was moving forward on it. They named the project One Beverly Hills, very special. And they were very excited um to to go forward with this property. And I had people from the
Laurie Lustig-Bower
community calling me telling me how they wanted uh to see if they could reserve a condo on the top floor. And uh they wanted me to put a good word in for their name.
Taylor Avakian
Can you pass it on to Wanda?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I want to be down on the list. They wanted like first dibs at Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was it was going to be something. Yeah. And then um the Chinese government started putting pressure on different Chinese companies to bring back their investments out of like the US and bring it back to China. And Wanda, my understanding is that Wanda got pressure to sell one Beverly Hills and bring the cash back into China. Whoa. And it was really it was devastating. Jeez.
Taylor Avakian
And so then and this is when
Laurie Lustig-Bower
2018. Yeah, this is I'm trying to remember the date, but it was probably be maybe a little before then. Okay. But they uh and they ended up selling it to the next door neighbor which was Kane International and and uh Kain International owned the the Beverly Hilton and the Wilshire Historia um which is on 9 acres and now that they bought the 8 acres adjacent that gave them 17 acres at the western entrance of Beverly Hills. And their idea was to combine the whole property and make it one campus um so that it was not divided um between you know when you when you were on it you felt like you were on one property and so that's what is underway
Taylor Avakian
now right now. And I just I think they I saw something that they're raising or trying to to uh issue some bonds right now, right, from the the city to or from, you know, to to raise money for this thing. It's looks incredible. Like there's a big hole in the ground and I drive by it all the time. It's it's probably what I don't know 15 minutes. No, it's 10 seven minutes from here right where we're sitting now. It's going to be incredible. Like man, so over what was that? It's that started when for you
Laurie Lustig-Bower
200 200 Well, I got involved in 2006 and
Taylor Avakian
we ended up closing the deal in 2007 and it still hasn't been built in 2025, right?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
That's they're working on it now. It's going to get there, but man, it's going to be a 20-year thing. Wow, that's incredible. We have a sponsor for today's episode, and that is AI for Siri Collective. 25 listings at the moment. We're closing four or five deals a month. It's been incredible. So, if you want to learn, if you're in commercial real estate, how to use AI in your business, whether you're a property manager, a broker, an investor, really anyone, we have a huge group, over 400 people in this community. And the website, if you want to go check that out, is a forcollective.com. So, appreciate you guys. Now, back to the episode. Did you feel like that was a turning point the first time for your career or was it was there any deals that like made it where you felt like okay people know who I am now and
Taylor Avakian
I'm getting everything people want to come work with me or was it kind of a slow gradual burn would you
Laurie Lustig-Bower
say I would say that the turning point happened in 1995 okay so way before 9900 Wilshire the Robinson's May deal it happened. Um I was known in the in in the office as being the apartment specialist and had uh done um fairly well selling these uh apartment buildings in West LA. So that was my branding within the company. Mhm. So, an opportunity came up to sell a high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Glenn. Mhm. called the Wilshire Estina and um it was being for it had been foreclosed on by a bank. Okay. And that bank had a relationship with a broker in our Orange County office. And he was an office broker. He sold office buildings.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So, he contacted me and said, "We have this high-rise apartment building on Wilshire Boulevard that the bank wants to sell." And he said, "Do you want to team up with me?" Because he has experience selling office buildings, not apartment buildings, and he has the relationship. I have the expertise of the local market and selling apartment buildings. So, he and I teamed up together and we listed the property and we sold it to Donald Sterling,
Taylor Avakian
the infamous.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Mhm. And so and that was that was a whole interesting transaction. Um but uh we marketed it. We had a lot of offers and uh Donald Sterling had offered all cash and he said I'll close in three days. Nobody could beat that and uh so he did a very fast deal and closed it and uh it was very exciting. But what really I think um helped uh really promote my career was Donald Sterling at that time owned the Clippers and he had my understanding was an agreement with the LA Times where he would have the LA Times um p have them do advertisements during the Clipper games for the LA Times and then conversely the LA Times would give him advertising space in the newspaper.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Ah, so he then wanted this was one of this Wil the Wilshire estina that he bought at the corner of Wilshire and Beverly Glenn was his pride and joy of his apartment portfolio. I mean this was, you know, an iconic building. Yeah, this was it. And it was it was over 200 units and the units were on average like 2,000 square feet each. These were massive, beautiful units with amazing views. And so he was so proud, as he should be, of this property that he wanted to um advertise that he had s that he had bought it. So he he put together an ad for the LA Times that had a picture of this tall high-rise building and he liked the fact that CBRE sold it to him. And I think at that time we might have been maybe we were
