Taylor Avakian
Jamie 33 apartment buildings, 6,600
July 16, 2025 · 1 hr 14 min
She’s Turning Empty LA Towers into 6,600 Homes (Here’s How) | Jaime Lee of Jamison Realty
With Jaime Lee — CEO, Jamison Realty
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What does it take to go from working the parking booth in your family’s business to becoming CEO of one of the largest real estate firms in Los Angeles?
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Episode show notes
What does it take to go from working the parking booth in your family’s business to becoming CEO of one of the largest real estate firms in Los Angeles? In this episode of No Vacancy, Taylor Avakian sits down with Jaime Lee, CEO of Jamison Realty, who leads over 6,600 units and 33 buildings, with 2,000 more in development. Jaime breaks down how her immigrant parents went from medicine to office buildings, how she took over her first 1.8M sq. ft. asset at age 22, and what it means to lead in the most competitive office and multifamily market in the country. You’ll learn how Jaime: - Transitioned from law school to real estate leadership - Managed through the Great Financial Crisis and COVID - Led Jamison’s shift from office to multifamily - Navigates generational wealth with her siblings - Thinks about office space, leasing, and urban redevelopment in LA This is a powerful episode on vision, grit, and reinventing a legacy in 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. 🔔 Don’t miss out on the latest trends and tips to maximize your property's potential: https://www.youtube.com/c/TaylorAvakian 📈 Connect with me: Website: https://www.thegroupcre.com/ Email: taylor@thegroupcre.com X: https://x.com/TAYVAY_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayloravakian/ #NoVacancyPodcast #JaimeLee #JamisonRealty #MultifamilyLeadership #UrbanDevelopment #KoreatownLA #FemaleCEO #RealEstateLeadership #LeasingStrategy #PropertyManagement #TaylorAvakian
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Episode transcript
This 15,056-word transcript is matched to English (Original) automatic captions. Timestamps seek the episode player to the matching passage.
0:00–10:00
Jaime Lee
units. So, I grew up with immigrant parents and they started investing in office buildings in the wake of the civil unrest and after the Northridge earthquake. This is my daughter. She's 22. She's going to be your new boss. This is really what is now Korea Town. But then the global financial crisis hit and we had over a thousand tenants in that building and I was renegotiating workouts with all sorts of people trying to keep them in place, help keep their businesses in flow. This cycle is ending abruptly with a global
Taylor Avakian
pandemic. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Vakeian. I'm here with my esteemed guest Jamie Lee. Jamie, 33 apartment buildings, 6,600 units or more. 2,000 units are under construction. uh Jameson Properties. You're the CEO of Jameson Properties. I read that you decided around the age of 15 that you wanted to eventually join the family business. Most teenagers are not thinking about that at 15. What happened in your life at that moment that made that path so clear to you?
Jaime Lee
Well, I want to make a quick correction.
Taylor Avakian
CEO Jameson realy Jameson Realy, I'm sorry.
Jaime Lee
James realy they're all very interchangeable in the public domain for sure. Um so I grew up with immigrant parents. They were in the medical field. My mom was a dentist. My dad was a doctor. And so my whole childhood was like doctor doctor be a doctor. Grow up be a doctor. That's you know education is how you build multigenerational wealth. How you get ahead how you create security in your life. and they started investing in office buildings in the wake of the civil unrest and after the Northridge earthquake. So this is '90s the midwilture area was just completely decimated and they really saw that as an opportunity to not only have some side investments outside of their medical practices but also to bolster a community because this is really what is now Korea Town. Korea Town used to be further south on Normandy, closer
Jaime Lee
to USC, and now it's very much located, you know, this Yeah. centered on Wilshire Boulevard, but extending down a little past Olympic Boulevard and up towards the 101 freeway. And so when that started becoming a thing, it became much more discourse away from be a doctor, be a doctor to this is a business now and this is something that was pulling them away more from their medical practice and something that they were pulling us as their kids into. And so I'm an eldest daughter. I have three younger brothers. A lot has been written lately about eldest daughter syndrome and you know the benefits the the fortitude and the things like that that you get from just that birth order and being that position but then also a lot of the pitfalls and downfalls that we're only beginning to recognize in my generation of that.
Jaime Lee
And so I was leading the charge among my brothers for that. And so I went to USC. I actually skipped my senior year of high school and just wanted to move through my education and learn the business. So, I stayed locally, uh, learned the business while I was in school in order to just jump in as soon as I could. So, I was at SCU for undergrad and law school and then during law school, I started managing um, a wholesale fashion building downtown called the California Market Center,
Taylor Avakian
1.8 million square feet. Jesus. Did was that part of the portfolio at that time?
Jaime Lee
That was part of the portfolio. It was a newer acquisition. Okay. And we had actually um parted ways with our general manager there and my dad called me. I was in classes in law school and he said, "Uh, meet me at California Market Center when you're done with classes." So, I'm like, "Okay." So, it's 1:00 and I drive over there and looking for everybody. It's all quiet. And I go in the conference room. All the employees are in the conference room and he's sitting there at the table and I walked in and he said, "Oh, this is my daughter. She's 22. She's going to be your new boss." And then I will walk you out. So it's like a baptism by fire in many ways. And I had done office management before that. I'd spent, you know, a summer in a parking booth like collecting ticket.
Jaime Lee
Back then it was like collect the ticket, make the change was all cash. Uh you have to reconcile the ticket numbers at the end of the day. I've also done you know like answering phones in the executive suites. I think that's one of the hardest jobs to do back when people were really in the office. I think that that form of office is coming back now too as many people are starting up and don't necessarily want to commit longterm to their own suite. Um I think that's one of the hardest jobs cuz you to memorize everyone's greeting. Oh my gosh. In a different way. And so um and then had worked on larger scale projects like implementing things across many office buildings. And so I was there and that's really where I cut my teeth on the property management side.
Jaime Lee
But then the global financial crisis hit and we had over a thousand tenants in that building and I was renegotiating workouts with all sorts of people just try trying to keep them in place, help keep their businesses in flow, try to keep tenency in the building and so that was a very intense period but one where I just learned so much and I think the most important thing is you learn so much about people totally going through that. Yeah, that was an aspect of real estate that I didn't expect to learn so much, but also to love and so I became a deal junkie in that way. I moved I mean I still was managing properties downtown. Yeah. And became downtown regional manager. We had about 6 million square feet downtown at that time, but um I got my broker's license and started doing leasing.
Jaime Lee
And that's really where my skills I gravitated towards. And I think the nice thing about having three siblings is we all have different skill sets and then they kind of gravitate towards different parts of the business. Got it. And so that's where I started my leasing career. Um got into brokerage. I know you're a broker. Yeah. And it's not an easy business, especially when you're starting out. Not when you're starting out and not when you're starting out in a global financial places. And so it's just interesting to me like we've seen so many Black Swan events now in our careers being millennial.
Taylor Avakian
Are you a millennial? Yeah, I'm millennial. Yes, I am.
Jaime Lee
Just checking.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. Last generation. I know.
Jaime Lee
I know. So, I'm an elder millennial. But the ways people do business have changed a lot. I think the way that I view the industry and even just how I fit into it cuz I just felt like such an outsider when I started. Sure. And you're doing deals. Everyone's much older than you. Everyone's white. Everyone's male. They expect to do business in a certain way. They want to tell dirty jokes. They want to like yell at you or, you know, kind of bully you a little bit to try to get what they want. So, I was doing landlord rep. And so, I was repping all of our our properties downtown. And it was hard. I mean, those were stressful times in a lot of ways cuz everyone's just trying to make it when you're in that kind of environment. But, at the same time, it was such a tenants market.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Yeah. So, it really helped me to learn like what is your bottom line
Taylor Avakian
really?
Jaime Lee
How do you defend that and then how do you find a partnership with someone where they're getting an office space that they'll really love and where their business will grow and um where we can just work together collaboratively cuz I like you remember your very first deal. It's like 20 2276 was the square footage on that. Wow. Um, but they, you know, and that was 20 years ago. It's crazy. But you always remember your first deal. But I got to watch that firm grow to be like an 18,000 square foot law firm in the building and all those kinds of
Taylor Avakian
things. That's really incredible. Speaking of first deals, my first deal was in Korea Town, 520 South Mariposa, 48 unit building.
