Impact Investing Could Be $5.2 Trillion Market In Ten Years_ Steinbridge CEO

Forbes

Forbes Senior Writer Jabari Young interviews Tawan Davis, CEO of The Steinbridge Group, about the future of impact investing and the role of real estate in that market.  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 Impact investment through real estate.

00:02 It's what the Steinbridge Group is doing.

00:04 We'll break it all down with its CEO, Tawan Davis.

00:07 (upbeat music)

00:09 Hello everyone, this is Jabari Young here

00:11 at the NASDAQ Market site.

00:13 And I'm proud to be joined by Tawan Davis,

00:14 the CEO of Steinbridge Group,

00:16 a privately held real estate investment

00:19 and asset management company.

00:20 They made a big announcement with us at Forge BOK

00:23 only a few months ago.

00:24 And we're gonna break down another announcement.

00:27 Thanks for joining me, sir.

00:28 Happy Black History Month.

00:28 - Well, thank you, same to you.

00:30 - So let's start there.

00:31 Black History Month is easy to say which figure,

00:34 right, you always remember.

00:35 And I think we have the notable ones.

00:37 I'm gonna say which black business leader

00:40 in Black History Month stands out when I say that.

00:42 - Powerful question.

00:44 I think that Earl Graves--

00:45 - Earl Graves.

00:46 - Is a very impactful person

00:49 given the time in which he emerged.

00:51 Earl Graves' business grew in the context

00:55 where that was unusual for African-American business leaders.

00:58 - Right.

00:59 - And he was talking about business.

01:00 He was talking about commercial opportunities.

01:02 He was talking about market empowerment.

01:04 And then his business became the defining

01:06 black enterprise today remains the defining voice

01:12 for African-Americans in business.

01:14 And years after his passing,

01:17 people still celebrate that black enterprise

01:20 as a institution and a media mechanism.

01:23 And it still continues to thrive today.

01:26 So I think that he stands out for me

01:28 as an exceptional leader in the business world.

01:30 - Earl Graves, absolutely.

01:31 Listen, Reginald Lewis, right?

01:32 - Absolutely.

01:33 - May Forbes cover.

01:34 - Absolutely.

01:35 - But the second day of Black History Month,

01:37 here you are making an announcement, right?

01:38 A $40 million investment to Virginia Union

01:41 that is aimed to unlock 100 plus,

01:44 or 100 real estate,

01:45 eight real estate that they have

01:47 on Virginia's North side, Richmond.

01:49 And this is part of a bigger, larger commitment

01:51 that you made at the Forbes BLK Summit back in November.

01:54 Thank you for that.

01:55 A hundred million commitment to HBCUs.

01:58 Let's break down that commitment,

01:59 the 40 million, which is the first iteration

02:01 of the a hundred million.

02:02 What's it gonna do?

02:03 What do you anticipate?

02:04 Break it down for me.

02:05 - Sure.

02:06 Well, let me start,

02:06 thank you for having me.

02:07 And it's good to be able to chat with you again.

02:10 Let me start talking a little bit

02:11 about who we are and what we do.

02:12 So the Steinbridge Group is an impact investment firm.

02:16 Our goal is to activate real estate

02:19 as the first mover of impact.

02:21 There's been a lot of discussion

02:24 around what impact investment means,

02:27 and a lot of response, positive and negative, to the idea.

02:31 Our thought is that impact investment

02:34 is in fact the most keen way to address

02:37 what are both economic, social,

02:40 and governmental opportunities and challenges.

02:42 The best business models come from

02:45 addressing challenges and problems.

02:48 If you think about today, we don't burn gas,

02:51 we don't burn oil in order to turn on our, to get light.

02:55 Right now, electricity solves that problem for us.

02:57 It is in fact an ESG response.

03:00 And so our view is that some of the best opportunities

03:04 to have build strong businesses with a market response

03:09 are in the impact sector.

03:10 And so those businesses, we believe,

03:12 also provide outsized returns

03:15 to investors and opportunities.

