#328 - Herb Weitzman - Executive Chairman @ Weitzman -The King of Texas Retail

Chris Powers: At what point did it become evident to you that you would get into real estate?

Herb Weitzman: Well, the education started when I was about four years old, when my dad, I did store and he'd son, you want to walk around with me? And I said, why do you? Where are you going? What are we going to do? He said, well, we're going to go collect rent.

I said, well, what does that mean? He said I bought a few rented houses behind the store, which helped us get some passive income. In addition to what we made in the store, the store had meagre earnings because I had no parking as a walk-up. And so it was terrific because they kept the store open every night, all their life, from Saturday night till nine o'clock. After all, the fishermen's laundry was across the street.

About 600 people work there, and they get paid at noon. So they'd come over to the store. We sold money orders, and then they'd buy clothes for their kids or whatever they needed. And that's thanks to the open Saturday. They wouldn't have made it.

Chris Powers: All right. As I've read through it, your first position was when you were starting the farm and ranch division at Henry S. Miller.

Herb Weitzman: No, that wasn't the first position. Okay. In my junior year, I wanted to get some experience in real estate. And I was very disappointed that Henry Miller had told me that I could get, I could work there as an intern. You know, to check with him when I got out of school, he was sure that Charlie Jackson, the all-star halfback for SMU, who worked for him during the year, wouldn't work in the summer.

And that's partly true and partly not true, but Charlie Jackson didn't work in the summer, and I called to get my job and start work. Henry Miller was in Europe and left no message. And Vance Miller's son left no message. He was gone. He was a pilot. He was gone to training.

And Henry Miller Sr. was somewhere. He was gone, too. So, I was so disappointed that they didn't leave a message that Charlie Jackson wasn't, wasn't going to work the summer that he didn't leave a message that I was hired. So, I went back home, and I was saddened. I will take some real estate courses at SMU in the morning.

I'll wait 10 minutes back in town to go over there the next day, and I registered SMU and left there going through Stata Plaza, which is right near SMU, and I'd look up, and there's Ralph Porter real estate if he needs somebody. So I go, walk in with my T-shirt. You know, cutoffs and as a little lady, about 80 years old, she's so lovely.

And her name's Irma Langman. And she says, can I help you? And I said, yeah, I thought I had a job with a real estate company, but now I'm going to SEMU in the morning; I get through at 11. I would like to know if I can help you all in real estate. It is about a mile from my house. And she said, well, hold on a minute.

She goes back to the back, comes back to his little Mr Porter will see you. I said I didn't plan to see him right now. I need to dress appropriately. He said, well, come on back. Go back to his buddy Porter. I tell him the story. I'm supposed to have a job. He said, look, I'll hire you, help you get your license, and pay you $75 a month.

And you posted that the receivables were the duplexes. We collect the rent for all the duplexes that we run around SMU. So you'll post the rent. I said, you got a deal. So that was my job for the summer. And so I'll be there in three or four days. I start inquisitive about what property I have listed.

So, go through the listings that are posted manually. And there's this one property. I said I can't believe you got this property for sale. Who's the list? Well, it's Irma Langman up there, Irma. I said, what about this property here? I said I grew up on Goodwin. This property was at the corner.

I'd go up there every day. I could, and I'd sit there and read Captain Marvel and Superman comic books for free in that little corner drug store. I said, is this for sale? He says, yeah. I said, what's the price? He said, well, I think it's 50, 000. And I said, well, okay, very good. So a couple of days later, have a date and walk into the house to pick up a date.

And father's there. He says he'd seen me before. And he knew me. He says, What are you doing this summer? I said I'm in real estate. He says? And he had a car lot on Ross Avenue, which Greenville turns into Ross, so it's pretty close. And I said, yeah, I will learn all about it. He said, well, do you have anything for sale?

I said, just happened we do. I said, there's a great little centre right over here on Goodwin and Greenville. And I said this. I got the drugstore at the corner. It's called the Green Avenue garage here. It's got a little Green Avenue grocery right in the middle of it. So I know that property said, well, can you get me the numbers? I said. So I gave him the numbers. I've got him signed up on a contract. Yeah. So now, about a week later, I was still waiting to see him. I see somebody my sister has friends who are returning to the military. And I asked her, I said, keep your eyes open. She said Mickey and Susan are returning and will need a house here.

Mom, I called Mom, and she said, well, I'll take a look at houses if you want to show me some houses. So I did research that showed her house exactly. She liked that they came in about a week later. They said we'd love this house. I said okay. We could put that gun to contract on Azalea at Hillcrest at 26,000.

So, here I am, about three and a half weeks. I've got two properties in contract, and I'm just on top of the world. I'm going to get out of school here. In six weeks, I made about 7, 000 and Mr Porter said he had helped me close them. That's great. Well, about that time, I got a call from Henry Miller about the third week.

And he says, Herb, I'm so sorry. I didn't leave you a message. He said, but we needed something other than Charlie Jackson. And. We've got this position open for you. I said, Mr. Miller, you can't believe what's happened. I said I've been here three and a half weeks. I already have two properties in contract. And I said, I'm going make $7,000, and I'm going to New York with my buddies and blow it all.

And he says? He says we'll have a place for you when you leave college. I said, well, great. I'm holding you to that. So that was it. I went to New York. We had a great time. I blew it all, And I finished. We finished my senior year and called him up. Yep. We got a job for you.

Well, what we've been thinking about is setting up a farm ranch division. I didn't know what was in the cow; the head was on. He asked if you would like to have that up. I said. So I went out to my dad's college; he promised me because when I was 13, he promised me a motor scooter. He didn't keep his word, but he promised me a Chevy.

What'd he call it? Chevrolet. I need to remember the name, but it's a small Chevrolet. And so I got it. So, man, I'm ready to roll. So I go out and meet this farmer and go up this farm road, his thing. It'd been raining. I didn't know what the car bottomed out. So I walked to his house. And he comes back, gets a tractor, pulls me out of the mud.

And that was my entry into the farm.

Chris Powers: And paint two pictures for us. One. How much is that centre on Goodwin worth today? It was 50, 000 back then. What would it sell for today?

Herb Weitzman: Yeah, probably, probably. I know, I know. We were involved in selling the other 5 million. Okay.

Chris Powers: So, 100 X. Where did ranch and farmland start when you started this division?

People in at least DFW are listening; some farms and ranches are no longer there.

Herb Weitzman: It started in Royal Lane. It's now 30 miles north of, about 20, 26 miles north of that.

Chris Powers: Okay. All right, so you get stuck. How long did you stay at Farm and Ranch?

Herb Weitzman: I stayed in Farm Ranch. It was an evolution.

One of my first customers was I would get listings, and I went to Henry, and I said I think that what I need to do, instead of spending every day out there travelling, trying to meet farmers, is get a list of all the tax. Addresses for every farm in Collin County, Denton County, Grayson County, and all these areas on the north side, and I'd send them a letter that I'm head of the farm and ranch division. I have a lot of buyers for your farms, and if you're interested in selling, send me the enclosed.