Jaime Lee
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
You never forget your first never forget that first deal. And it was just a crazy story, too, because And that was when the market was good. This was 2019. Um
Jaime Lee
Oh, yeah.
Taylor Avakian
And now I'm like the good old days. The good old days. Oh my gosh. When I actually You only had a couple years literally. And then 20. Yeah. 22 hit and I'm like it'll be over, right? Survive till 23 24 25.
Jaime Lee
Oh, we're or we can just do this and like learn from people and events about the situation, all the good times. We went through that and you know after the GFC things didn't really settle down. I remember 2012 2013 people were still walking around saying like well you know the economy is bad the economy is bad and so it took a long time to come out of that period and I'm sort of feeling like that delay now and this downside because then things really started picking up 14 15 16 17 then people were saying you know oh we're past the ninth inning we must be in the 11th inning we're in the 12th inning and then there was a Dodger game around that time that went like super I'm like oh we still have more room to go no one could have possibly
Jaime Lee
predicted that This cycle is ending abruptly with a global pandemic. No. And so like I say, we just keep seeing these issues and volatility, you know, then I would call interest we were such an interest rate sensitive industry that I call the interest rate run up from a couple years ago. It's like another huge impactful thing that's just
Taylor Avakian
fastest in history.
Jaime Lee
I think it was, right? Oh yeah. And ground us to a complete standstill. Jeez. And so we see that on the transaction side. We see that certainly on the building side and and also you know people are coming back to the office to a certain extent but it's a different type of environment.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. And a different set of needs when when um your your family was building the portfolio. Was were you guys syndicating the deals or what were was this like piece by piece by piece? Cuz when did your dad start buying these properties? How old were you? Uh I was like eight or nine. Okay. Okay.
Jaime Lee
So, he was like, and he went straight into office. Yes. Straight into office. Cuz he looked at it as a replacement cost play. Interesting. These are empty office buildings on Wilshire Boulevard, but it was Korea Town, which I mean, it wasn't really even Korea Town then, but it was Midwilshire. After the civil unrest, after the earthquake, all of these big insurance companies
10:00–20:00
Jaime Lee
that had essentially built those towers on Wilshire, they just got out of dodge. So they moved out here um to the Deep Valley. They moved to Glendale. And so they just moved to more suburban ex-urban areas and left that area vacant. Area vacant. So these were buildings that were trading 20 $30 a square foot. Jesus. And so um my dad is a really great visionary in that and he's also just quick to jump into new things. I think that nimleness and flexibility is what has allowed us, you know, even in our move to multif family has allowed us to be adaptable and to, you know, modify our thesis as we move forward to always be with the times. And so for him, he looked at it and he's like, well, the building costs probably like 100 plus to per square foot to build. And so
Jaime Lee
I'm picking up at 20 cents on the dollar. Yeah. Yeah. And so each project and it wasn't like he had tons of capital either. So, it's like friends and family. You make an entity for that acquisition buy the building. It's the same thing as developing. You know, when we first started, it's like, "Okay, we'll try one and you build it. You see how it goes." It's like, "Oh, that was pretty good, actually. So, we'll start another and finish that one." And then then you start ramping up the pipeline.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
As things get bigger and bigger. And it was the same thing in office. So, yeah, they're all individual um ownerships, friends and family.
Taylor Avakian
Okay.
Jaime Lee
Private capital.
Taylor Avakian
And you were speaking there of of how you guys transitioned too because firstly it was office, right?
Jaime Lee
And then you for like 30 years for 30 years and still very much office. We still have a lot of office
Taylor Avakian
but you came in here and I felt like you shifted a little bit towards wanting to then focus on multif family and adaptive reuse. So like was there a specific moment when you realized you needed to take the company in a different direction or how did that happen?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. So, we coming out of the GFC, we had a building on Wilshire Boulevard that was 100% leased by the county of Los Angeles and they vacated when their lease was up. So, they'd been there for 20 something years. They vacated the building to go to county owned. And so, we had this empty office building in a very middling office leasing market. I mean, we look at it now. you know, these trends in office, they're they've been severely exacerbated by the pandemic, but they were always there. And it was we're just sort of limping to this until the pandemic really made it come to a head. And so, middling office market, um, healthy vacancies and and lower rental rates. And so, we had seen the success of what has happened in downtown LA. I mean, look at the arts district. It's the only vibrant part of downtown LA.
Jaime Lee
You would even say people didn't even call it the arts district, you know, 20 years ago. And so that adaptive reuse had been used there to convert older, you know, manufacturing factories like, you know, biscuit makers and things like that into lofts and apartments. And Korea Town is within half of Korea Town is within the adaptive reuse ordinance zone.
Taylor Avakian
Got it.
Jaime Lee
So we thought, okay, well, this is maybe just like a TI because it didn't make sense to put fresh capital into a building that had been, you know, occupied for 25 years. Um, and put fresh money into it into a middling office market. So we're like, we'll try this. And so it was like just a very expensive TI. I think it was $125 a square foot. Wow. Um, and we had Southwestern Law School across the school, so across the street. So we figured like okay if you know if anything these students will just want to live here and we'll just see. This was before any talk of a housing crisis. This was maybe they were calling it a crunch or they were saying there might be a housing shortage coming. 2010 2011 this is uh 12 112. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And so we did the work.
Jaime Lee
Um we were supposed to open in the summer. This is our first time doing it. Supposed to open the summer. We figured we'll capture those students and they'll move in and they can walk across the street to go to school. We didn't open till Thanksgiving, so the students already had places to live and we were just like, "Oh my gosh, opening Thanksgiving weekend when everyone has flown home and all that stuff isn't going to be great." And uh we were a little bit concerned and that building leased up in two and a half months at higher than our performer.
Taylor Avakian
How many units was that?
Jaime Lee
127. Wow. Holy crap.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Jeez. And so that was a light bulb moment. Whoa. Yeah. But we thought maybe, you know, it's like if you rent the office for $175 to $2, that's full service gross and apartments are essentially triple net. Yeah. And so we're like, yeah, if we can get like $2, 250, like that would be great. And it was like$275. And so, um, then we thought, okay, we're on to something. So that was, you know, that first project, you want to see it through. Then we looked at what's the next one? And so our second building also in Korea Town sort of a storage prim previously was like a light manufacturing building converted that one leased up right away. The third one leased up right away. So then we started our development pipeline and around the same time um learning up and luckily my youngest brother had just graduated from uh law school.
Jaime Lee
Mhm. He has become our complete development entitlement um expert and so he's got the whole everything. There's so many things that you need to know with that that it's incredibly intricate and you know like I said I consider myself to be a deal junkie people. I want to talk numbers and all those things. So my brother Garrett runs our entire um he's president of the company. He runs our entire development division and so um started looking at zoning and entitlements in Korea Town which are actually pretty
Taylor Avakian
good. The best in the city.
Jaime Lee
Yeah. Yeah. Already done so in the city. The city is uh the Korea Town is like 94% for rent. And so there's and there's just a couple condo buildings. So it's all multif family.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Super dense as a structure. So it's it's this people have said it's the second densest neighborhood outside of Manhattan in the United States,
Taylor Avakian
which is crazy.
Jaime Lee
So, it's just a vibrant, really interesting, very diverse place and it's in the center of the city. If you say like, "Okay, tell me why Korea Town is great." And I'm like, "Here's Los Angeles." Like, "This is Korea Town." It's like 101 10. Yep. 405 over here, 110 a little bit closer. And so, uh, it's just been great to see that rise as such a vibrant center of our city. I remember Anthony Bourdain when he was doing his travel show. I think his first episode was the Congo and then the second episode was somewhere in Central America and the third episode was Korea Town Los Angeles. So I was like, "Oh, it's awesome." And still it's like there are new restaurants popping up all the time. The best restaurant. There's one just got a Michelin star. No way. Yeah. And so that whole area is really just continuing to thrive.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
because it's just such a vibrant center and people want to be there. Young people want to be there. Um, so it's it's just so fascinating compared to, you know, I've been going to Korea Town since
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. I was forever. And you've seen it change, I'm sure, like through the throughout the years. If um so if we're looking at how you're looking at deals versus how your dad's looking at deals cuz you self-described elder millennial as you said, right? Which is kind of bringing the new mindset into Jameson and the company and whatnot. So, if I talked to you and your father about the same property, right, what would be the most striking difference on how you each approach
Jaime Lee
the potential of the building from an investment standpoint or from a completed
Taylor Avakian
investment? Like, are you both agreeing? Do you have similar mindsets in how you're looking at what potential there is for this building or do you look at it differently because you're from a different era? Like, how does that go?