03:16 And so for us, it's not a subsector of business.

03:20 It's not a subsector of investment.

03:22 It actually is investment.

03:23 Investment that has any business strategy

03:26 that has an impact, we believe, is impact investing.

03:29 And so our thought, we also believe that there are,

03:33 that private capital needs to address and solve

03:36 many of these challenges and opportunities.

03:38 There is a limit to public

03:39 and sometimes governmental intervention.

03:42 And so the opportunity to provide private solutions,

03:45 market-based solutions to economic, social,

03:48 and governance issues is the very definition

03:50 of impact investment, which is why over the next 10 years,

03:54 people are expecting impact investment to grow

03:56 to be a $5.2 trillion market.

03:59 And it's one of the fastest growing subsectors

04:01 of investing today.

04:02 And so our firm provides real estate opportunities

04:05 for impact investors in that way.

04:08 - Yeah, when you say impact investors, right?

04:10 I mean, I am curious about the real estate portion.

04:13 What other sectors does that fall under?

04:15 - Yeah, a lot of folks think,

04:16 so broadly impact investment is defined in three categories,

04:20 environmental, social, and governance.

04:22 And so if you think of electric cars

04:24 are really believed to be an impact investing,

04:26 green energy, environmental.

04:28 So anything that has a positive impact on the environment,

04:31 anything that solves social issues.

04:33 So for example, a lot of our investing

04:35 is in the residential space.

04:37 Why?

04:37 Is because America is chronically under housed.

04:40 More than 50% of Americans spend more than 30%

04:43 of their income on housing.

04:45 That means that they are housing burden.

04:47 It used to be that it would take two years

04:50 to buy a home after marriage.

04:51 Now it takes upwards of 11 years to buy a home

04:54 after marriage.

04:55 And so Americans are dramatically impacted,

04:58 even though interest rates are at highs

05:02 that we haven't seen in a generation.

05:04 We know that over the last year, home prices are up.

05:07 And so it's making it even harder

05:08 for people to acquire homes.

05:10 Basic economics, basic finance would say

05:13 that the higher the interest rate,

05:15 the lower the housing prices.

05:17 But in fact, housing prices are up anywhere from 6% to 8%

05:21 despite record high interest rates.

05:23 And so that, the housing problem is a social issue

05:27 that we believe can be addressed

05:28 with a private capital solution.

05:29 And the last category is governance.

05:31 So anything that has to do with international affairs,

05:35 international law, international conflict,

05:37 business governance also comes into that area.

05:39 So ESG is synonymous with impact investment,

05:43 standing for environmental, social,

05:45 and governance challenges that can be responded to

05:47 by private investment.

05:48 - And I would think Steinbridge falls

05:50 under the social part of that.

05:51 - So much of what we do falls under the S for social impact.

05:54 And that's where the real estate falls in,

05:56 and particularly providing attainable housing

06:00 for working families is where our approach

06:03 to impact investment emerges.

06:05 We also are very attentive to the environmental portion.

06:08 So we focus on opportunities to build green homes.

06:13 So we do solar energy, and we try to pay attention

06:17 to how we source our materials

06:19 and how we build our communities.

06:20 And so our primary focus is probably on the S for the social

06:25 through real estate, and the second is on the environmental,

06:27 how we build and deliver those homes.

06:29 - Yeah, absolutely.

06:29 And taking it back right fast to the Virginia Union,

06:31 that particular investment, it's 40 million,

06:33 and you're gonna develop, again,

06:34 these areas around that particular HBCU.

06:38 And I'm assuming building new homes,

06:41 refurbishing ones that are probably there.

06:43 If there are there, I haven't seen that area.

06:45 Is that where this money is gonna be going?

06:46 - That's right.

06:47 So again, when you think of impact investing,

06:50 one of the ways to think about it is who do you invest with?

06:53 Where do you actually put the dollars?

06:56 There are 100 plus historically black colleges

06:58 and universities in the United States.