Stamped envelope, man. They started, I sent that in the letter to all these people where the tax building was sent, and they started sending me those back. And that's how I got all the people that wanted to sell. And then, I started advertising them in the paper. I get listings, and it's a farm range section.

And one day, a guy called me, and his name was Davis Crow. I was just Crowe's brother and didn't know who Trammell Crowe was then. Davis became a great customer of mine, and we bought a farm in Greenville together. We went out one day, and it was pouring down raining, and he said he came by my house, picked me up, and said, do you, should we go out?

And I said, yeah, let's go out. Let's say we'll be fine. So go to the county seat at Delta County and Cooper, Texas, about an hour and a half drive from Dallas. We then asked where Farmer Jones's farm was. So they told us, and we went there. Well, it turns out it's a mud road, and I've already had an expensive experience with it.

So we decided to walk up to the farm. And it was about half a mile up the road, which was close. And so get there and look at the farm and had shack falling. We walked back, and now it was raining, and we were both just dripping wet. You know, I had mud about five times what my boot was. It was just up to it. So he looked at me and said, what do you want to do? And I said, well, why don't we buy it? He says, okay, so we purchased the farm, and we had a cod farm out there for a long time and sold it for four times our money. I loved. The evolution of that work is because people would tell me I don't want to buy something passive.

And they said I'd like income property. So I'd work income properties. And then somebody would say I don't want to buy land, or I don't need an investment right now, but I was hoping you could help me move my company or buy, get me a building for my company. So, I started GenBranch out and treated them like a separate division.

I became good at each one and successful in sales or leasing. And that was the basis of my background that allowed me to move into income and user properties and things like that.

Chris Powers: What do you think you were good at that time that all these years later still translates to new folks getting in the industry or brokers?

Like what are the timeless lessons that haven't changed?

Herb Weitzman: Timeless lessons are food. You know, really do a lot of research and learn the values because you become the expert somebody can get, get in real estate, be there six months. Still, if they spent their time chasing a deal in an area to make it to make a deal or two deals in the area, become an expert, they have a chance to make a lot, do a lot of business there and over time.

You're able to become an expert in so many different areas. It all comes together when the dots connect.

Chris Powers: The farm and ranch, where most folks bought then, speculated on DFW's growth. What was the playback when I heard David? Would you say Davis Crowe was assuming, or did he want a farm?

Herb Weitzman: He was speculating. Yeah, he was imagining. He would buy and sell.

Chris Powers: So, how many of those deals did you do all those years ago? Now they're towers, and like, could you have ever seen it coming?

Herb Weitzman: All of them have houses. All up to Salina. Davis. I remember the farm. I sold them up there. It was $155 an acre.

And you know, 455 is a significant development right now.

Chris Powers: Yeah. You like Salina, right?

Herb Weitzman: I like it a lot.

Chris Powers: Why?

Herb Weitzman: Massive, massive growth from one of the best-growth cities in the country.

Chris Powers: Is everything going to keep going up in North Dallas? Like, everything will keep trickling North Dallas, or do you think we'll see more South growth?

Herb Weitzman: as more.

Chris Powers: It's more north until we get to Oklahoma.

Herb Weitzman: Yep, and they just, I got information this morning that they are talking about going ahead and extending the total road up to the north. Legacy Hills is a 3000-acre development with 7000 houses and 4900 apartments. And it's way up there, and I want to go only some way up. Access roads are up there, but they're talking about going ahead with the other centre lanes and taking the total up because it's going so fast. For those who don't do that, it'll take them 15-20 minutes. To get down or more to get down to three 80.

Chris Powers: All right. So, in the seventies, you were working for Henry, and he allowed you to buy a quarter of Highland Park village for a hundred thousand dollars. I think the latest value, who knows what the newest valuation is

Herb Weitzman: Right. The latest is 400 million.

Chris Powers: And you said I'm too busy.

I got too much going on.

Herb Weitzman: No, what I told him, I said, I said, why are you buying this? I said this is a horrible shopping centre. In 1974, I moved to University Park when I was 11. So that was in 1950. So, I rode my bicycle to the Highland Park Village and the theatre for ten years.

You know, and it was, it was horrible. The Howard Foundation, a holding company for the property, neglected it, and shopping centres needed to be booming. At that time, that was a very early stage of development. I saw it deteriorate over the ten years after I left college and went into the brokerage business; it continued, and when Henry bought it in 1974, it wasn't perfect.

And I couldn't get tennis to go there, and he had the vision and foresight, but I didn't have it yet in the development, and you have to. It takes a long time for a consistent serial developer or purchaser to see the vision and make the right decisions. And I didn't see it. And I told him, I said, let me think it over.

And I started developing. Buying property six months after I was with another company, I took my commissions and put them in real estate deals. And I would become an expert in that region. I would see something. Then, I would get a seller to take the terms. I'll give them a thousand, 2,000, for a lot and let them let me pay it out over ten years.

I started accumulating some money assets because I always felt I could pay them out of my brokerage commissions. I just wasn't, and I didn't have enough wisdom then. And I returned to Henry, and I said, look, Henry, this property here, I've tried to make leases, and nobody wants to be here.

And I said I make it such a high return on the seven weapons I'm building.

I said, but I'll lease it for you. So I didn't go in, and I hired it two times, and he was right, and I was wrong, but I learned a lesson.

Chris Powers: What changed? Where is the inflexion point of Howlin Park Village for a history real estate nerd?

Herb Weitzman: The inflexion point was Ken Hughes was with me, and he was a talented guy, and he and I worked on Howlin Park together.

And we brought in Ralph Lauren and Ralph Lauren. The rents at the centre were about 20-25 a foot. On one lease, Ray Walsh told me he'd made the deal at 800 a foot for a jewellery store, but the lease is probably around 250 300 over there now. And I was able to that centre just continued to change.

But what changed was that Ralph Lauren did have a percentage rent clause. And they did so much buying that they doubled the rent. So the new rent as we renewed him was 50 bucks, and that's where it took off. And that's how Henry made changes because it's a different period, and values were increasing, and rents were increasing as we made our rents.

He was able to borrow more money, and he continued to refinance it. Most of the money went into remodels.

Chris Powers: So it wasn't the centre we know today, which is different from what it looked like back in the set-off.

Herb Weitzman: Not at all.

Chris Powers: You said something. You just said it takes a while for people to have that wisdom to know when and how to see into the future.

If you could condense, what does that mean? Like, what do the best have? What does it take to see into the future and be confident today?

Herb Weitzman: Well, gaining all the current knowledge takes time, and that is what you can see. The demand will be at a site within a certain period because people go broke. After all, assets become illiquid, and they have debt.

And so it's the roads where the roads go the time of the streets. It's the subdivisions and how fast they're growing and how fast and knowing what. It takes people dollars per capita to support a grocery store or drug store, which are the most prolific types of centres; the community shopping centres and the strip centre were always there with the C stores as anchors.