Laurie Lustig-Bower
still CB free or CB commercial. Yeah. Um but because it was a one of the top brokerage firms. So the the ad was very big. It some of it was like like this by this in the paper. Oh my gosh. Big picture of the building and then it would say you know the Donald T. Sterling Corporation purchases and then it would have the price of the property that what he paid from and then he had my name Lori Lustig Bower or actually at that time I was just Lori Lustig and then it would say CB commercial. Wow. And this ad ran in the newspapers like every week and in multiple places such that it was and all over I mean it was it was he drenched the market with the these ads
Laurie Lustig-Bower
to the point where other brokers in the company that were reading the LA Times saw my name in these ads all the time and didn't know that Donald Sterling had made arrangements. I mean, he worked out the payment whether it was they traded advertising space for advertising space between the Clippers and the LA Times, but other brokers thought CB was paying for it. And so they complained to management, "How come she's getting all this free press?" And there's like, "We're not paying for it." That's crazy. But they he he he he ran it so many times and in so many different places in the paper that my the brokers in my office decided one day because they were so tired of seeing this that they they took the they again the ad was like you know 8 by uh 11 by 8 or something
Laurie Lustig-Bower
and they wallpapered one of the conference rooms with that ad from ceiling to floor all the walls. No way. And they did a surprise where they brought me into the conference room. They were all standing there and uh so and they it was like a big joke
Taylor Avakian
cuz they were all they're like look at Lori here. Everyone's seeing you here.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Here here's your your room for you. Right. So I walked into a conference room wallpapered with that ad.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, that is so good.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Wow. So that really then propelled my career because now you know my name was being seen a lot. It was a big building and then there were other properties now that people wanted. Oh, you you know you sold it to Donald Sterling. I had a you know a lot of other offers on that property. So it um that that started spiraling upward the Totally.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. the light bulb went off and people were like we want to work with this who's this Lori Lustig like we want to work with her you know that's incredible if I'm curious to know from from the experience right if you had to start over
1:00:00–1:10:00
Taylor Avakian
again today right would you take the same approach or how would you think about okay brand new you have the knowledge you have but you're you know brighteyed and bushy tailed like how would you approach growing um a brokerage business
Laurie Lustig-Bower
today well let's I would I guess um I would start out by writing my bis writing a business plan immediately and I would I would figure out okay what what do I want to focus on where do I want to focus on it and I would come up with um my goal would be to become an expert at something and in some place so it's the product type and it's the geography and even the size of the deal. Okay? Because if you're selling $50 million deals and your lowest deal is like 20 million, if you take on a $2 million apartment building, you're going to hurt your brand. Yeah. So, you have to know when to say
Laurie Lustig-Bower
no. And you also have to pick a lane. like is it too much to tell yourself, okay, I'm going to sell only deals that are over 20 million.
Taylor Avakian
Do you have enough expertise to to get that going?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
And is there enough transactions in that space that you can make a living at that? So, some of it is a reality check. Uh and the other and and what one can do is what I did was my homework in looking back to Co-Star. Mhm. To see how many deals in certain price ranges would trade every year and then figured out, okay, there's a lot trading between, you know, 0 to 5 million and then 5 to 10 million and then 10 to 20 and then 20 to 50. And if you trunch it and you figure out what the trades are and then you could figure out what kind of market share you think you could have in that tunch, let's say, and I decided, you know, selling deals between zero and two or three million is not worth my time.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
It takes just as much time to sell a $2.5 million deal as it does to sell a $10.5 million deal. Y and sometimes even more time because the smaller the deal, the less sophisticated the client and the more handholding you need to do. Y so it you have to be really careful about what where you specialize. So I would figure out where as a broker or as a my brokerage team you know where is the low the the lowhanging fruit from the tree you know where could we be most effective and maybe that is between let's say5 to$20 million and then okay what market area will we go after and then to figure out how many of those buildings are trading every year what percentage market can you get 10% of the market if you can and the average price is X and your average commission is X%.