07:01 And they historically receive 30% less funding

07:05 than their counterparts.

07:06 If you put all of their endowments together,

07:09 they have 1% of the endowments of all of the Ivy Leagues.

07:13 And so what we're finding is that we thought

07:18 that there would be an opportunity to direct investment

07:20 toward these institutions

07:21 that often are very, very large landowners,

07:24 but have limited cash and capital resources

07:26 and opportunities.

07:27 So partnering with them and to activate their land

07:31 to economically productive uses.

07:32 And so this isn't necessarily dorms.

07:34 This isn't necessarily academic housing

07:38 or other institutional uses.

07:40 We're trying to identify ways to bring ancillary

07:43 and additional income to income streams

07:45 and to increase and bolster their endowments.

07:47 So the--

07:48 - While making the universities the centerpiece of it.

07:50 - Exactly.

07:51 So the universe, by the way,

07:52 these universities have been the centerpiece

07:54 of their communities for a generation, for generations.

07:58 Most of the historically black colleges were started

08:00 in the antebellum movement immediately

08:03 after the Civil War around 1865.

08:07 And so they were started to respond

08:08 to 4 million freed folks who now needed to be educated.

08:12 And so they were started in that era.

08:15 Virginia Union University was among the first.

08:17 In fact, Virginia Union was started

08:20 as Richmond was being vacated by the Confederacy.

08:23 So in 1865, Jefferson Davis vacated Richmond,

08:27 headed South as the Union Army came in,

08:30 set Richmond afire on his way out.

08:33 And while it was burning,

08:34 Virginia Union University was started

08:36 to educate future teachers and ministers

08:38 in the Virginia area.

08:39 And so we thought it was very appropriate

08:41 to start with him as a leader in the HBCU movement.

08:44 - And Steinbridge Group, this is an investment firm,

08:46 this is a bill to rent strategy, right?

08:49 And just the family, rental rehabilitation,

08:51 you have the urban infield.

08:53 Break that down for me.

08:54 The entire strategy, starting with the bill to rent,

08:57 because here we're allowing families, right?

08:59 And society's so strange because on the one hand,

09:03 there are people out there who would love to own a house,

09:05 but then there's a whole new generation out there

09:07 who may not wanna be tied down anymore, right?

09:09 And so renting is starting to become a little bit more,

09:12 I think that the negativity is kind of driving it.

09:14 Yes, you wanna create wealth

09:15 and maybe in time you will buy a house,

09:17 but right now when you're in your 20s and your 30s

09:19 and you're moving around from one to the other,

09:21 you're renting and you may not wanna be tied down

09:23 to a mortgage,

09:24 especially in this interest environment right now,

09:26 is that what you're kind of looking at

09:28 and how you plan on making your profits?

09:29 - Yeah, so Virginia Union, again, is a great example.

09:32 They have a hundred acres

09:34 and we are committing approximately $42 million

09:37 to activate underutilized assets

09:39 in that hundred acre ownership.

09:42 And one of the primary opportunities

09:45 is to build homes for rent in that area.

09:47 So if you take all of American renters,

09:51 somewhere around up to 63% of renters

09:54 are actually renting a house,

09:56 not renting an apartment building.

09:57 So when we think of renters in the United States,

09:59 we think of apartments,

10:00 but in fact, almost two thirds of renters

10:03 are actually renting a house, not an apartment building.

10:06 Second is that if you take all of the investable asset

10:09 classes in real estate,

10:11 single family rental is the single largest

10:14 investable asset class.

10:15 It's about four and a half trillion dollars.

10:17 Apartments are anywhere from two to $3 trillion.

10:19 And so we cannot address the overburden of rent.

10:24 We cannot address affordability

10:26 without having a strategy to address a single family

10:29 and built to rent housing.

10:30 And so that's kind of where we follow the idea

10:34 is that in order to have a meaningful impact

10:35 on working families that need places to live,

10:38 that are overburdened with rent,

10:40 you actually have to deliver not only apartments,

10:43 but people are now starting their whole families

10:45 in rental.