I started off doing those and those types of investments. Still, today, they are trendy, and they're an excellent investment for a small investor to have in their portfolio because each one of those might go off; it was free and clear $150-200,000 a year, which is lovely, passive income.

On the vision side, it's about the city growing, and most cities didn't grow like Dallas, which is at the head of the pack. And so you didn't learn that in too many big cities, and I was only in Texas. So, I was seeing it here and not exposed to precisely what had happened in other cities.

And it took longer to build up the confidence to take on debt and think you'll be right in Dallas, Texas. Then you have the micro markets, which were a bit sit, tiny towns. I mean, there was nothing. Yeah. And then, as Dallas grew out to sit limits, these micro-markets began to grow, and that's really where so much of our activity has been over the last 25 years.

Chris Powers: Yep. We're going to get into that. Grub and Ellis ended up buying Henry S. Miller. You go on to Grub and Ellis, and I wanted to spend some time. There was a decision made at Grub and Ellis that they would demote you or take some of your decision-making power a little bit back.

And it took you all about 10 seconds to go. Well, I'm out of here. I'm going to start my own thing.

Herb Weitzman: Well, here's what happened. First of all, there's a commitment. I believe in commitment, and we, Virginia Cook, headed up the residential division. I had a commercial division of Grub and Ellis. I know of Henry Miller.

Okay. So we had the vote with Henry because we knew that he would never do anything without our pain. So he sent two of us both out to the governor's board when they came in in 1979 to merge. And we went out there and set up with a fantastic group. They were number two in California behind CBRE.

CBRE was Cold War Biker then, and it wasn't CBRE. And we assembled the board, basically get down to the bottom line. They said, Herb. We hear you develop. I said, yeah, we do it. We bring in partners, and all these people get deals with us. We manage it. It grows. It has developed a hundred Miller companies, and we can have a great relationship with them.

A lot of these proliferate into multifamily investments and land investments. But yeah, that's what we do. And that's a good program. But I said, well, what do you do? And he said, well, we have a broker who wants to develop here. We help them find an office and hope they'll use us as a company to help them.

I said, well, that was interesting. And so we got outside, finished the meeting, and I looked at Virginia, and he looked at me and said, well, this isn't going to work. And so we went back, and so it didn't work. We just went on to our merry way. We told Henry that that was incompatible.

He was very supportive of Virginia and me. And that was it. So, five years later, they returned and said they wanted to talk, and they would. We want to do everything you told us you're doing, just like you. And the broker intends to develop, well, as long as we don't have to put the money in.

Cause they, the governor's company, had gone broke. Hell else had gone broke, and they moved it to San Francisco because the company was over in Oakland. And, so, he was anti-development. So they changed the policy. And it was good for Henry to cash out because he put every penny back into the company.

Because of our growth, and I was bringing many people, he was financing all that. And so that was a good thing. It was timely because, in a brokerage company, there might have been a million made, lost, or broken even, never any considerable number. After all, the costs are too high.

And these cycles we were hitting ended up with us having a 10 million pre-tax year that year. And so, now on the five multiple, 50 million, it was an excellent opportunity. I was a 10 per cent owner, and I never thought that stock would be worth a penny. And so I found 5 million on the street.

Henry got cashed out, and then we owned stock in the company. And so we own 45 per cent of Grub and Ellis, an American stock exchange company. We started, and then we went on the New York exchange. I went on the board, Henry, and five of us went on the board. There were 10 of them, five of us, 15.

And there were 1900 people. We were 1600 at that 1700 at that point. So we were 3,600 in the company, and then we started buying companies, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and so on, and we got up to 9,000. I was the chairman of all commercial retail in the country.

I always stayed in Dallas. And so I set up division heads in every region. So the honeymoon started to end after about a year when the market changed and wasn't a 10 million profit of down to 2 million. Then, we began to lose. We lost for about ten quarters because of the tax reform act of 86, and we emerged in 84.

Chris Powers: And you stayed till what, 90?

Herb Weitzman: Stayed till 90. And what happened there was they asked me if there was no light in the tunnel. It was March of 89. And I'd been on the board for almost five years finishing up. And I had just gotten off the board then, and they came in and said, we're changing things.

It would help if you guys learned how to run a company. And we were in that in the real estate depression in Texas, East Coast. It wasn't affected, and the West Coast wasn't involved, so they needed to understand it fully. They changed some things, and they said we're going to run the company from California, and that wasn't the deal.

It was a family of companies because all these companies we bought had great leaders. You know, and they've woven themselves into the fabrics of all these communities and cities they were operating in, and Ellis ignored that and had a big ego. A few other things affected his ego that caused him to say, I'll come and consolidate everything out here in San Francisco, and it took me 30 seconds to speak.

If you can do that, I'm leaving. I had grown the commercial. I had developed my development company, and the management company had 125 people. During this period, I reduced it to 75. I was up above Henry, who gave me the floor. I was still running the commercial operation of the company. And my operation became the biggest customer of Henry Miller.

Every commission and every deal done was run through Henry Miller, which is compatible. It was amazing. It took a guy that big to let me do something like that. And it was beautiful, but then when it became something that they're breaking the word, they didn't understand what was happening in Texas.

Then I decided to leave; my people thought it was April 4th.

Chris Powers: Until then, had you not considered leaving and starting your deal? Like you were full, you were fully committed to being part of a larger company.

Herb Weitzman: I planned to do that, but I had separated everything. I got it.

I was on my accounting system. I had my people up on a separate floor and everything. And I liked how it was. I wanted the team, but he made some bad decisions.

Chris Powers: When you real quick, why did it not affect the coast, but it affected Texas?

Herb Weitzman: Because it was, it was the savings alone problem in Texas. You know, it was loans, there was fraud. With Faulkner starting there, out East of San Bradford Lake and Rockwall, it just increased through many of the multifamily developments and the type of loans we're getting. I remember his name, the head of things alone that made loans.

The fraud was that they thought they owned the savings loan. They put up 3%. It's 97, that was government money. They could charge 6 points for a loan and give you a 100 per cent loan. And then I will lend you the fee, and you pay me back, and I take it as income.

And that's what took the savings loan down. And so that was a big thing. Everybody was Taking the same as low money.

Chris Powers: But for anybody that thinks we've gone through a real estate recession over the last couple of years, what is the last couple of years compared to what you remember about 86 to 90?

Herb Weitzman: Nothing. It's a zero. It's a blip on the radar screen. It is a blip on the radar. What we learned in 86 90 was that we changed everything structure of the company, the financial structure, and when I came 18 years later, after we got out of it in 1990, it was not even; we'd covered the cracks in the armour where we were exposed, and we made it through without any problem and going through this last cycle here, has not been a problem.

Chris Powers: Could 86 to 90 happen again, or was it something about how things were back then?