Jaime Lee
investment is pretty standard in the sense that there's just limited ways to look at how to make the numbers work. So, I'd say from that standpoint, um, you know, this is a business and we have to support a lot of people. We've got, you know, 200 people in the company and all that. All of our investors are friends and family. So, that adds like a different level of of pressure and responsibility as well. Also, I'd say from a pure numbers standpoint, we'll look at it in a similar way of and and maybe we'll debate about like, you know, at what return on cost number is really pulling the trigger to move forward on something. Um, I would say the theoretical areas and the social areas are where we'd really differ. Whereas, you know, his philosophy has always been very internally focused where it's
Jaime Lee
like this is a company that I started. I go to work every day. I he loves just being in the conference room seeing everything going on all he takes all his meetings there all his calls there and he just loves to be in his kingdom and see how that all and and for that it's like we do the best work we can for our investors and we do the best work we can just to like keep the company going. He has such an entrepreneurial mindset. Yeah. The difference for me is I'm an eldest daughter. I am a millennial and I consider myself much more to be an executive. Like I'm a hired gun as opposed to an entrepreneur. I've always said, you know, like entrepreneurship is like for middle children, which he is one, and my middle brother is one. Yeah. Also, I'm like, I need my W2.
Jaime Lee
I need to just like, you know, tell people what to do. I feel like I've studied leadership. And so, there was this unbelievable class at USC you had to apply to. Um, it was the former president of USC, President Sample, and then Dr. Warren Bennis, who's one of the premier and first uh academics really studying leadership. Wow. In the United States. And that was an amazing class. Uh and so I'm more externally focused in that way. I think collaboration with like neighborhood of understanding like your impact on the area around you is critically important.
Taylor Avakian
How do we contribute to the housing crisis in the city? What type of product are we doing?
Jaime Lee
Like we have a huge range of of product types now. All the way from affordable housing um at the very lowest levels. So we have lots of extremely low low-income
20:00–30:00
Jaime Lee
units all the way through luxury high-rise which we do every now and then. And so we're and all the food groups in between like adaptive reuse, type 3es, etc. And so those impacts are critically important. And uh and our leadership styles are just really different. Yeah. And I and we've talked about that before too of how it seems like the real estate industry has gone so much away from this cutthroat like I'm just in it for my commission and my deal to and like if I need to lie and cheat and trick somebody into like signing for something I will. And that's how it felt to me when I started in this industry and it was really hard. And now it's just like hey we're open book like this is my bottom line that's your bottom line.
Jaime Lee
like how do we get to a point where we're both happy and that's a good deal or we'd say in law school like when both people are unhappy you know you've reached a really good deal and so um I think that's that's
Taylor Avakian
the collegiality. Yes. Exactly. And it's I think it's because well I don't know I'm speaking out loud here but like there's less privacy. There's more information that's openly available to everyone with the internet and the
Jaime Lee
way Oh yeah. The democratization of information has made all the difference in the world. And I wasn't mean to imply that my dad was a vag.
Taylor Avakian
But that was the way that you did the business, right?
Jaime Lee
That was when it was the information asymmetry that made all the difference in those early deals. It's like who could you get an OM from? Yes. Because I I was like I talked to brokers and like oh my gosh, I used to sit there and have a dial sheet and then you have to whittle down your dial sheet because you only have so much time in the day and they would literally fax the OM page by page by page. So like 30 pages, they're just sitting there faxing and then you look at your sheet and you dial the next number and you fax it to the next guy who you think might buy. Yeah. Your listing. And so if you got the OM and if you had a relationship with a broker where you could hear like,
Jaime Lee
you know, this is really what the owner's thinking and this is what they need, then that was everything. Now kids are coming out of USC. Yeah. With just like, oh, these are all the different ways to like income valuation, you know, replacement costs, like here are coms, here's how you run it all. I'm on CoStar.
Taylor Avakian
Yep. I got they have all the information at their fingertips, right? And it it is also it's very interesting business because even when I started it's kind of changed a little bit. You can be a 21 22-year-old and make an incredible amount of money just just with pure work ethic and and effort, right? And I think that has uh changed over time. And it's very interesting to see that also from the principal side because I've seen that change for the type of investors or the type of people who want to invest in properties. Yeah, there's young people who are like, I I want to go raise money and try to add value to these buildings and and make this portfolio for myself that I've seen very successful people before me be able to do. And I think it's very cool to
Taylor Avakian
have that almost open kimono where you can see the possibilities. You can see what's possible and you have the same ability to get a deal done and make something happen as really anyone else. Yes. And that's really refreshing and I think that's really nice.
Jaime Lee
And it's great, too, because I never thought of myself as a 20-year-old who's like, I'm going to go out and just, you know, it's um it is great to see people taking leaps and starting and just starting, which is unbelievable. And then the other piece of information asymmetry is is things like this. Yeah. Because I didn't have podcasts like I didn't have influencers in the space. I could hardly like the people that I knew who were investing in real estate or building things or even on the brokerage side. It was sort of like maybe you can make a friend with a broker but in general not like commiserate with other landlords but it was also a very different era because there were almost no women in the space and so it was just very very different.
Jaime Lee
I used to wear like pants suits all the time and tie my hair up in my mind I was like what did I think I was like it wasn't like a camouflage or a costume and now I'll wear like dresses and colors and today accepted but um
Taylor Avakian
no I like it.
Jaime Lee
I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Well, you said you were going to work. I know. I'm This is my I have the same I'm very like Zuckerberg when it comes to like I'm wearing the same thing every day cuz you don't have to think about it. My brain, my mental capacity, I'm there's so many open loops and I'm sure two for you having to deal with I mean five, you said 500 people at your company. 200 200 people, but you're the CEO of 200 people and their livelihoods.
Jaime Lee
Like that's a lot of responsibility and a lot of open loops. And that's not even taking into account like all of our third parties and it's thousands of
Taylor Avakian
people.
Jaime Lee
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
which is just absurd and crazy, which I I'd love to dig into your mental frameworks of how you make decisions. Um, we both have a mutual mentor. You've fortunately met him. I unfortunately did not, but Charlie Mer, I think, has been a very much a mentor to both of us. And I'd love to know like he's very much a proponent of mental models and thinking through decisions and this this like multi multidisciplinary thinking. What mental model or framework from outside of real estate has most influenced you on how you approach like development and challenges in growing a business?
Jaime Lee
Yeah, that's a good question. Um, growth mindset I think is the most important thing and this idea that you don't know what you don't know that humility is critical to take into all of these things. I see plenty of people who are like, I have a degree in this or like, you know, I'm a billionaire. I've done this before and I'm just going to do the same rinse and repeat do the same thing again. I think you run into trouble when you have those kinds of, you know, so I meet lots of people in the industry. And for me, I always try to approach things with this mindset of I'm definitely not done learning. All I did like I have plenty of friends who are like listening to podcasts just for the pure entertainment is like gossip or funny stories and and I think that levity
Jaime Lee
is so important especially these days to have those types of outlets. It's really really important but I'm constantly just like learning something new. I'm listening to pods from like new psychology, new brain studies, things on health, longevity, sleep. Oh my gosh, I'm terrible sleeper. Been working really my sleep though. I've been tracking it for so long and working on it. It gets better on average by about 3 minutes a
Taylor Avakian
year. That is so cool that you know that.
Jaime Lee
So I love that. But literally it was like 657 hours with 703. This year I'm at 706 so far.
Taylor Avakian
Wow. That speaks. Okay. I have to point that out.