10:47 And so we have to deliver homes as well.

10:48 - Yeah, I was in Texas, Dallas, Texas just last week,

10:51 and I'm driving around the Plano area

10:53 'cause I'm in search of a house too, Tawan,

10:55 and I'm seeing all I see is lease, lease, lease.

10:58 And I'm like, where's the buy?

11:00 I wanna buy.

11:01 And it's lease, lease, lease.

11:02 And I'm assuming it's because people are locked out,

11:04 but they still want to maybe get involved

11:06 with the housing and not, maybe that's a way to do it.

11:09 Take it back a little bit, man.

11:10 You're from Portland, Oregon.

11:11 You grew up there.

11:12 I love Portland.

11:13 I lived there for a year.

11:14 I covered the trail blazes for Comcast Sports.

11:17 Are you a blazers fan by the phone?

11:19 - You know, it's interesting.

11:20 My family moved to Oregon in the great migration.

11:24 So when everyone else went from the South to Detroit,

11:27 to Philadelphia, to New York,

11:30 my family moved from Arkansas where we were sharecroppers,

11:33 and we had been slaves in Mississippi,

11:35 and we moved to Oregon.

11:36 And they took what I call the L route.

11:38 So they drove West across Texas,

11:41 and then up the I-5 corridor to Portland, Oregon.

11:44 And we've been there since the 1930s.

11:46 And so I'm a proud Oregon person.

11:49 People always say, are there black people in Oregon?

11:50 Well, we were probably one. - Of course, yeah.

11:51 - Of course there are, tons of them.

11:52 - There's not a lot.

11:54 - There's not a lot.

11:54 But you know, and listen, when I was up there moving around,

11:56 I had to get used to it, right?

11:57 And you have to kind of check yourself

11:59 and understand that, you know,

12:00 this is just what the demographics are.

12:02 But I love Portland.

12:03 I lived in Beaverton.

12:04 I love my little fall screen door,

12:06 fire on the mountain wings.

12:07 Don't get me going about Portland, Oregon.

12:10 I loved when I was there, and I saw it way differently.

12:13 But when you were young, at 15, you saw it differently.

12:15 What did you see?

12:16 - Well, it's interesting.

12:17 I didn't meet anyone whose family and grandparents

12:20 were from Virginia or South Carolina

12:22 until I went to college.

12:23 Everyone I grew up with,

12:25 their grandparents were from Arkansas.

12:26 There's a great book about the great migration

12:29 called "The Warmth of Other Suns."

12:30 And it tells the story of how African Americans moved

12:32 after the First World War from the South to the North,

12:35 populating the cities.

12:36 And there was a great section in the book about Arkansas

12:39 and how it moved to the Northwest

12:41 and how people moved in large numbers.

12:42 And so for me, I grew up with some remarkable people.

12:46 My grandmother, my great-grandmother,

12:48 probably had an eighth grade education.

12:50 But when she moved from Arkansas to Oregon,

12:52 she and her three sisters

12:54 each bought four or five houses a piece

12:56 to house the family as they moved North,

12:58 because there were no extended stay opportunities,

13:01 and their hotels were often unwelcoming.

13:03 And so they had to house their own families

13:05 in the migration.

13:06 And so they basically built the community

13:09 that we live in today.

13:10 What is impactful is, in fact, generations later,

13:14 particularly after the 1968 riots,

13:17 then you had the drug problem of the '70s and '80s.

13:20 You had gangs in the '80s and '90s.

13:23 And the communities began to deteriorate.

13:25 And so after they built these communities,

13:27 they unfortunately lived to see them deteriorate over time.

13:31 And then what began to happen in my lifetime

13:34 is the very communities that they built

13:36 and then deteriorated began to gentrify.

13:38 And so I go home now,

13:39 and my great-great-grandmother's home

13:40 is worth about a million and a half dollars

13:42 that she bought for $30,000 in the 1940s.