Herb Weitzman: Anything could happen. Yeah. It does the Jamie diamond. The most important thing is liquid. You have to be able to go through the cycles, and real estate is fragile if you have a terrible recession or depression.

Chris Powers: A lot of debt?

Herb Weitzman: Yeah.

Chris Powers: Well, was there ever a point in that, that four or five years, you were like, man, I want to get into a new industry. It could be more fun.

Herb Weitzman: I never had time to think about it because the biggest problem was they the 86 to 90 when Trump Crow and Lincoln property company and all these companies that were building, growing and the market was had to go into this cycle was good.

And they all became illiquid and trampled restructured his company. Lincoln restructured their company. I restructured my company, didn't take bankruptcy, could trade assets with the bank, got everything worked out, and quickly cleaned up the system.

Chris Powers: Cause you had like 170 million, the loans going into that period.

Herb Weitzman: I did. And it was just about all with Republic Bank. And that's when Richard remembered Richard Rainwater's conversation with me a year before in 88; this was now in 89, and I left Grub and Ellis, and I had no idea what I would do. I had everything separated from Miller's office on the upper floor.

And the first thing I did was call Richard. After I met with my team, I said, let's see if he is interested because he had already done a deal with Starbucks and come in with Roger to buy the assets out of the bank. And he, as a result, would own a percentage of the company of all the assets that I had.

He would also have an interest in the properties in the future. And Richard never wanted to own the majority of any company. He always wanted to be there with an active partner and somebody he had confidence in to grow the company. And so, we struck a deal. It was the week of July 4th, and his wife was up in the Hamptons; he came over on a Saturday and a Sunday at my house, and we struck a deal, and he was going to own a 12-and-a-half per cent.

He didn't end up owning it. That is not what he said. He said, look, if you ever do the deal without me, that's fine, Herb. He said, but this is my deal, and this is pretty much. What do you do with Roger and Roger not communicating and being friends today? And cause he worked with Miller, and he was with Miller.

We were friends. And so what happened is, he came back to me after about four months of negotiating with the bank, and the bank wants 90 million as a settlement. And he's at 75, comes in, and says, I'm not getting the deal done with these guys. And I was shocked. I thought he was going to make the deal.

No, it's somewhere. I could be shy of 90, but it would get done. And that was it all through all those meetings, our first meeting with Jim Irwin, the head of the bad bank. We went from that first meeting, and 13 people were there. And I said, why are there so many people here?

And if I wanted to meet Mr. Rainwater, they didn't know him. He spoke about me being a 25-year customer, making all this money for the bank. And I told him after I said I wish my mother could have heard that being such a fantastic, excellent backing to enter these negotiations, but he couldn't do it dejected.

And I had no idea what I was going to do. And then the negotiations, the banks they would never take back would take it. They didn't want any land. They didn't want any land because the land was dropping. It was liquid. It was the worst. Four weeks after that was such a shock to Republic Bank.

They came to me, and I got a phone call from the bank and said, we'll make a deal with you 85. And we will take back any assets you have; we'll take back any land. And that was it. And I made the deal myself with the bank.

Chris Powers: Did you make the deal because you had to, or did you feel like it was the most innovative option?

Herb Weitzman: Had to make it.

Chris Powers: Were there any just? I'm sure you said I didn't have time to think about anything else. I was heading into that whole thing. Was everything chugging along, and then suddenly, like the floor fell out, or could you see it coming for a while? I'm talking about leading into 86.

Herb Weitzman: It was onward and upward after saving on the regulation, 81, 82, things got 83, 84, 85. It was ramping up, and everybody was developing. Money was plentiful and everything. And then it was like February of 86 was when the tax was introduced. A reform act was passed. It didn't grandfather any write-offs, and that was just a cutoff.

So, everyone had a bad loan. And because the properties were overvalued because they weren't getting, they were taking tax write-offs off of the interest, and you couldn't; it was no more write-off. Of the interest, and it was dollar for dollar at that time. And that's what happened to land business, land sedation.

Everybody puts money in land and takes dollar-for-dollar write-offs on their ordinary income. So that was a turning point. That's where it started. Then, the deal began to fail. I went to auction after auction, and when the RTC was formed to handle the disposition of all these assets.

Chris Powers: So, when you signed the deal with the bank at 85 million, were you optimistic now that that was behind you or was it kind of like, shit, I'm going to have to work my ass off for a long time to get out of a hole or did you feel like restart, let's go back and get it all about?

Herb Weitzman: Well, I had 90-94; this is just four years late after 90; after I got out, I will take the company public if I'm a read that 90 lightman. It has 92 properties, which is a 325 million market cap. And so when I got out, I needed capital, so I had to sell some significant assets to generate capital to get to operate. But then I was looking forward to growing it.

Well, what happened is, when I went public with Goldman Sachs, they were taking me out, and the market turned. And that's when the first REITs came out; Simon, JBJ, and a few others went out. And the rates were going up, the dividend rates were going up, you had to sell out. It would cost me too much as they increased, so let's wait a few months. I waited six months, and they called me back. They said, well, nine and a half, I was going out at night, they said nine and a half, it was too costly, at that time I didn't need the market turned good after 90, and we started doing okay on the brokerage side and started leasing up the properties. So, I didn't go public; I pulled it off the shelf, stayed private, and never had to worry about Gout Capital.

Shortly after that, I partnered with GE Capital for 16 years. It was their shopping centre partner in the country. They came to me and asked me because I was a small borrower with them, and they liked us, so we just bought a lot over the 16 years. And I was able to; they gave me a chance to recap them.

So, I recap most of those assets and bring in new partners. And I stayed with them. They got out and got; it took earnings.

Chris Powers: All right. Have you always been the chief capital raiser? Do you have people on your team? I miss you a lot. So, do you always bring in new partners to take out G capital, or what do you think about that?

Herb Weitzman: Oh, yeah. I bring in partners a lot. Yeah, I do. And it's just, that's how we grow rather than being public and taking money to the general market. I bring it in somebody like G Capital, who's there and has their committee with everything to other people on the committee with me they want to invest.

And so I got it, it's very fluent. And by me, if I'd have gone public, I talked to some of these guys after 15 years that they own the company, they diluted and diluted. They might own 3 per cent of the stock. I still need to understand my company. I do only know some things about partnerships.

I love the partnerships and people who have been with me—different levels. Individuals: I might have families with me for three generations. Then, with people like GE or USAA, fees capital or factory fund or all these companies, I  have a great relationship when these are great partners.

And so it is much less expensive because we operate entrepreneurially rather than having to report and have all these people deal with all these read laws.

Chris Powers: All right, so we'll fast forward. So it's been over 30 years since 90, you all, now it looks like you have a retail portfolio, about 44 million feet.

Why have you always chosen to stay in Texas? It doesn't appear that you all are outside of Texas. Is that true? I'm assuming you've had all the opportunity in the world to go across the country, and why have you chosen not to do that?

Herb Weitzman: Texas, we've had difficulty catching our breath so that we could have set up divisions outside of Texas.