Jaime Lee
I But what gets measured gets managed. That's like another framework. Yes. Because if you don't know then we're just doing what we're doing. You just show up every day do the same old thing. And if you can't pick your head up and just say, "Hey, like this is diminishing returns. This is opportunity cost. This is totally whatever it is, like we need to make a pivot at some
Taylor Avakian
point." I think that's so important to double click on because every successful person, you know, they have different personalities and you can be successful in a bunch of different ways, but one thing that I've noticed through so many people that I've talked to is like they're very much into the details. the little details, the little measurements, the three minutes here, you know, the pennies here of how we can get the cost of construction or wood down, like that matters when you're looking at scale and when you're growing something. And I think that that attention to detail is something that behooves being a CEO and running a company and and have you always been like detail- oriented like that?
Jaime Lee
Yes. Because to me, so the other thing I would say about my frameworks on decision-m, yeah, I like to take in as much information as possible and then make a decision and be done with it. And there are plenty of other people who waffle who think things one week and change their mind the next or they, you know, don't they only go surface level and they think they're making a good decision and then a couple months later it's like, oh no, I've got to I didn't take this into account. So I think the detail orientedness is really important to be able to make the best decision you can in the moment you can and live with it because then at the end of the day it's like you can look back six months and be like that was the wrong decision or the market turned in a different
Jaime Lee
way and we couldn't undo it or be adaptable in that um in that particular scenario. But I think it's important to be decisive and I think in leadership style it's important to just say like this is a decision. This is why can people get on board as a consensus and can we move forward al together and I think that's a different generational thing. Then you look at boomers too where it's like you know this is what we're doing and that's final miss and there's no input. So I think of myself as a very collaborative person and someone who is a servant leader. always trying to help people. Um, that's a great book, by the way. And yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Oh, yeah. Servant leadership is a great great book.
Jaime Lee
Um, I recommend everyone read that if you haven't already. There's so many good books. That's what I mean. It's like I'm always on Audible. I'm always on So, people ask me about like TV shows unless it's something that's really really in the zeitgeist like White Lotus. Like, you can't you can't get away.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. Right.
Jaime Lee
But when people would talk Game of Thrones or like so many of these other um like spy there's so many spy shows or Yellowstone or any I was like I am just doing my reading learning to try and get a couple more minutes of sleep tonight and work on my health and all of the habit stacking and things like that. But like but yeah I live on Audible because I'm always driving like between meetings between sites
Taylor Avakian
doing everything.
Jaime Lee
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Let's I want to get into the nitty-gritty, the weeds of this adaptive reuse, construction costs, all that fun stuff. So, can you walk me through like the economics of your most successful conversion, office to residential conversion? Okay. And like what was the basis per foot? What are the conversion costs? Your exit value compared to like groundup development. Can you get as specific as possible about the the numbers and what is possible with these conversions?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. So, the environment has changed a lot. When we first started, it almost seemed when we first started, people were suggesting that maybe a housing
30:00–40:00
Jaime Lee
shortage was coming soon. That was sort of the rhetoric that was out in the ether. People were aware that rents were going up and that there was limited supply, but it was nothing close to the crisis that it is now. And now it's a nationwide crisis. We're so short on housing. I mean, in LA, we need and it's the city alone. We need 456,000 units by
Taylor Avakian
2029. And you're saying we've only built 40,000, right?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. This was a marker from a study for the period between 21 and 29. So we're halfway through that time period. We've built like 40,000. Oh my gosh. 456 and you knowund and something thousand of that is affordable. So there is a big need for that. Yeah. But a lot of people a lot of average tenants when affordable is at the moderate income level which so many of market rate units are anyways like people don't want to subject themselves to additional restrictions and additional testing and those kinds of things. So you have to build both and you have to build all types of there's so many different striations of affordable housing as well. And then you've got to build everything from like the lowest possible market rate to the highest possible market rate too because home ownership has been foreclosed for so many people.
Jaime Lee
And so if you can't buy a house in Los Angeles anymore, then maybe you get a two-bedroom condo or three-bedroom condo. And so those are luxury buildings. Those are nicer buildings. And so we need all of that. And now you have ULA, which so many people who would have moved, like if you buy a $1 million house, it's because that person moved to a $3 million house. Yeah. And that person's buying a house from someone who moved to a $6 million house, whatever it may be. But it's always, it's not like this house just appeared and no one from there went anywhere. And maybe they didn't downsize. Most people, especially family homes of the certain sizes, don't. And so you have to continue the flow of people moving up into larger and and different types of housing in order to make space at these lower levels.
Jaime Lee
And so what we've really seen is you've cut off everything $5 million and above. And people who otherwise maybe would have sold to move to something a little bit more expensive are like no way you're going to get hit on the purchase. I mean the money has to come from somewhere. It's always back to the consumer. Yeah. And so then that trickles down and so you don't see movement happening in um the low lower levels. And so people are staying in multif family types of housing and so you've got to build everything. It's like people want to, you know, crap on luxury offers. That's the only thing that pencils in downtown LA. So if you want to change regulations and restrictions, you can build more affordable like lowercase a affordable housing in downtown LA. But right now you you can't because
Taylor Avakian
there are enough things that prevent you from doing that. I just saw an article a million dollars a unit. Yeah. That for high-rise for high-rise.
Jaime Lee
And I just like that's why you have to charge higher risk. I mean that's what it costs. Like we don't cap what people can charge for hamburgers. We don't tell like taco trucks and vendors to, you know, you can't charge more than this. We don't ask them to run their businesses at a loss. And yet we do that because developers are clearly so evil.
Taylor Avakian
We're not small immigrant business. Yeah. Exactly right.
Jaime Lee
You didn't start from nothing and build up. You didn't start nothing and build up. It's like there's another part of the American dream which I really consider my family to be so deeply part of and so many people that I know. Yeah. This is the American dream. This is why you come to a new country. This is why you give of your labor and your opportunity and all these things to do this and then you punish people on the other side or you just like glorify the the worst examples of them and make
Taylor Avakian
them prison. I know. So what what were the construction costs back when you guys were doing this when it was a little easier, not a crisis versus what does it look like now?
Jaime Lee
So our first project allin was about $250 a square foot.
Taylor Avakian
Wow.
Jaime Lee
Conversion. Yeah. 125 on the hard cost. So it really was like an expensive TI in an office. figured like let's try it and go for it because you know the old mode of thinking would have been like fine like revamp the hallways and the lobby and refresh it or just or just gut it and vanilla shell it and let's just hang the shingle and hope some tenants come by for office. And so it didn't make sense to do that for the capital for the time all of that. And so um it slowly crept up from there and these days it's probably more like 400 a foot for the conversions. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
For conversions.
Jaime Lee
Wow.
Taylor Avakian
Well, and and you can pick up I know you guys own the office buildings, but if you're valuing it on the actual building basis, right? Yeah. Are you what are you valuing the building and the land at at this time?
Jaime Lee
So, usually when we acquire land, you're shooting for like 100,000 per unit. Okay. On the land. Okay. And so some of these um especially earlier on like 75 to 85,000 Wow. a unit and you already have the structure the the building envelope. Got it.
Taylor Avakian
On top of the land. Okay. So you have a little bit of so many efficiencies.
Jaime Lee
I mean adaptive reuse is the obvious solution to our issue here. Yes, people are starting to come back to the office but that environment looks completely different in many ways. Um and you have so much inefficiency or you just have so much refresh that needs to happen in the office space and whether owners can take on that capital burden for the question mark of whether tenants are going to come back to those types of buildings is another thing. And so this is a more sustainable way to do it. If you can demolish a building, you have to load up a whole bunch of trucks and haul that out all to, you know, the middle of nowhere California or Utah. Um they're taking all the fire debris and things like that out there. Interesting. Um they just bury it in the ground really. It's just Yeah. So you can demolish that.
Jaime Lee
Then you have to dig a giant pit in order to build something new. So that causes, you know, more disruption, more time, more analysis. And so here when you're using the existing building envelope, office buildings are inherently high-rise. Most of the buildings are, you know, 10 11 stories and higher. They already come with parking because to operate a fully functional office building. I mean, downtown LA is a little bit shorter, but in Korea Town, you know, you have anywhere from two to four four per thousand from the parking plenty to service apartments and they're super well located and you know, real estate locationally. So you're on like major thoroughares. You're above transit cuz that's where they build transit to service people who are going to the office. And so you've got like superior location. It's much more sustainable environmentally, speeds the time
Taylor Avakian
and lowers the cost. So you guys are doing it at a scale that I think no one no other developer or owner has been able to do it at. Why do you think most owners are failing to overcome the challenges of doing the adaptive reuse? Why do you think people are not doing it at the scale that you guys have been able to?