13:45 And my family and people around us

13:47 are beginning to be displaced from the communities

13:49 that they've lived for generations.

13:51 And so another reason why we are partnering

13:53 with institutions that are well-positioned

13:56 in these communities is because we're building a bridge

13:58 to these transitioning neighborhoods

14:00 so that people aren't necessarily pushed out,

14:02 so that they're not necessarily displaced,

14:04 but that they can live and work

14:06 as these neighborhoods transition

14:07 and benefit from that change.

14:09 - Yeah, I know you were seeing a lot at that age,

14:11 but what did you wanna be at age 15?

14:12 'Cause you couldn't have said,

14:13 "I wanna run a private equity investment firm."

14:16 What did you wanna be at 15?

14:17 - I tell the story often about when I asked my grandmother

14:21 when I was about 14 or 15 years old,

14:23 my family's deeply religious.

14:25 There is a scripture where the Bible says

14:28 a cattle on a thousand hill belongs to God.

14:30 And I told my grandmother, "I just want one hill.

14:32 "Matter of fact, if you give me one cow,

14:35 "I can make a difference."

14:36 And so for me, I've always had the idea

14:38 that I wanted to do something impactful.

14:41 I wanted to be in business.

14:43 I've been asked to run for Congress twice.

14:45 My father's a minister, my grandfather was a minister.

14:48 I could have gone that route.

14:49 But for me, I thought that creating opportunities

14:51 for people through business would be the way

14:53 that I would be able to have the most lasting impact.

14:55 And so I've been pretty focused.

14:56 I studied economics in undergrad.

14:58 I studied sociology and economics in grad school,

15:01 and then went to business school,

15:02 kind of in preparation to be able to run a business

15:05 that I could build that was both legitimate as an investor,

15:09 but could also provide an impact.

15:10 - So you know, I wanted to make an impact.

15:12 So no fireman, no basketball player, no police officer,

15:14 none of that, you just knew it was something

15:16 you wanted to be impactful.

15:17 - It's interesting.

15:18 Funny that we are starting with Virginia Union.

15:21 I was 11 years old, and I remember reading

15:24 maybe "Ebony" magazine, and it was Douglas Wilder

15:28 was elected the first African-American governor

15:31 of any state in the United States.

15:33 He happens to be a Virginia Union alumni.

15:37 And so in my life, I have just looked up to figures,

15:40 Douglas Wilder being one of them,

15:42 that had an impact in ways that were outside of the norm.

15:46 So I wasn't sure whether it was gonna be a fireman.

15:48 I wasn't sure whether it was gonna be a minister,

15:50 congressman, or businessman, but I was always targeted

15:52 and trying to model my life after people that I saw

15:55 that were having an impact in ways

15:57 that were outside of the norm.

15:58 And so that's been my focus.

15:59 - Absolutely, if you had to go back to yourself

16:01 at business school, what was the best piece of advice

16:03 that you received in business school?

16:04 - That everything's gonna be okay.

16:06 - Everything's okay?

16:06 - Yeah, that everything's gonna be okay.

16:07 I mean, all business, all of our professional careers

16:11 have their ups and downs.

16:12 You're gonna have some good days and bad days.

16:14 Some years you're gonna do well,

16:16 some years you're gonna do poorly,

16:17 you're gonna get some good reviews,

16:18 and you're gonna have a boss that you can't stand.

16:20 You gotta stick with it.

16:21 - Yeah.

16:22 - And you gotta focus.

16:23 And that the number one key to success

16:27 actually isn't skill, and it isn't even brains.

16:32 It's actually focus and perseverance.

16:34 - Absolutely.

16:35 - And that is so clear to me today.

16:36 And all of the young people that I deal with,

16:39 and I've mentored, I was an adjunct professor

16:41 for some time at NYU, and I tell them all,

16:44 the number one skill isn't how smart you are.

16:45 And frankly, it's not even all the time how hard you work.