In Grubbin Ellis, I had all these people, you know, I mean, Phoenix and Colorado and Florida, you know, I mean, that I had a great relationship, these people, you know, in the company and the brokers. Still, in real estate, you have to stay real close to, you know, the action and real close to the properties.

And I saw Trammell. Henry Miller was best friends with Trammell Crowe, who lived two floors over our office. And so, I did business with them through different categories. I spent a lot of time early on in industrial properties, and, you know, they were having an industrial, and I got to know Trammell, and I saw him; he came to me to be his retail partner to take and grow all over the country.

And I didn't do it for one reason. And that was because the partners that ran those cities would cross all the assets in that city. And when I was doing with Henry, starting, it was not struck. Every asset stood on its own. So, that was a reason I decided not to do that with Trammell.

Also, I wasn't in love with just going to all these other cities and being under the control of somebody who covers that region. And so I passed on that, and that model he had, he got spread out so much that they didn't know what they were buying. And they had such a hard time, so I saw that, and I realized that if I can be in the, and Trammell was encouraged Henry Miller to go to, we're just in Dallas to go these other cities.

So I did. I took the company with my division to Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. So I got to know those cities. And I was still in Miller and so, but I was developing, had developed an operation, no cities and everything. And I could see that Texas, by that time, was growing.

And we just needed to gain market share in every city. And that's what we did rather than getting spread out. I learned early by going over with Kroger in Paris, Texas. And in Canada, I was driving there and back, and I, Henry Miller, was in Dallas. I was taking care of all the leasing.

It didn't make sense; I got it done and learned a very early lesson. And this consolidates your activity in a major city that's growing. It just checked all the boxes. Because I've lost myself through the brokerage company, that's where you learn the market, take care of the customer first, you know, and do your research and become an expert.

That's a tattoo on my back, you know, take care of your customer and learn the market.

Chris Powers: As we look at Texas just today, are you as bullish on Texas today as you've ever been?

Herb Weitzman: More so.

Chris Powers: Oh, why?

Herb Weitzman: Well, nobody talks about the oil. You know, you don't hear anybody talking about the oil much.

Chris Powers: That's a dirty word these days.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah, I know it's a dirty word, but they're the largest reserves in the world. So even though they're talking about moving to all the cars by 35, they still have to keep some running, so you might not be able to buy one as a gas guzzler.

Chris Powers: What data from a retail perspective do you see, and what can we chat about? Everybody thought that retail was dead.

Herb Weitzman: It's not dead at all; it's better than ever, but I can't talk too much about it because I'm going to invite you over on January 11th; we do an annual forecast, and it's over the Bush library. About 450 people are connected heavily to retail and commercial.

You'll see a lot of guys there, you know, and we just finished our survey. I was going through the draft last night, and it's fantastic. So I can come over with you, or you can come over with me, and we can talk about the forecast because it's the best we've ever done.

And I've got one of the most exciting guys in the country coming in for a one-on-one dialogue with me. I always have a fireside chat. We call these people that I've had fireside chats with. It's just great. You know, chairman of Neiman's, chairman of pennies, you know, Craig Hall, Ross Perot, you know, different guys, you know, mayor, you know, things like that.

There's a vital interest to everybody there; we want to give them a lot to take home. And now I've got the top guy in the world with Jeffrey Morgan. He's over there, alternative investments and about 180 billion. He runs, and he's an awesome guy. I went up to New York and met him. We can have a go. And it's going to be great.

Chris Powers: I can't wait. So, is this an official invite?

Herb Weitzman: Yeah, it's officially, he's a futurist. He's a futurist. So there'll be some, you know, question and answer period. And, but hear the question, hear the answers. Everybody will gain a lot because this guy is buying all of the world, you know, with their alternative investments. So he's great.

Chris Powers: What's your management or leadership philosophy on new men and women getting into the brokerage business?

Herb Weitzman: Well, we have always. We're the first to bring women in commercials, and that's been a great decision. And we've got some great women in brokerage.

Even in our management of the properties, we have about 30 managers there in Dallas. And 97 per cent of women now used to be all men, just good at it. And so that's a change. And with the young people, we love to train people our way so they can grow and do everything they want to do, be a partner, and go into a partnership with the company.

And even the only thing you can't do is have their name on the sign. It cost too much to replace those 2,000 signs I got in the house. So, we love to train and bring them in, and they turn out well. Some of them do, some don't.

Chris Powers: How can you tell if someone won't turn out?

Herb Weitzman: Well, they don't take it seriously. They don't have a passion. They're taking shortcuts. They need to compete better. We named our company the University of Texas Dallas Real Estate School. There are 800 students in the business school. Business schools have 11,000 now. And it's ranked number 10 in the country in public universities.

So we're active there. So, we hire out of About seven universities and in Texas, primarily, we prefer to hire somebody that says, I'm going to come to your company, and they might be an M and A, but I'm from Houston. So how are you? We'd like you to go to Houston where, you know, that market, you feel comfortable in that market anymore.

Any market is good in Texas. They're all good. Austin's awesome. You know, it's just phenomenal. I was in a conversation with the head of state in this region for Whole Foods early this morning, just talking about Texas. They're based in Austin, and the growth and so forth. So it's just the place to be.

And the young people will keep coming here because the laws are good. Corporations have just turned into the financial centre of the country. Second, New York, but even Texas has more people in shape. JP Morgan is the largest bank in the world. Then, in New York, they get 30,000 here and 28,000 up there now.

And they're hiring more here. You know, Wells has come here, tons of people. So distribution, manufacturing, electronics, universities. You see, it's good to check all the dots.

Chris Powers: All right. Speaking of checking all the dots, what makes an excellent retail deal? And I know there are different types of retail, and what do people get wrong that you see over and over when you drive by? You're like, I cannot believe they did that; we would never do that.

Herb Weitzman: But turn center backwards.

Chris Powers: Okay. What does that mean?

Herb Weitzman: I turn it, they face it the wrong way. When money flowed out, savings loan loans were available in the early eighties, and people were getting money they had never built. I mean, They made them backwards. They built it where, you know, the stores would face inward and have no visibility on the street.

Chris Powers: What were they thinking?

Herb Weitzman: That's a good question. They didn't think they would get money shovelled at them and thought they would build something.

Chris Powers: Okay. So it's got to face the street. What else? There's got to be something else.

Herb Weitzman: Well, the better centres have the better anchors. And you'll see a lot of centres that are messed up.

And you have to build the centre to the socioeconomic area of the trade area. If it's high, you got to go high. If it's medium, you have to go medium. You have to go above medium. If it's low, you have to go above low. You have to do your best to improve the quality of merchants and price points for your market.

Now, restaurants have saved the community centre business because it was a transition to bigger retail stores. You know, jewellery stores, big shoe stores, and some excellent apparel in the community centres. Most of those went to the power centres when they were just about 23 years old.