Jaime Lee
Yeah, that's an interesting question because I read some of these articles and multiple people, they must have read the same article. Multiple people have told me recently, they're like, well, what about cing slab to slab for all those bathrooms? And I was like, what? And they were like, oh, we heard like the primary challenge of adaptive reuse is you have to core between the these concrete slabs to get, you know, all the risers through and the conduit through it. I was like, "Yeah, that's not an issue. Like, that's not something." And I sort of went back to construction and I'm like, "Is this a thing?" And they're like, "What?" They're like, "No." And so, yeah, you don't want to hit a beam. You don't want to hit some existing like main conduit line or something that you can't change. But that's what drawings are for.
Jaime Lee
That's like what eyeballs are for when you go and you look at it. And sure, there's always surprises. I think that's like the biggest challenge. There's always a surprise. The drawings never match up exactly. And when you're building something from scratch, you're just like building it. You can build whatever you want. With this, you're working within an existing footprint and so you have to modify. You always have like a couple funky units that usually turn out to be something really cool. Like we had a building where one unit on the end on the top um floor of a podium had like this glass sun. It was almost like an atrium in the unit. And so we made that the bedroom. We had like an automatic shade that would go like this. And that's just something you really unique. You never put that in a ground app.
Taylor Avakian
Totally.
Jaime Lee
We have other ones where it's like you go out and had like a thousand square foot balcony cuz it just wrapped around. Wow. on the podium level of a building. And so that was one where it's like you basically get your own backyard on some of these. So there's like really cool wonky things that happen there. I don't understand the cing from slab to slab issue, but people have multiple people have cited that as a reason why adaptive reuse is so hard. And that's not really the case at all that I would see. It's more just like sometimes you break through drywall and just like, oh, this is an interconnecting stairwell like connected these two floors for like a law firm or something a long time ago and then instead of like demoing and closing the slab, we just like box the drywall around it and pretended
Jaime Lee
it wasn't there or you know there's bank vaults in some of these buildings. There's things sometimes you like discover that you have to remove or things that don't line up exactly right. But I've been speaking about adaptive reviews because we started this well before the pandemic. Our first project finished in 2013 and dozens of panels and talks and why do you think people are not doing things and I'm always like come join us like the water's warm and of course like there are headwinds it's gotten a lot harder and then once interest rates go it's just kind of like everyone's pencil's down right now. Yeah. Um but and also I would say the market has not come down the office market is bottoming but has not necessarily come down to where the the thesis to acquire new in order to convert is not quite there yet.
Jaime Lee
So I would say like that's maybe not quite there yet but I'm really now you know my new strategy is really encouraging existing office holders people who have buildings that um you know you you need something to do with it. you're not sure about office coming back then to look at it and and I'm thinking about like advising people and helping them do the
Taylor Avakian
development. I mean that that would be super
40:00–50:00
Taylor Avakian
smart especially because their basis is ideally better than what a new purchaser would be because of the you know tax benefits of of them holding on to it for a long time so their property taxes are lower which is nice. So I think that's we need people like you to be able to then show that it's and it's funny because you've shown it that it's possible. I think it's spreading the word out there like, "Hey, this is what's possible. Here are the numbers. The numbers make sense. Like, here's how you do it. Like, let's all chip in and make this a possibility." But I think people are they're afraid. There's there's a fear around actually going and executing something cuz it's not a it's not a small task, you know?
Jaime Lee
No, it's not at all. And it's like a little bit more complicated than groundup, but groundup doesn't pencil. Yeah. It's just not working. So, if you're like sub five return on cost, like like I said, everyone's pencil is down. Now, we've got tariffs. Another huge knock. ULA, huge knock. I mean, that just takes out anyone who's not a long-term local small private.
Taylor Avakian
Why do you think you like Let's talk about ULA for a minute because that has just kind of blown my mind in terms of the effects. I knew it was going to be, you know, detrimental, but man, it has been really detrimental in terms of
Jaime Lee
Oh, it's horrible policy, the sentiment and it's destroying value in Los Angeles. Like what happened? Investment in the city.
Taylor Avakian
What happened?
Jaime Lee
I don't know. People voted for it. Marketing. They called it a mansion tax. I saw a really cool video recently that was talking about the difference between millionaires and billionaires and like how much bigger like billionaires is. It's like taxing millionaires on it's not the equity portion. It's the whole thing. And if you look at investment properties, you're wiping people out. So it's like you we you physically can't sell if you can't afford to lose a bunch of money. Yeah. And so it's had an incredible chilling effect on investment in Los Angeles and an incredible chilling effect on building in Los Angeles. So we talked about we need 456,000 units. We've built about 40, but the number of where our lowest construction starts in 13 years right now. So that number is only going to be decimated. Last year was the lowest construction starts in 12 years.
Jaime Lee
And in the last 3 or 4 years, new units being approved um to go to build Mhm. has dropped by 45%. Wow. And so on the flip side, you know, I'm a lifelong Angelino. I was born and raised here. I'm raising my kids here. I believe so deeply in LA. This is the most vibrant, creative, diverse culture that I really believe exists in the world. and it's such an epicenter of employment. So, I think LA is always going to go and we're always going to be an attractive place. You can't beat the weather. Um, but yeah, it's just like it's it's startling what's happening now. And that chilling effect is just making it so that people are frozen in where they are, if they're anywhere near that threshold. you see some creative things happening on the
Jaime Lee
margins, but um yeah, that needs to be repealed if we want any chance of people building more units. So, I always want LA to do really, really well, which means we need more units. Yes. And we need to create I mean, we see it everywhere. Anywhere where you have hyper supply, the rents come down. Like look at Texas and people are fleeing Texas too now. They can't sell their houses for what they bought it for the pandemic. and all these places where it's so easy to build, the rents come down because the unit count goes up. And it's just it's such a it's like literally on the first page of any economics book, and I didn't even study economics. I know that first chapter for sure is that on the flip side, what we really see as green shoots as we look forward is if you have the ability
Jaime Lee
to develop now in this dark sad abyss that we're all in. And if you can have units, you'll be the only one with new units coming to market in 27 28 29
Taylor Avakian
which are you guys So what is the current um what are you guys doing right now to adapt to what's going on in the market? How are you guys approaching the current pipeline and new opportunities and where are you guys at from that process?
Jaime Lee
Right now, we haven't started a groundup project and we don't plan to this year, the numbers just don't work. Yeah. And until you have tax abatement policies to encourage development or until you have, you know, fee waiverss because there's just like huge portion of the building cost is is fees. Mhm. Um those are those are levers that governments have that they could partner with people to really incentivize. So I see that. Um but yeah, what we're really focuses on are are more adaptive reuse because those are still things where we have the building in hand. We have the knowledge and the skill set to be able to do it. It works. Um and that's what we're focused on right now. So we've got three under construction. We've got two more starting actually soon and then maybe even sneak in another one or two by the end of the year.
Jaime Lee
Wow. And then a few more next year.
Taylor Avakian
So that's where the that's where the money is right now.
Jaime Lee
That's the only thing that makes sense. Well, it's not necessarily where the money is right now, too. I mean, we're we're raising equity for our projects. And um the other thing is the citywide adaptive reuse ordinance.
Taylor Avakian
Yes.
Jaime Lee
And so I think that's an area too where maybe we'll see more people jumping in because we've it's by right if you're
Taylor Avakian
with Can you explain what that is and what's changed and how that may lead to more opportunities?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. So right now they instituted the adaptive reuse ordinance in the '9s. They had a set date for the buildings that you could do is in the 70s. So it's like any building built before this time you can switch and any building within this geographic area you can convert from one use to another. Okay. And so people were using that downtown because down all of downtown is in it to convert say a biscuit factory into the biscuit lofts. Got it. And so they were doing that. Um it only pertains to all of downtown and half of Korea Town. So that has what has eased our ability to do that because it's by right which means we don't have to go through an entitlement process. You don't have to say like, "Hey city, am I allowed to change my building from this to this?"