16:48 It is focus and it is perseverance.

16:51 - Focus and perseverance.

16:52 Got about three, four minutes left here.

16:53 I wanna get your insight on some macro economic stuff, right?

16:57 Start with the commercial real estate sector.

16:58 I mean, this is a sector right now showing signs of trouble.

17:02 The New York Community Bank took some losses

17:04 on commercial real estate, obviously,

17:06 with the pandemic now.

17:07 Post-pandemic, people aren't going back to work as much,

17:09 so a lot of commercial real estate,

17:11 people are concerned about that.

17:12 You got about 1.2 trillion of commercial mortgages

17:15 that are scheduled to mature this year,

17:16 according to Goldman Sachs.

17:18 Barry Sternlich of Starwood Capital,

17:21 he comes out and says, I quote,

17:22 "The office market is an existential crisis right now.

17:25 "It's a three trillion asset class

17:27 "that is probably worth 1.8 trillion now.

17:30 "There's 1.2 trillion of losses spread somewhere,

17:33 "and nobody knows where it is," right?

17:35 There is prediction that this can cause

17:37 another economic recession.

17:38 What do you see?

17:39 - It's interesting.

17:40 When I started the company,

17:41 we actually didn't start in impact investing

17:44 for real estate.

17:45 - It's commercial.

17:46 - We started buying commercial offices.

17:47 - Absolutely, yeah.

17:47 - We bought almost, and structured almost $1 billion

17:50 worth of office building transactions,

17:52 including the famed Watergate building

17:54 that got Nixon in trouble.

17:55 And so we have considerable experience in the office space.

17:58 These headwinds existed prior to COVID.

18:01 There were three trends that we noticed.

18:03 Number one, people were taking less and less office space,

18:07 particularly in the major CBD markets,

18:09 Washington, DC, Boston, New York City,

18:13 they were taking smaller and smaller footprints.

18:15 Second, people were working from home more.

18:17 It was starting with Fridays.

18:18 It was starting with maybe a Monday off,

18:21 but people, there was a trend of working for home

18:23 prior to COVID.

18:24 And third, you have the WeWork phenomenon.

18:25 WeWork is the most famous example,

18:27 but these coworking spaces.

18:29 So it was happening that new businesses

18:31 and venture-backed firms weren't taking office space.

18:33 Those three trends existed prior to COVID.

18:36 The combination of COVID and very high interest rates

18:39 and the maturity of the debt is accelerating

18:41 what was already happening in the office space

18:43 and what frankly has happened around the world

18:45 in the office space.

18:46 And so our sense is that America,

18:49 like the rest of the world,

18:50 is gonna have to figure out how to repurpose

18:52 some of its major centers.

18:53 This is not just challenging for the office owners.

18:57 This is challenging for the restaurant owners

18:59 and the cleaners.

19:01 I mean, this is a major economic--

19:04 - San Francisco is an example, right?

19:06 Detroit gave you something.

19:08 You don't need to see a bankrupt city

19:10 and San Francisco's there

19:11 and hopefully they can get it together.

19:13 - And then if you also think about the tax bases

19:15 of these cities,

19:15 often the city's tax bases are driven

19:19 by commercial real estate activity,

19:20 which is true for New York City, by the way.

19:22 Much of New York City's tax base

19:23 is in its commercial activity,

19:25 including commercial real estate,

19:26 not necessarily in its residential tax collection.

19:29 And so this is gonna be a major challenge

19:32 both for municipal funding of schools

19:34 and of police departments and fire departments,

19:37 as well as office owners.

19:38 - Yeah, cities might not be in business.

19:40 - Absolutely.

19:41 - Shedding workers, right?

19:42 And then you got cities that are just empty.

19:44 Dan Gilbert has all those buildings,

19:45 downtown Detroit, right?

19:47 And so, very interesting.

19:48 And housing market, right, Fass,

19:50 again, about 143 million homes, I believe.

19:53 You need about 200 million, no, Toine?