It started in 1990, so that's 30 years old. And so that's where most of the. Bigger stores went, and they took a lot of business from the department stores, nodding at the underbelly of the part of store business. That's why they're weak right now, but they also, you know, ended up with some of the community centres.

So the community centre stores went there just because there was more traffic and they were bigger. But finally, we re-tenanted those into three categories. One was restaurants, two were medical, and three were about 200, 250 service tenants. The grocery store serves a real purpose: for people to get what they need, such as necessities, close by.

And now the community centres are doing great. There are 74 million feet in DFW, and, you know, it's 96 per cent occupied. Fort Worth's got 40 million feet of community centres.

Chris Powers: What's the difference between the kind of suburban retail and the urban retail you'd find in uptown urban retail?

Herb Weitzman: Well, urban retail, a lot of urban retail is on the ground level of the apartment houses or the office buildings.

You can't; something that happened, you know, is a nice little retail strip across from the Crescent on McKinney Avenue. That was built a long time ago when prices were low. But today, around a mile of this building has been property sale for at least 500 a foot. So you can't build a retail.

It's an adjunct to something else today; it's something that the city requires. Ten thousand feet of retail space is in your space. They won't walk up walkability, or they, you know, need affordable housing and some more significant apartment projects, so where do you end up with retail? Retail In Uptown or Urban: You buy another building. It's already there. And you pay a top price for it.

Chris Powers: Do you prefer one over the other?

Herb Weitzman: Yeah. By not developing, you can't, you know, don't work. The numbers don't even work today when building for 4 million feet. And if we did, let's go. You know, we're active.

Let me tell you a little bit about what they are. San Antonio has 112 acres at an intersection of our loop and 35 good corners. And we have Ikea in 300 000 feet now, we have Florida Corps, we're making a deal with the House of Sports, which is, you haven't seen one here yet, it's 120 000 feet, that's a new concept that Dick's Sporting Goods has created, and there's only 12 in the country that have been open, and we are making one there, in the centre.

We have a restaurant park, you know, with DJ Brewery, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, strips and so forth. Now, you know, we got a gym that will go into their 40 000-foot gym. That's a million feet that that's going to be. That Ikea goes all the way and serves down to the Mexican border. So it's a barn burner.

Then, we have half a million feet over on Interstate Highway 10, a growth area in San Antonio. And that's going to have 550,000 feet. And we have a Walmart superstore there. Then we have some of the stores built. We're just doing faces because we have the land free and clear. Suppose we had to go and buy that land to pay the price that land costs today and not know when you'll get an answer. It's an excellent path to go broke.

Chris Powers: How long have you owned that land?

Herb Weitzman: Long time.

Chris Powers: More than five years.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah, he's probably 11. Yeah, I bought it from, you know, one of the servicing companies. The first price on it going in for that was 3. 15 a foot. It's worth a little more than that, but it was the nastiest piece of land you've ever seen. The drawers, the giant construction company that we hired to clear the land, and would you sell that? It was shrubs, snakes, and all kinds of stuff in there.

And this guy that says, he says, I would tell you, Harvey says, I live nearby, and I never noticed this site here before the Southwest corner of this generational corner because it was such a mess. And so cleaned up with roads, and everything's beautiful now. Then, in Houston, we have a project in the town of Manville, which is 288 south of the medical centre, about 20 minutes.

And you have highways at the corner of Highway 6 that go over to Sugar Land. And we're building a million there. We just opened a H E B, and we have loads going in with a home improvement, a bunch of restaurants going in, and it's being built in phases, probably two or three, but we had to put the whole district in.

We had to put the water sewer plant in, which I had yet to experience doing, and we put the roads in. We got a lot of incentive money, but we got to sell the bonds to get that money back. I don't recommend it to anybody, but we're in it and still have that land for about 12 to 12 years. It was assembled in 10-acre tracks.

Chris Powers: Okay, real quick, when we're talking about Ikea, that's a big deal. It's serving down to the board. Is Ikea out in the market, looking at different things? How do you get Ikea in your deal? I'm sure everybody wanted Ikea in their deal.

Herb Weitzman: Everyone's out here, but they slow down their development.

It is one of the last deals Ikea did now in Southlake; they just put an Ikea internet store where you can digitally order anything in the store. And a ten 000-foot store that just went into Parks Village right there next to the shops at Southlake. By the way, shops in Southlake are one centre we built with a central market, a great centre.

Chris Powers: You still own it?

Herb Weitzman: Yeah.

Chris Powers: Okay. Do you ever sell?

Herb Weitzman: Not much, don't have to.

Chris Powers: But how'd you get Ikea, the 300,000-footer?

Herb Weitzman: Went to them, and so we didn't build for them. They wanted to come to San Antonio, and we were one about four sites, and we got them. We sold them 30 acres, and they own 30 of the 112.

Chris Powers: So they'll be 100 per cent on their property.

Herb Weitzman: Butt we ended up entering into a development agreement with them, and it got incentive agreement with the city gave us 27, 000, 000 for, you know, cause we had all this cost in the, in the, the roads and the development cost and so that worked, worked out good.

So we split that with Ikea. So we end up. We got 13 half million dollars for our expenses because we got Ikea.

Chris Powers: When you think about those huge, massive developments with all those tenants, how much of that is Weitzman being in the market for so long that you can pick up the phone and call those tenants and start knocking them down versus.

Any guy with a lot of money and buying extensive land could pull it off similarly. Or does it take retail's real interesting in that you got to know the tenants and every big retailer I know, a retail landlord, you know, my buddy owns 30, 40 dollar Generals? They hold tons of this.

They can pick up the phone and get another one done. How much of that for you all on these massive sites is already knowing who the tenants will be and just picking up the phone and making it happen?

Herb Weitzman: That's about 98 percent.

Chris Powers: That's the whole game.

Herb Weitzman: It's about the relationships, you know, cause we're heavily in the brokerage business, and we bring partners into these transactions.

So we're the sponsor, and we have relationships with all these people, you know, and in fact, I just came from a meeting, you know, we're going to meet Wednesday with the company that's wanting us to just, I getting prepped on the major, you know, national chains wanting us to JV with them and be a partner with them.

So, you know, those are, you earn those things. That's just being here, being available, doing a good job all the time. The main thing is they make money with us, right? Yeah. Cause we focus on the tenants. We will keep a space vacant and go after the right tenants that we know to cross that where there's cross-selling done, and everybody does better rather than just put in some off-colour use or some X-rated store or stuff like that.

You know, something that we typically don't put. Surplus at all in the centre. We have Goodwill in, and Goodwill's turned out to be, you know, because of change and, you know, how second-generation clothes are looked at. I mean, the young people, it's the style. So they've become an attendant in many of these centres.

Chris Powers: So you have to pay attention to the brands, walk in their other stores, and get to know you're as much a retailer from a customer's perspective as you are their landlord. You have to know it'll work. And it won't work.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah. I mean, I'm calling him up all the time. Tell him your sign could be looking better at night.