Taylor Avakian
How many dollars is that take-home for you at the end of the year?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So, like working backwards, reversing. Exactly. Right. Reverse engineering, you know, okay, you want to make a half a million dollars, you want to make $2 million net. reverse engineer how many buildings, what size, what space market, and then then if that's if once you've figured out, okay, this is where I'm going to work. Mhm. And then you want to brand yourself.
Taylor Avakian
How do you communicate to the market?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Okay, this is the lane that I'm going to be driving in and I'm going to be the expert at this so that people then will seek you out when they have something that fits in your lane because that's where your expertise is. And nowadays, the market is so much more sophisticated than it was back then. So much information they can Right. Exactly. That they clients want to find the person who is the expert in that particular space. So I really think it's important to not be a generalist, you know, not say, "Oh, I'm selling apartment buildings today. I also do a little retail on the side and sell little shopping centers. I do a little leasing over here." You know, then you're uh, you know, maybe you can make some good money at doing that. But I think if you really want to not have
Laurie Lustig-Bower
to scramble for business, when you can be the expert and the market then comes to you, then it's a whole game changer. And that's the way you do it is you you pick a product type, you pick your market space, you pick your your value range, and you stay in that lane. And then you have to communicate it to the marketplace. People have to get the message out. They have to know that that's what you're doing. And one of the ways you can brand yourself that I found is that anytime I had a letterhead or I had an email, I would have a little slogan at the bottom and if it said something like for instance um team Lustig Bower serving multi-ousing investors in the greater Los Angeles area, something very succinct.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Catchy. Catchy. And I could put it on if I was sending out a postcard, if I was sending out an email blast, if I was faxing it. It was just a little in italics at the bottom of the page or on my letter head because I'm trying to teach the marketplace, this is what we do. Yeah. And that way when I'm in an elevator and you have to give your elevator speech, how succinctly can you tell somebody what you do so that you're memorable? Yes.
Taylor Avakian
Right. Yeah.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
You have to stand out from from everyone else. Right.
Taylor Avakian
Right. How would you how would you prospect quote unquote? Like um I don't think I think we talked about this before. I don't think you were making cold calls. Um, but how how would you go about actually generating business? Like would it be would you do a letter campaign? Would you go to networking events? Would you try to uh just walk into a bunch of offices and introduce yourself? Uh would you work by side for some deals? Like how would you think about generating that first uh would you go connect with some, you know, estate attorneys? Like what what would you think in terms of the generation of the business?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Well, that's a big loaded question.