19:58 What do you do there?

19:58 Because construction workers aren't building homes.

20:01 They're too busy building bridges and roads.

20:02 I know, 'cause it took me a long time to get here.

20:04 Traffic.

20:05 What do you do when you don't have enough homes

20:07 being built, but you need 'em?

20:09 - Well, this is why, again, economics would tell us

20:12 that high interest rates should bring down housing prices.

20:14 The inability to supply new homes

20:17 because of the cost of inputs,

20:20 the high cost of labor, and high interest rates

20:22 is gonna continue to skyrocket home prices

20:25 and home building prices,

20:27 despite the attempt to manage them through interest rates.

20:30 And so I think we're facing a real crisis.

20:32 As you said, 143 housing units in the United States,

20:36 84 million single family homes,

20:38 and a quarter of those single family homes are rental units.

20:41 So a quarter of America is renting a house,

20:44 and those prices are going up.

20:45 And so I think that we just face a real long-term trend

20:49 with increased housing prices in the United States,

20:51 which is gonna make ownership even more difficult,

20:53 particularly because of the combination

20:55 of those increased prices and high interest rates.

20:58 - Get you outta here, two things last.

20:59 Forrest, be okay, obviously,

21:00 you made that 100 million commitment.

21:02 If you had an audience here

21:03 who was real estate investors, right,

21:05 what would you tell them after what we just said?

21:07 Commercial, housing, is there a play in commercial?

21:10 What would you tell a real estate investor

21:13 that could be looking for an opportunity for you?

21:15 - I actually think that the challenges

21:20 of today's real estate market

21:22 creates the ideal impact investing opportunity

21:25 to provide housing that Americans can afford.

21:28 It is the crossroads of impact investing opportunity,

21:31 where working families cannot keep up

21:34 with the high cost of housing,

21:36 and the ability for us to deliver that housing

21:38 to the American people is challenged on multiple levels.

21:41 And so I think the opportunity to partner with us

21:43 or someone like us to deliver those homes,

21:46 and at the same time make an outsized return,

21:48 given the cycle that we're in,

21:50 I think exists for about a generation.

21:51 So we're excited.

21:52 - Absolutely, last thing here, "Good to Great,"

21:54 Jim Collins' great book.

21:55 I love it, teaches you how to go from good to great,

21:58 especially on a business angle.

21:59 What's the difference between a good real estate investor

22:02 and a great one?

22:03 - Good real estate investor

22:04 and a great real estate investor is partnership.

22:08 Because the idea that we can't do it alone,

22:10 that you have to partner all along the way from your,

22:13 you have to partner with your investors,

22:15 you have to partner with your banks and lenders,

22:18 and you all have to basically move

22:19 and roll in the same direction.

22:21 And I think that is the difference.

22:22 The real estate investors tend to be

22:25 dramatically egotistical.

22:27 (laughing)

22:27 - Aren't we all?

22:28 - They're just dramatically egotistical.

22:30 I mean, because you know, you build stuff out of the ground,

22:32 you start thinking about yourself as pretty freaking special.

22:35 The reality is that we can't move forward

22:38 without partnership across the lines,

22:41 partnering with people and with communities.

22:42 And I think that's the difference

22:44 between people who have sustained real estate businesses

22:47 and people who just ride the cycles.

22:48 - Absolutely, here at the NASDAQ Market site,

22:50 Tawan Davis, thank you so much, man, for the time.

22:52 And thank you for making an impact

22:54 through the Impact Invest,

22:55 and look forward to seeing

22:56 where the rest of the 100 million goes.

22:58 I know you got some more announcements coming.

22:59 And listen, we were just talking Philly off the camera,

23:02 so you're doing work in Philly, New York, Atlanta,

23:04 all of that, look forward to just keeping up with you.

23:06 I appreciate the time.

23:07 - Appreciate it, thanks for having me.

23:08 - Appreciate it.

23:09 (upbeat music)

23:11 (upbeat music)

23:14 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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