Jaime Lee
And then they're like, "Let's think about it for 2 years. We'll get back to you." And so you skip that process. Instead, you're sort of like, "This is what we're doing. Here are architectural plans." And they're like, "Here's a permit." And you go build. So that's the savings. That's a huge other portion of why people aren't doing it across the city anymore, like yet. Um, but hopefully they'll pass the citywide adaptive reuse ordinance. So on you know it's like we always try to think about those things in different ways. It's like oh more competition more units coming online more risk that if you build enough units like rents start coming down. On the flip side it's like the more we're we're really in a bad place right now in LA. It would take more than we could possibly build to get to that level.
Jaime Lee
Which is why I'm on my soap box of like we need to help our city. We need to help teachers and doctors and nurses and all these people like live in the city where they work. I know too many people who drive 60 to 90 minutes each way because it's just unaffordable to live here and we need to have And the other thing I was going to say is like the permits that are being approved right now I said is down 45%. Um the percentage of those that are for single family has shot up. So, a third of those are for single family, which is the loose den type of we still need it because people want their homes and actually threequarters of our land in LA is zoned for single family. Yeah. And I know the state is trying to change that.
Jaime Lee
And so, um, we're really heading into this place where these are, you know, either SFR like for rent people or people who are replacing housing from the fires. Um people also don't realize we lose about 3,000 house units um to obsolescence every year. So there's actually like a there's actually like a you know a deficit that's like happening interesting every single year. And then you have the fires which has been just utterly catastrophic and I know dozens and dozens of people who've lost their homes and even more than that who are just displaced and don't live here or had to move. And Altadena is not part of the city of LA. So we wouldn't necess like I mean renters and owners it's fluid. People aren't like I'm crossing the boundary. I'm not going to rent in this city. So it part of it but 16,000 units
Jaime Lee
just wiped off the map. Gone. And what a burden. And it's all of different property types but what
Taylor Avakian
a burden on our existing housing crisis. Insane. And it just keeps compounding, which like if if you had, you know, an hour with people in the city, right? What would you be telling them needs to happen for us to to fix this?
Jaime Lee
Yeah, I think there's a lot of there are a lot of good intentions there. You know, you got 81 and they're trying to streamline affordable housing development and all that. Great. What they found though is they go through they approved a whole bunch of projects and no one's building them. So, you can be as well-intentioned. you can try to create some policies. You can think that you're easing a process, but that's like only one friction point. You know, the approval is only one friction point. Um, then you're dealing with uh like actual inspections and that whole process. Then you're dealing with DWP and all that. So, then you're dealing with public works and everything, Bureau of Engineering, all of these different things. There's, you know, more than a dozen departments and and kind of like people that you're beholden to in this process of like approvals and timing
Jaime Lee
and all of this other stuff. Um, so yeah, that I think well-intentioned. What we need to really address is the penciling because what you'll find is even affordable housing developers, the project has to pencil or you're not putting a shovel in the
Taylor Avakian
ground. 90% of the ones of the ED1 products that I talked to owners on, they were planning on getting it entitled and selling it. And 90 of the 90% of those are no longer doing any ED1 stuff. It doesn't make sense. they got to the numbers and it just like
50:00–1:00:00
Taylor Avakian
it doesn't work. It doesn't pencil.
Jaime Lee
So how so good so good intentions but we really need policy. And so what we really I mean a simple shift could just be like a customer service attitude. Yeah. Towards things as opposed to the sense of like oh I have something you want and we're going to keep it away from you as much as possible and we just want you to fail or we want to make it more difficult or we want you to do all these things that we want you to do but not something that in the free market anyone would decide to do. Those kinds of things. Um, but really it's just incentives. If, for instance, there was a financing program where you could actually get construction debt that was lower than what these crazy interest rates are, then maybe you can make a model pencil.
Jaime Lee
If you had a tax abatement on the other side, you could definitely make a product pencil. If you had, you know, like I said before, abatement or a relief from fees or different types of things like that. I mean, the there's lots of different levers that the city could use. And I think that's what I would push for.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
It's it's the sense of partnership of like these are local businesses. These are people who are born and raised here or who came here from somewhere else with the hopes of contributing to the fabric of the community and this like texture of this amazing community that we have in LA. You go to other cities and it's sort of like, oh, these people live up here and these people live here and if if you live in in the north that means you're this type of here it's like every street, every neighborhood so blended. Yes, there is like weighted in different ways depending on where you are especially for new immigrant populations which are growing too. I mean not anymore with this administration that we're in. And and and that is something else like we should talk about the amount of fear.
Jaime Lee
It's like from the real estate side, we can talk about just from labor. Yeah. And the shortage that we already had in labor. So now we're adding tariffs. Now we're making labor even more difficult. And this sense that like, oh, American Gen Z kids are going to do a lot of these
Taylor Avakian
jobs. Yeah. What are we talking about?
Jaime Lee
No way. Because we talk to elevator technicians all the time. That that is a very multigenerational uh career. So people who are like, "Oh, my father was an elevator technician." It's extremely technical. It's very complex. There's a lot of risk and liability in it when you're dealing with these things that people have to ride up and down. And I've talked to so many people who are like, I can't get my kid to want to do my job. They want to go be like a gamer or an influencer, a YouTuber or something like that. And so I feel like it's very refreshing now as millennials who we got [bleep] on for so long um by everyone else. And we're the largest generation now. Wow. Uh in the country. We're out. We're, you know, eclipsing boomers. And Gen Z is fairly small, but oh man, they make us look
Taylor Avakian
good. I know. I know for sure it's it's it is there's so many different headwinds I think to the processes of of building properties and of of making uh the economy continue to grow in a way that everyone can benefit from, everyone can get better from. And I'm seeing it firsthand in like I have younger brothers and sisters too, right? And it's almost hard for them to get jobs. Oh yeah, but they don't want to go be a plumber. They don't want to go be a, you know, elevator technician. it because it's not glamorous andor the the the effort and sacrifice it takes to be and have that technical skill. Like someone wants to go drop ship on Shopify, right? Or they want to go start an internet business and there needs to be a place for people like that who are
Taylor Avakian
building the fa fabric of our country of our city to really revel and be able to actually enjoy the fruits of their labor like reward them for those skills. Yes, I can guarantee you we we live in a capitalist society. If the pay is high enough, if something makes sense, right? If you if there's a path to get to a place where you're independent or financially free, people will go and do that, right? Do you think though that's a millennial talking?
Jaime Lee
I I listen to enough young people, they're like, I don't need to do something just for the money. I need to do something that I'm s that aligns with my, you know, passions and which is great. I think that's really important. Yeah, I think there are plenty of people like myself included who I'm like, you know, I wake up after 20 years, I'm like, how did I get here and do this career for a long period of time, all of that stuff and and did I ever really, you know, I think I was 30 and I was pregnant with my first child and I was driving on the freeway towards downtown and I was like, what would I actually do if I could literally
Taylor Avakian
do anything?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. And that was the And I was like, shame on me for that being the first time that I ever even explored that question.
Taylor Avakian
That is true.
Jaime Lee
So it's like big credit to the younger generation for saying that they're really dedicated to do something that lights them up and that they feel contributes to society. Like they're very have an activist mindset totally, you know, this mindset that um you know they're so so stressed out about climate change and yeah we all should be but it's something that actually they carry as like a daily personal burden affects their mental health. Um, so good on them for doing that. But at the same time too, it's like that comes from a place of privilege of coming of, you know, coming of age in this runup that we had post GFCU pre pandemic of living in an environment where there's sort of like, yeah, go follow your dreams. The logistics will just sort of take care of itself.
Taylor Avakian
Everything else will figure it out. I know it is. It's it's it's an interesting time. And I talk to my brother and sister and I'm like, "Hey," and I, you know, I'm I guess I'm a culprit. I'm like, "Do what you love. do what lights you up because I am fortunate enough where I found something that I'm like obsessed with on a good level. Like I love what I do and it's really fun and I enjoy the game of business and like a deal junkie. Like I want to go find the next deal and and put a deal put put something together that's tough or two people can't agree on something and negotiate it like
Jaime Lee
that. Like how good does it feel when you watch them sign?