Taylor Avakian
It is a loaded question. I know.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I know. Yeah. No, and it's a good it's a good question. Um I started by net my first idea was to go to those uh single family home brokers and that really launched my career and then I came up with a lot of other ideas but just and not in any specific order but early on I joined the Century City Chamber of Commerce. I got to meet people. I volunteered to help put conferences on that were multif family conferences. My goal was to try to get up and one day be the speaker and be in front of a lot of people. Then people would see me as an expert. And so, but before I could do that, I helped put the conferences on. What that meant was I would call people that were heavy hitters in the industry to invite them to speak on a panel.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Hey, that person got to know me because I reached out to them to have them um be part of the panel. So I went about it very differently than most brokers. Get on the phone, start doing the cold calling. I never did the cold calling. Wow. So I always found these other ways to reach people. The other thing I did was I marketed myself internally within the company. So I really promoted the referral fee idea. I went to different offices within our company. And sometimes it could either be nowadays it would just be, you know, an email blast. Yeah. But it would be uh letting them know if you have, you know, ask your clients that own office buildings,
Taylor Avakian
do they own any apartment buildings?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I'd be happy to pay a referral fee. I up the fee. One time I went to a 50% referral fee. Wow. Because I wanted to capture their attention. Yeah. And when I was starting out, I needed volume and I also needed to make a name out there. Um the other thing I did was I thought, okay, who has relationships with the end buyers? So, how can I channel my brand through those people to get to the ultimate client? And so, I decided that I would get to know appraisers. So, I volunteered to speak at the Appraisal Institute of Southern California. Every year they have their conferences and they like to get an overview of what's going on in the marketplace. So, I would put on an apartment overview of what's happening in Los Angeles. It'd be an hour long with slides and bars and, you know, charts and bar graphs
Laurie Lustig-Bower
and everything, but they love all the numbers. Love all that stuff, right? And just give them a whole dissection of what's going on in the marketplace. But I'd be up at the podium speaking for an hour in front of all of these appraisers. These appraisers are all doing work for the clients. And one of my last deals that I closed before I retired came from a referral from one of the appraisers that was in an audience way back when that remembered me at that time. Wow. So, you never know where it's going to come from. But you mentioned um lawyers. So, I would also market myself to lawyers, to estate lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers um when it when things were shifting to banks, market myself to the banks. But I really try to um get involved with um trying my hardest to get to people
Laurie Lustig-Bower
who had relationships with the end users. So even escrow officers, yeah, when I have a new listing, I send a blast out, they get it one time. So they see, oh, I've got a $20 million apartment building. That escro officer might have a client that that she or he could forward it to. Yeah. saying, "Hey, this is looks like a very nice building. Maybe you might you
1:10:00–1:20:00
Laurie Lustig-Bower
own the building down the street because the escrow officer knows that." Yeah. So, it could forward it to the her client or his client. And then it's just about word of mouth. How do you get it out there? And that I think that was one of the strategies that I used to uh propel my business and and start to get
Taylor Avakian
business.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
You're a master networker. I try to be. Yeah. But then also when you sell a property Yeah. um uh to be you know we were always had a press release written for we would send it out to all the different media. Um I also made sure that all the key reporters in town for the different uh media knew had my cell phone number if they ever had a question about something or or needed to be explained what a cap rate meant, how to calculate it. I wanted them to feel free to call me and I wanted them to be able to reach me right away because if they were working on a story and they needed a quote, the first broker that could get back to them before their deadline got got their name in the paper. Right. So, you wanted to become a resource to the reporters.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So, that's what I I did. I got to know the the PR people inside of CBRE to let them know that I was a resource for them. And so, it's really about also being strategic. Yeah, with reaching out ahead of the ahead so that people know to contact you in the future should an opportunity come
Taylor Avakian
up. Seeing things that's so smart. Yeah, I've I've taken a effect to that on some stance and I think I'd love to actually know your opinion on on this thing that we call social media nowadays because I think it's become so powerful and I saw the shift maybe like 2019 2020 it felt where it was kind of like commercial real estate was starting to it's mostly owners and then the brokers community started growing and you know it was on Twitter first and then LinkedIn and then now it's you know everywhere on Instagram and a lot of people uh I think commercial real estate brokers like to uh disassociate themselves with residential brokers, right? Residential definitely very heavy on the branding, the videos, the the marketing, the flashiness, you know, the house tours, all these TV shows and commercials like, oh, you know, we're all
Taylor Avakian
we're numbers and buttoned up, but I think they've realized that um humans are humans and your clients are looking and scrolling on, you know, Tik Tok and Instagram and watching the YouTube videos and doing all that stuff. Do you have any thought? I know you kind of like left out, you didn't have to do all that stuff. You built your brand, but do you have any thoughts on social media and um I guess the power of it today?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I I think there's a certainly a place for it. Yeah. And I just wonder if there's so much of it out there that it's hard for everybody to take time to watch everyone's different video or posting because they're so inundated with everything.