You know what? It's looking good in the day. I said, yeah, but when the light goes on at night. All you see is all black; something's gone wrong with your system up there. They didn't realize it because they weren't there at night. And then, you know, we give them suggestions. I remember going to a Kroger in South Arlington, and they wanted me to look at a remodel job.

They did. And so I go there and go through one door, and I go through another door and have to go through another door to get inside. I call up the head. I said I don't know if you meant to do this. But I said I've got to go to three doors to get in your front door. He said?

Well, let me check. Call me back and say you're right; engineers built that whole thing. You know, so, you know, you just, we're constantly having that type of conversation.

Chris Powers: You still drive around and look at your centres.

Herb Weitzman: All the time. I drive Saturday to look, you know, at land and areas that are growing and so forth.

Chris Powers: That's what you do on Saturdays.

Herb Weitzman: I do a lot by that Saturday afternoon. First, I went out and biked with my buddies around White Rock.

Chris Powers: You still bike?

Herb Weitzman: Oh, every, almost every day.

Chris Powers: There's a story somebody told me here that said I heard Herb would run on the track early in the mornings for exercise in the dark, and his junior brokers would have to run with him.

Ask him if it was to discuss their business plan or if he was teaching them to exercise.

Herb Weitzman: I was talking about their business plan; we ran for 18 years at SMU. Meet up here at 5:45 in the morning; rain, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, rain, tornado, hurricane; we're there. And so we get out there, but the guys always wanted to talk, and I said, come on out.

So, on the first lap, they were perfect, having a good conversation. The second lap slowed down. Third lap, almost nothing. On the fourth lap, they were dying. So they quit after the fourth lap.

Chris Powers: They got good at telling their business plan. Pretty concise. Get it done in that first lap, or you'll never get it done.

Herb Weitzman: But we did that a lot. You know, I don't know why we quit, but that something happened.

Chris Powers: When you think about just what's gone on with construction prices and pricing. How have you all adapted to it? Or, like, what comes to your mind when I tell you that construction prices are up?

Herb Weitzman: Well, as I mentioned, numbers don't work with interest rates, go up to eight and a half per cent, you know, for three to four, and costs have gone up.

Before we went into this rise in interest rate, we had just finished a building in San Antonio for 48 bucks a foot for a strip. And now it costs 150. You can see that the retailers certainly need to be more proactive in increasing their rents. They don't do that; they give you tremendous resistance.

Until they realized they couldn't get any stores because the numbers didn't work. So they have to pay more to get a deal done. It's still working. And this morning, the head of the region and grocery chain came in to talk and said their prices are still going up—one of the significant cranes you buy groceries at.

That's the situation right now, and here's what's happened. We were doing well going to 19, but when the pandemic hit, things stopped. And what happened is we've been through so many cycles. And many guys dropped off after the cycle; they decided they could make a deal work.

They got into other categories, or they dropped out of the business. I'm not saying they didn't have some money. They sold everything, but they didn't want to put it back at risk. And I don't blame them because there's a, you know, the numbers weren't working. And so they now are, it's a smaller group that's developing.

And if you're cold, if you haven't been in the market with contractors, pricing, repricing, changing, you know, from steel to wood frame, you're born, but most of them, but when they found they had three or four and a thousand on month overheads, you know, and no deals, they started cutting their people.

So what happens is that they've lost their capability. And now, there are only a few deals out there. See, but then, to build it back up, they need a pipeline of deals. So right now the market is in the best condition it's been in ever because of no new building or very little new building and the occupancy is so great because of the densification that's taken place, you know, every year for the last ten years, 150, 200, 000 people moving here.

So it's perfect, but then you still need help to build. Because the rents are gradually going up to make the deals work. So we'll see. There are a lot of deals planned now, but you know, anything could happen. You know, interest rates will come down more slowly than people think. And we need to find out about the cost.

It's a lot of questions. So, the anchors are going to be driving it. And then there are so many goals and bills. They're trying to keep their pay, their overhead and selling, and hopefully, they'll make some money.

Chris Powers: When you said the anchors drive it, you mean a big anchor needs something, and they'll make the economics work for a developer.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah. And that's where you win by owning the land because you don't have to go. Now you got accrual there, but you can play with that accrual. It means you're not; you don't know what to do at a bank.

Chris Powers: So, what's your land strategy? You'll go to an investor and say, look, we're going to think this is an extraordinary land.

It's a way out, and we'll landbank it for X amount of years until the proper development comes to us.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah. They're long-term players.

Chris Powers: Cause you said 11 or 12 years.

Herb Weitzman: Well, that's sometimes. But that's always the plan. Sometimes, you'll see somebody who maybe has the nod from one of the significant users to go; they'll do that occasionally. They're all explaining slowly, except H E B, and buying everything.

Chris Powers: When you're taking a big piece of land out of your portfolio and developing it, are you always looking to replenish your land position? Are you constantly buying some more? Yeah. Is there any formula to it, or just some kind of whatever?

Herb Weitzman: No formula. We're just trying to keep up the growth, and it doesn't make any difference.

You know, it can be out, 30 East or 30 West or, you know, North or Southwest or something, we, we try to stay in areas, you know, where people want to be.

Chris Powers: If we were sitting here ten years from now, like, if you think of Frisco, it's probably 14 years ago, but Frisco was goat pasture not too long ago.

Are there any other areas of DFW if we were sitting here ten years from now and said, you aren't going to believe what will happen to this place over the next ten years? What is something to get excited about around DFW?

Herb Weitzman: Well, you take probably 180 degrees, and you go out 30 East, and you go all the way around in the fan.

That goes over toward East Plano and all the Plano and all of Frisco, and then you go on over to the areas, West of 35, you're going over to, you know 377, you know, you go up to Aubrey, you go up through to the mid-cities. And then, you know, you have all those areas around Fort Worth that are growing, you know, to the West.

You can only buy some of them; you have to pick where you think is the best value and where it's most likely for the retailer to come in because they usually want to buy. So they don't want you to be purchasing the land. So that's why we bought it before: if you're out there, you know, with a good site, you have a lot of leverage to make a deal with them on a lease.

Chris Powers: Why do they usually want to own?

Herb Weitzman: Because it's cheaper, they can have development capability. And they can build and own and keep it, or they can turn around and put them in on it, cap it, and sell it, make money.

Chris Powers: So, like, when Ikea buys that 30 acres from you, how much of a say do you have in the design of their building or the layout?

Herb Weitzman: We have a say in the layout. I don't know, Ikea, that they've leased. I've represented. I brought Target to Texas, and I did about 70 deals with them, and, you know, after we, you know, had done a lot of deals, they said, can you develop with us?

I said, yeah. So we built a bunch of centres with them. I still have them with Target, but Target went on. Target didn't want to; I don't. I only know of a deal that they leased once. It was the first ground lease they made in a centre in Austin called Capital Plaza. But we tore down the Montgomery ward building on 35 by the university, and they have a ground lease there.