Taylor Avakian
How good does that feel? That is like more the biggest internal high that I could ever
Jaime Lee
get. But then that's the problem. It's like then you wrap up the paperwork and you're like, "Oh no, I got to scan this thing. I got to email it to I don't want to do any of that." I'm like, "Here, scan this and send it to everyone." I'm like, "What's next?"
Taylor Avakian
Like, "Where's the next?
Jaime Lee
Where's the next thing going?"
Taylor Avakian
Exactly.
Jaime Lee
So, I think but that complex thinking I think is so fun and important and it's so humanentric, which is what I love about real estate is it's like all these different personalities and you know, and really like since me too, since all of these other things, it's become much more comfortable place for me to be in too. It was like it was rough when I first started.
Taylor Avakian
Well, you're you're in the business of of the, you know, the old white male boys club, right? Like, let's be honest. What was that like for you being the CEO of one of the largest private land owners and and apartment owners in the city of LA? Was there moments where you felt out of place or or how did did it shift for you? Like what was it like being a woman in a male-dominated industry?
Jaime Lee
Yeah, I would say especially when I first started, I wasn't CEO. I was like leasing agent. And so, uh, yeah, those were rough times because you're either getting like bered and screamed at or you're being subject, you know, because there was someone who was like, oh, I have a really funny joke, but it's too dirty cuz Jamie's here and I'm not going to say it. And I'm like, I'm cool. Yeah, you can say whatever. Come on. And so, you know, that feeling like you're a little bit where people point out how you don't quite fit in. And when you're the only I'm still used to being the only usually like the youngest person in lots of rooms that I sit in on all these boards and things and um certainly like the only woman in most rooms like even I would travel around with
Jaime Lee
the port of Los Angeles all over the world like and be the only woman in the room all the time. Real estate's definitely still that way. I would say the benefit is like the grossness like I would get like gross text from brokers in the middle of the night. So, like the sexual harassment, either it's like they're yelling and screaming at you and just trying to like bully you just to get, you know, a little bit more edge-wise. Um, or they're like texting you gross things and things like that. So, that stuff, I think, has all gone away. And I think it is actually the shift towards millennials. Like, we're I'm old now and so, you know, the people in this range, we've really cultivated a human- centric way of doing business. Most people I deal with now very ethical. Mhm. very open-minded, very
Jaime Lee
collaborative, and I think that's our generation coming into, you know, primary positions in a lot of these firms. So, that's been so refreshing and great. Um, it's still a very very male-dominated industry. I still want to see more women in leadership roles. There's are so many more than there were when I started. There was a large um idea concept for a long period of time. like the only women who were in the business at high levels were people who were in family businesses. And in some ways that still is the case, but you used to just see lots of young women coming in as a runner and they'd just be gone. Yeah. Pretty pretty quickly or they'd move to like admin or HR and not that there's anything wrong with those like critical need. And um you know, you get so much exposure to the industry in those ways.
Jaime Lee
But yes, I'm always trying to push women and help cultivate their skills and sort of that tougher, thicker skin to just say if you hang in and you keep pushing, you can break through the other side. There's like epic brokers for sure who are women like especially on the industrial
Taylor Avakian
side.
Jaime Lee
Oh, it's insane. Things like that and a multif family. And so there there are so many more women that I see. Yes, definitely. so many more groups because I think you have this sense of imposttor syndrome or you have this sense of oh I'm a fish out of water but when you can collaborate with just a couple more people who are going through the exact same thing you're like oh now you've validated my existence and the feelings that I'm having and then when I take those it's it's just so normalized in a way we're like now this is what we're dealing with. you have to listen to someone say some racist joke in a meeting or like make fun of somebody for some other you know inherit
1:00:00–1:10:00
Jaime Lee
inherit trait or whatever and and how do we speak up against that and how help people feel comfortable and how do we create like office environments and you know working environments in negotiations
Taylor Avakian
I think people are doing a lot better job I personally and this is just from my experience too like women are the best brokers and I and I mean that and I'm a man and I'm a broker but I'm like I've had some younger um women who've come and and like mentored underneath me and I'm like you don't understand. You are more empathetic. You listen better. Like there's a bunch of old guys who just want to talk to you. Like you really just wanted you to sign.
Jaime Lee
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Like but but but they're so good. They're really really good. And I really want to make a push because I've enjoyed having um those like women work work with me because there is there's this like it's it feels like I don't want to you know it feels like a cheat code because they are so much better at really our job than I think what we are with just the natural skills that they have. I swear to God I swear to God. And so if if you can get just over that hump it's just getting over that
Jaime Lee
hump. Yeah. Yeah. To really into self-sufficiency that's the hardest part. And and that's the thing too. It's like do we think that Jenz has this super thick skin and I don't know. And the people who really have so much ambition and really, you know, come to me with like I'm going to do this. I want to do. I've got the fire. I'm going to call. I'm going to learn how to like you. I had to go through that period where like people were gross to me and people were awful to me. And I would lay in bed at night and just be like this is so stressful. Like and just replay conversations of like shitty things people would say, all that stuff. And I would and you let it get to you to and then then there was a day where it's like okay you're doing the same old thing.
Jaime Lee
I remember hanging up on somebody once. So I'm like you're just screaming and I don't think this is productive. So and he's still screaming. I'm just like please call me back when when you've calmed down or eat a sandwich or whatever. Just hang up. And then I'm like no no no skin off my back. Whatever. I'm just going to wait and and see what happens. And then you get to a certain point in your career where you can really absolve yourself of having to deal with people like that too of just being like, you know, I'm in a position now where I don't have to like I mean when you
Taylor Avakian
start out it's it's a hungry you got you got to eat [bleep] You got to eat [bleep] when you're young. But I think that's what builds up the skill sets and your ability to then when you get to that next level. You you've gone through it. You know what it's like and and you can help those before you too. I think there's this this feeling of giving back too when you've been able to kind of go through it. But I think back to sometimes cuz I I played sports growing up and like my favorite times were the double day practices and like the rough stuff and we had a tough loss and we're back in the gym the next day and like that the challenges is what I look back on and revel at
Jaime Lee
and and the shared experiences with people that I cared about. When you're in the trenches together, it's the trenches. That's grit. Yeah, that's a little grit. Um, that's all of just knowing that you can pick yourself back up again and every time you do that, you're actually stronger than you were. So, it's like these, you know, like mental or emotional
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Yeah. In a way.
Taylor Avakian
100%. Yeah. I have a a question um changing up a little bit, but Korea Town just as a general because you guys are very heavily um you know, most of your portfolio is in Korea Town. Yeah. There's been a lot of development happening. I know we have a shortage. Do you feel like there's a a point where diversification for you guys not just in Korea Town? Like have you thought about are we overbuilding? Is is there too much new construction or should we go diversify in different states? Are we going to go do different product types, different areas of the city? Have you thought about that concentration of, you know, your portfolio in
Jaime Lee
one Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it's about seeing around corners and over hills. And this has been just such an incredibly challenging time. I mean, it's hard when we got when we were spun up into our full development pipeline where we were breaking ground like six or seven times a year and finishing six or seven buildings a year. I mean, that's a busy time. It's an all hands- on deck. On the one hand, this period gives us time to, you know, pick your head up and look a little and think strategically about what's happening. So, we are we delivered um our first in the process of delivering our first two projects in East Hollywood. We've got one building in Hollywood, one downtown. We're looking to do two adaptive reuse projects downtown that we're going to start soon. One is high-rise um uh will be market rate.
Jaime Lee
The other one is 100% affordable. So, you believe in downtown? Yeah. Or we have buildings that happen and we have to. Yeah. Like we have these buildings. like the the residential in downtown is booming. It's great. The rents are good, the product is good, and people want to live in downtown. Um because otherwise you're living much farther east or much farther south for sure. And so the residential is is great downtown. Like we look at these um you know, bars and like where people live, it's it's just the office has just been decimated. Yeah. A lot of that is like government workers not coming back to the office. And when you have that inborn population base on a day-to-day basis, that's what keeps restaurants open. That's what keeps dry cleaners open, gyms open. So, it keeps the streets safer because there's just more bodies on the ground. Um, so
Jaime Lee
yeah, downtown we've got two projects on a little bit more what we call not our west, our west side, not on the west side, but like Crescent Heights. Got it. And Labraa. Those are two conversion projects. 36
Taylor Avakian
that we're looking at. I think it's zip code. Sorry.