Taylor Avakian
Totally.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
So it's a question of what can you do that might be an eyecatcher to stand out so that because you got a lot of competition within the social media and I I had because it's such it takes a lot of time I had somebody dedicated to my team just to handle our social social media. Wow. So yeah you almost need it. Yeah. And also to respond to people. So, because people are going to reach out to you and a lot of times it's, you know, they're trying to sell you something or a service or this or that or other times it's, you know, legitimate could be new business. Yeah. So, you have to be able to keep on top of responding to people timely.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. And
Laurie Lustig-Bower
staying on top of that and doing that whole thing. So, you need to do that as well. But, um, but that would be a good a good question to ask like what can you do differently or what's your hook in order to get them to to listen to what you are offering on.
Taylor Avakian
on social media, how do you stand out? It always comes back to like what makes you unique? Like what what makes you different than every other broker? Because I feel like a lot of owners feel like many brokers are commodities at a certain point, right? Like I could pick anyone or whoever is going to give me the cheapest amount of fee or or anything like that. We know that there's a difference between a a good broker and a bad broker, but it's very hard to show that to someone who hasn't experienced it firsthand. And so I think part of the branding, you're you're kind of trying to cover all your bases in terms of just give me a chance to get in the door and they'll see once we have this conversation and my my pitch and rehearsal, I'm the real deal.
Taylor Avakian
But it is that initial, you know, like let's get an opportunity. Let's get an ad bat from a certain perspective.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Right. Yeah. And if you can get testimonials from other clients, that would be really important. Yeah. To show proof, right?
Taylor Avakian
you were always about the proof, right? What I'm doing, my track record, here's what we've done, right?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Because then that begets and builds on itself, right? So, it's one thing to have like clients that would offer to talk to somebody about you and then it's another thing to see if after you close a deal if you could get them to give you a quote which you could put together in a marketing piece with their name and their position and their company and you get quote from the CEO of XYZ Corporation saying what a great job you did. Um, that's a nice endorsement and to be able to when you're trying to get somebody to, you know, give you an opportunity to make a pitch to be able to send them something. You know, I thought you might like to see some people who I've worked with. Yeah. And I think immediately if they see a client list like that
Laurie Lustig-Bower
um and even if it's people that um don't have a fancy title and they're not known, that's okay, too. Mhm. The the objective is is just to show that you have people who were very pleased um with your with the efforts that you that you did.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, I I agree. Um last thing before we wrap up, you I know eventually ended up um owning or or purchasing some properties. Do you think if you had to do it over again, would you have bought the properties you did, would you have bought more properties? Would you have, you know, done something different, different asset types? Like what has that aspect of becoming an owner looking back like what would you have done or how would you do you think you did it the way that you wanted to as a broker to an owner?
Laurie Lustig-Bower
I would say if I could do it all over again I would have bought more properties. Okay. And part of the reason why I didn't was because I was just so busy with brokerage. Mhm. I mean, I was working a lot of hours and I loved it. Um, and it was once I got my rhythm down and I I I I felt like I was it just felt like I was so comfortable in my skin and it was just easier to just do another deal or, you know, I had no problem working all day, Saturdays and Sundays on underwriting or prepping for a pitch. Um, but owning a property that was new for me, right? Because now there's a whole lot of responsibility that comes with it. Totally. And so I wish I had pushed myself
Laurie Lustig-Bower
a little further to start earlier, but I was afraid that it was going to take away some of my time. Yeah. From doing brokerage and and I was I was really working around the clock. So I didn't allow that time. And in hindsight, um, if I had carved out more time for it and just take the plunge and started buying sooner, you know, I would have had a bigger portfolio than I have today and that would have been nice. Yeah. Um, but by the same token, maybe I wouldn't have had as much success in brokerage because you only have so much time. Totally. So, it's a trade-off. It's a It's a balancing act.
Taylor Avakian
It is. Lori, thank you so much for being here. This is incredible. Um, I'm I think this is a master class in how to be a fantastic broker. So, every broker needs to watch this.
Laurie Lustig-Bower
Uh, but thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoy talking with you.
Taylor Avakian
Thank you.