They've gone more into ground leases because people won't sell to them. People want to make a ground lease with them if they have a great site.

Chris Powers: All right. Amazon has been around long enough. Everybody thought Amazon was going to wipe out everybody. That still needed to be confirmed.

Retail is not dead. Is there anything that comes to mind by way of innovation in the space or how retailers are now thinking that will change the way we, as consumers, interact with retail over the next ten years? Or is it mostly going to be some of the same stuff? Is there any ground-breaking innovation coming that the ordinary guy, like me, not in actual retail, would just not be thinking about?

Herb Weitzman: Well, I can't. The next wave is AI, and I am still determining. My people are playing with it now, but I need to see how it will affect the customer. You know, the Amazon merger that was with John Mackey there.

Nobody was whole foods. Nobody could even tell Amazon was their partner. I mean, they own the company because they left it so autonomous. But they're getting into it now. And I think that they're going to make some, they know more about the food industry and a guy that came up, you know, with Mackie, who was the chief operating officer, he really understands the people and what the young people like, so he's carrying the flag.

And that's a good thing. However, Whole Foods will do some unique things with Amazon's capability. They do a tremendous job inside the stores. They do so many renovations or take over other buildings, and like in New York, there may be 11 stores now. They are renovating department stores or our parking garage over in Jersey, you know, they can take things and make them original.

H E B is good at that, too. Kroger and Tom Thumb are not; they will get and follow one model and one interior motif. You can go to Live Oak, where they put some funky stuff because it's near Deep Elm. And so they've got graphics and things like that. And the president says I didn't go to them for an estimate.

He said I knew they weren't going to approve it. I just told him to do it. So it's funky stuff in that one on Live Oak, just East of town.

Chris Powers: So you think Amazon's bought Whole Foods, they've just been. They've been an active owner, but they've been collecting data and understanding how it all works.

And you think. We'll see more over the next decade than we saw from Whole Foods in the decade since they've owned it.

Herb Weitzman: Yeah. What they'll see and what the, one of the big things they're going to see is they're going to see their capital. You know, they're going to be able to do things because, you know, they had, didn't have that much money, you know, I mean, to spend on certain things, and now Whole Foods will be able to have to do things. And they're ramping back up, you know, to do, to be a growth company now. And so we'll see how that goes. Doing one of their stores takes a long time, and they've been in deals on this conversion. Some of this type of stuff they do takes six or seven or eight years until it gets open.

Chris Powers: How many whole foods have you done?

Herb Weitzman: We've done two.

Chris Powers: Do you want to do more?

Herb Weitzman: I'd like to. But they need to be more prolific. So what happens is, you know, it's been so long. You can't spend a lifetime on a deal. You got a ticker. Anytime you touch a piece of dirt, you're there. It's accrual, or it's got an interest rate on it, and it's not free.

You have to get these deals done. And if you miss one, you must be able to carry it.

Chris Powers: You think delivery will keep ramping up, whether it's food or any other delivery. I mean, we had food delivered last night. It was so you when you think about the additional cost of picking it up; it's getting pretty high.

Is the trend more delivery, or do we realize that if the VCs aren't subsidizing much of this delivery cost, it's pretty expensive to take it home, and I'm more? I'm not talking about Amazon. I'm talking about delivery from your grocery store. Deliver from your typical retail tenant.

Herb Weitzman: After the pandemic, people like it. We were going back to the stores. We saw restaurants, you know, get used to where people would eat on the patio. But we went to every shopping centre, talked to the restaurants, and gave them a patio that cost 2500 bucks.

I put the railing up, and we gave them that free because to see people sitting out and also increasing their sales, but those extra seats out of the patio, it's been great for the community centre, and they have got so many people that want to, you know, they. They have something closed, but they have fans and heaters.

I like to eat out on a patio a lot. First, it's sometimes like, why do you have a better conversation? Nick and Sam are across the street from our front door, and we often go there. And I'll tell you, you know, we chatted every night. It's hard to talk, you know, they don't have any patio, but it's

Iconic, and so online buying went up to 20 per cent, and it's come down now, but people like to buy and want to get a present. Like my wife, they like to have something delivered to her, and it's like it comes in like a present. It makes you feel good.

I got something today. There's some psychology to it. I'm curious about the guys. Guys like that much, but the women love it. I have a funny; they're 87 per cent of the shoppers.

Chris Powers: It's Nick and Sam's. And then there was Nick and Sam's grill next door, right? Are they both still open?

Herb Weitzman: And it's Nick and Sam's. It never had a grill, but didn't they open a second restaurant on Preston Road? They have one. It does a lot. The main steakhouse. And now, with Heinz going across the street from us, that took the maple terrace building.

Are you over there? It's now turned into an office building, and they built a 26-story apartment building behind it. And they put under construction catch out of Aspen seafood right there. And then, right on the other front of the building, those mesos are Mexican food.

So now that's becoming a hot corner in Uptown, and I'm on the other one before it was, homeless people and things when I first moved in 33 years ago, but now it's turned out to be the mainstream corner in Uptown.

Chris Powers: Do you own the office building? It's going to be a good deal.

Herb Weitzman: So it's a good deal, but it's not for sale. We paid it off, put a little debt on it, and remodelled the whole building.

Chris Powers: All right. What does work look like for you today? You've been in this industry for a long time. You've seen a lot; it appears to me after our conversation today that you're as energized about it as ever.

Herb Weitzman: So what does work look like? Work is enjoyable. Now the fun is like me going on Saturday too. Get on the ski slopes or go down to Galveston, where I have a condo and walk in Robinson and the, you know, the toes in the sand. It's very, it's just so enjoyable, you know, to be a part of the team, you know, it's all about the team and all the young people, you know, sometimes they look at you, you know, like deer and headlights when you talk to them, but they finally get it and see them grow.

And then, you know, we have so many great clients. That we, you know, love to take care of, and I think we're so blessed to be in a city, you know, Dallas, Houston, Central and Austin, Fort Worth, that has so much growth to them, you know, where, you know, it allows somebody to reach a potential.

If they want to, but it's only for some? And so the, most of the students I'll sit there, you know, and, uh, I teach a little bit up there at the, the real estate school at UTD and some of them having a hard time understanding how to be entrepreneurial, you know because things are so big, things take so much money.

So I got to break it down to how little bite chips. How you start, and you gain chips and more chips, and chips get bigger, and then you learn more and have to do it. You know, you can't; you must take step by step in this business because of a lot of legal that you must know and so forth; that's all part of every day.

You know, I come in sometimes, and I got a day plan back to back, and then so many different things happen, and it's exciting and challenging. Now, at some point in time, I get tired, but I still have a lot of energy and love what to do: making deals, creating a part, creating a part of putting deals together.

Still like that, I could improve at just sitting. I'm more of a doer. So we built great friendships out of this, too, just lifelong friends. I don't know anything better than that.

Chris Powers: You've done a remarkable job, Herb; thanks for joining me today.

Herb Weitzman: Well, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much, Chris.