Jaime Lee
So, I'm just like, oh, 36. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um and then and we've built uh two in Brentwood, one in Westwood. And so we've started reaching out more. They're all city of Los Angeles, though. And so, yes, I've got lots of people telling me, um, let's look projects.
Taylor Avakian
Oh, yeah.
Jaime Lee
Orange County, come to, you know, or even outside of California. Um, I think for me, what I'm more interested in is diversification of product type, like self storage. when you have so many people living in such a dense urban environment with limited space.
Taylor Avakian
Um, can you convert office to self storage?
Jaime Lee
Yeah, you can. It depends on the floor load. That's interesting to me. And so that's something that I'm really really interested in. Um, cuz it's sort of that like last the closer you are to your place like if you're keeping your bike or your skis or whatever it may
Taylor Avakian
be. Well, you don't have rent controlies, right? You don't got to deal with tenants. Really? I know. I know. I know.
Jaime Lee
It's um and there's definitely a shortage of storage and so I think that's an area that's really really interesting. You know industrial like even given tariffs and all that kind of stuff and there are more restrictions on industrial but that's like a great safe long-term we have some retail.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Um also and what we've seen coming out of the pandemic where maybe brick and mortar is really tough for you know just consumer goods experiential like everybody's you know eating out at restaurants to have something fun and cool to do and so we've seen a big boost in that.
Taylor Avakian
Can we make MacArthur Park awesome again? How are we going to do that? How are we going to do that?
Jaime Lee
Um we've built a building right I mean conversion right there. Yeah. Curve we built from scratch and then we converted Atlas House.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
Yeah. Um, which is right there. And I really want MacArthur Park to be cool. We really want It's such a beautiful place. And when the sun is out, it's like, "Wow, this is great." You see people playing soccer. The second the sun sets, it's like, "Oh my gosh." Like, drive through as fast as you can. I'm always on I'm always on Wilshire. Uh, yeah. It's a dangerous place. Um, there's a crime element there. There is this proposal to shut down.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
I don't know how I feel about that. That doesn't make sense from a
Taylor Avakian
traffic 0% chance that that would ever work.
Jaime Lee
We got a lot there's some things like this that I'm sort of like there's head scratchers happening of like there's a lot to work on. I don't know that that is the thing we should be working on right
Taylor Avakian
now. What um what's one thing that keeps you up at night?
Jaime Lee
Oh, everything these days. Yeah. Everything. um we're just in such a time of volatility and the market abhores volatility and not only do you know the public equity markets or investor markets or banks or anything like that abhore volatility what I'm releasing is day-to-day people are really really just on edge afraid um not being able to plan and make decisions even like 3 to 6 months out you've got people showing up at public schools trying to take kids away I I mean, this is something, you know, I went to yoga over the weekend and yoga instructor was joking and he was like, "Oh, I hope everyone's doing well." And they're like, "Yeah, how are you?" And he's like, "Oh, just trying not to get deported." And I'm like, "That's" and he's making a joke of it, but I was like, "This is a tragedy that this is weighing on you."
Jaime Lee
Yeah. Um day in and day out, you know, like other people that I see um who either work for us or it's just it's just and even if you know they're not subject to that, they see that in their communities and the stress and the that causes. And then you'll layer on top of that like literally everything is more expensive and so just to live life like those kinds of things it's it's it's hard.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Jaime Lee
And this has been a very very tough time. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
In our industry. Well, I think you're you're doing so much to try to improve this city and from from a civil front. You're a part of a bunch of boards. You're help on the committee for the Olympics that are coming in. You're doing so much stuff to try to bolster Los Angeles. And as you said, you're an Angelino through and through. And I'm I'm really happy to see what you guys are able to do and continue that. And last thing before we wrap up, like someone young who's watching this, right? They want to they want to be Jam Lee one day.
Jaime Lee
Okay.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. What piece of advice or what's one thing that you'd give them that they
1:10:00–1:20:00
Taylor Avakian
can take away to go and try to be you or try to be something that they want to be achieve their goals?
Jaime Lee
Yeah. It's almost like when you were talking about women in brokerage, I think a lot of that is preparedness cuz I'll go into negotiation sometimes and I'm talking to a dude. I'm like, you don't know the numbers. Well, you have no idea what you're even negotiating for. And I'll actually agree with you. Like if I'm negotiating with a female broker, I'm like, "Oo, I'm a little bit more like ding like a little more, you know, like heightened situational awareness and things like that because women come prepared." Mhm. And so I think if you can show whether it's in the company that you work for, whether it's you're starting your own thing and you're dealing with partners or vendors or whoever clients, whoever it may be, if you can show that you're really prepared, that not only are you going to say yes um yes to
Jaime Lee
difficult tasks, come prepared to execute on them. Um I think you'll go so much farther than you even think is possible. cuz I you know even when I first started joining boards it was my mentality was just yes and just say yes to everything. So, if they're like, "Who can find a bar for a networking event?" It's like, "Sure, I'll I'll do it." And who can take minutes for this meeting? It's like, "Sure, I'll do it." "Who can volunteer to help with this event?" Like, and I'm like, "Yes, I will always be there because you see those people see you as someone who is dependable and executes and and does, you know, keeps their word and they'll refer you for other things." And that's really how I ended up being, you know, president of the harbor commission at the Port of Los Angeles during an incredibly critical period
Jaime Lee
of time for the port um on the board of trustees at USC on the board at LA28. That's definitely a bright spot for LA. The Olympics are going to be amazing. I'm excited. Um I was at the Olympics in Paris last summer and we took our daughter there and she just oh it was amazing. First she loves Paris. is just like such a beautiful and they did an incredible job using their historical cultural assets as backdrops for all of these events. Ours are a little bit different that way, but we have this inborn base of all of the facilities that we need. Yeah. And so that's going to be great. It's an enormous savings to be able to utilize existing and then we have two incredible huge university. I mean we have so many universities but with the facilities
Jaime Lee
at UCLA and USC and utilizing those and then all the way up and down. And I mean we we keep building new of these facilities cuz now we have like into it and so but then you also have like old school like Dodger Stadium Coliseum and the Rose Bowl and so I think that'll be a great bright spot the world coming to Los Angeles and just really adding to the the fabric of our city and it's over over 200 countries um tens you know 50,000 athletes and so uh watching that is going to be great. I think it's going to be a huge point of pride for our city and it'll be it's the boost that is you know not just the investment from LA28 itself into the infrastructure into the jobs and the vendors and you know trying
Jaime Lee
to boost our local economy as much as possible but also the after effects of everything because every single you know like civil project out there is like well you got to be done by the Olympics we got to be done by the Olympics push and so it's there'll be great longlasting benefits for LA that that continue for a long time after that fact, too.
Taylor Avakian
The people mover at LAX. Oh my gosh, I know. I'm excited. I'm very excited for for that.
Jaime Lee
That LAX is not the most fun to get around. Yeah. Yeah. All those buses and little shuttle things will be gone.
Taylor Avakian
What can people do to support you and your mission and what you're working on? Like, what are some things people can do to support that?
Jaime Lee
Um, well, since we're on the Olympics, it's support the games. Like, go to the games. A lot of people leave town, but I think this is something that we should all be really, really proud of, and the help of the citizens is what's going to make it successful, and we need it to be successful. Um, both financially and just culturally and civically. And so, support the Olympics. Um, and we're pushing on this adaptive thing. We're really excited about it. And we've got, you know, 10 or 11 projects in the pipeline that we can do. Oh, you asked before too about like overbuilding and we're not we're nowhere close to that. No, I'm not concerned about that because um the population is growing again in California and in Los Angeles. This will always be like LA is always going to hold its value.
Jaime Lee
This is the place where people come to work in so many different diverse fields. It's where people come from all over the world to go to school. It's such a cultural safe people feel safe here. And in a time where people don't feel safe in lots of different places, whether it's across the world or even in different areas of the US, LA is just amazing. Amazing.
Taylor Avakian
Gonna keep on chugging on. We're going to keep making it better. Yeah, definitely.
Jaime Lee
Jamie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me so far.
Taylor Avakian
Of course. Amazing.