HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown

Ep. 32 Rav Singh - From Midwest Roots to Hospitality Leader in Commercial Real Estate

• Heather Ewing, CCIM • Season 1 • Episode 32

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Unlock the secrets to thriving in commercial real estate with Rav Singh, a leading figure in hospitality from San Antonio, Texas. In this insightful episode of The CRE Rundown, Rav recounts his inspiring journey from his Midwest upbringing to becoming a powerhouse at KW Commercial. Listen as he shares his strategic approach to not competing with clients by branching into multifamily and self-storage investments. Rav also emphasizes the importance of education, nurturing long-term relationships, and forming strategic partnerships with savvy developers, offering a masterclass in building a successful real estate career.

Ever wondered how masterminds can elevate your commercial real estate game? Rav dives into the powerful concept of monthly masterminds and intensive eight-week courses tailored for KW commercial agents. Gain confidence, learn to uphold commitments, and explore the expanding horizon of educational webinars focused on key hospitality market trends and 1031 exchanges. As we reflect on living fully and pursuing dreams beyond real estate, this episode promises to broaden your perspective and arm you with the knowledge to achieve unparalleled success in this dynamic field.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown, and today I have a fellow CCIM I am excited to introduce to you Rob Singh. He is a commercial real estate professional coming to us from beautiful San Antonio, texas. Rob, welcome.

Rav Singh:

Thank you. Thank you, heather, nice to be here.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely welcome, thank you. Thank you, heather. Nice to be here, definitely, and if you could share with our guests a little bit more about you so they can understand who you are and the magic that you bring to commercial real estate.

Rav Singh:

Well, thank you, Absolutely yes. So I am based out of San Antonio, Texas, Been in this wonderful city for the last maybe 18, 19 years, but really went to school and grew up in the Midwest, in Des Moines, Iowa, in that region, so moved here to San Antonio, got into investing just got my license and sort of went in the commercial real estate field automatically just because of my background in business. I just gravitated to numbers more, Got into the commercial real estate side and then got my CCIM back in 2009. And since then I've been brokering a lot of specialty assets and that included just investment properties for my clients and got into the hotel business all by accident, just because I knew somebody who knew who had a hotel, got the opportunity, got the listing and took the listing and learned how to broker hotels. And so for the last 10 plus years I've been focused on hospitality real estate.

Rav Singh:

I'm with a company called KW Commercial which is based out of Austin, Texas. It's a big franchise. Keller Williams is a big franchise and I lead their hospitality division for the country, and so we have brokers from all over the US and Canada and other parts of the world that are getting into the hospitality industry, and so I'm pretty much putting the pack together. We're doing a lot of masterminds, we're doing a lot of just one-on-ones on understanding what hospitality brokerage is so I've been doing that for a while now. What hospitality brokerage is so we've been doing that for a while now. And then about five years ago, my brother and I got into the investment side again, where we joined our portfolio together and started buying multifamily properties. Well, long story short, about five and a half years ago we started that and now we syndicate these properties where we have passive investors that invest with us. So we are investing multifamily hospitality and self storage properties.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I love it. That's terrific. I think one of the aspects of commercial real estate that I really enjoy, no matter which asset class, is the ability to really create and forge your own path, and it's pulling together the different mix that you really enjoy. Where you shine, obviously mixing the hotels and then the multifamily and storage. At first glance you wouldn't think about it, but the nice thing is it's anytime you learn a process, you can then utilize it over different asset classes and then learn the various peculiarities of each arena. So I really enjoy that. What would you say was the maybe the most challenging aspect of that of getting into the other asset groups after hotels and hospitality?

Rav Singh:

So I would think for me it was more of a natural fit, more than a challenge. You know I was already doing hospitality, I knew hotels, but I didn't want to compete with my investors, people who I am being a fiduciary to buying and selling those properties. So for the last five years we didn't touch the hospitality space from an investment standpoint with our company. We have a company called Spur Equity, and so it's based on our investors' demand. Our investors' mandate to us now is we've done a lot of investing in multifamily, which was a natural transition because we already had some rental, had, um, you know, some rental houses. We already had some duplexes and fourplexes. So we kind of knew what we were doing on the multifamily side, small scale, and that where we started buying a hundred, 200 unit apartment complexes and investing with other sponsors and building these properties, um.

Rav Singh:

And so I'm a firm believer that education is the foundation and no matter what you do, you have to have some sort of an education in it. And so when we first started investing in different asset classes, I went back to school. I went back to just learning and taking classes and really understanding the fundamentals of it. But at the end of the day. I'm also a firm believer that you can do everything, and so we rely on developers, we rely on other sponsors that know more than we do, and we partner with them. But having the foundation helps because you understand that at that point that nobody's really taking advantage of you at that point.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Right and something I really want to highlight that's very commendable also is your point about not wanting to compete with your clients and with that alternative asset class. You don't hear about that very frequently, right, because typically we invest in what we know, but by creating the education and the knowledge in those other asset classes and then obviously rolling up your sleeves and digging in there, you really acquire the knowledge you needed and also the pivotal partners. I'm too a firm believer. To excel and really do well, you need to pull in the best from all the pivotal partners. I'm I'm too a firm believer. To excel and really do well, you need to pull in the best from all the different areas and hand select your team.

Rav Singh:

Absolutely, Absolutely. I mean you can't do it. Do everything you have to have, as you said. I love that. You have to hand select the team and then, once you have that team, I mean that's, that's an extension of you, right, You're a partner in the hospital at this point.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, yeah, and I think with commercial real estate also, due to the duration and timelines of how long it takes to complete deals, I think we all really understand the importance of relationships and it's the reciprocity of that and really seeing them almost as an extension of yourself, of wanting to make sure they are taken very well care of so that that way it continues to help them and and their family and lineage and it also helps yours and ripples through in a great way.

Rav Singh:

I love it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're in a people business. We are, you know, we work with people. We don't work with dollars or capital or money. Obviously, that's the extension that we need. So for us, our mandate is that when we are looking at a new project, forget the underwriting, forget everything. First and foremost for me is the person behind it, is the company behind it, is the leadership behind it, and once we feel comfortable with that and have that alignment of thought, at that point we look at the underwriting and the property and the market and all that. But that's all that secondary. We're investing in people, right?

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, definitely.

Rav Singh:

So along those lines, how would you say that mindset comes into the picture of these long term deals, the long term relationships and just really putting all the pieces, together a mindset of abundance, that you know you can't win it all, you can't have it all, but together we can, and so really, that's really how we look at the deals that we do as Per Equity when we are working with our investors. You know it's easier to do bigger deals if more people are with us, and it's that power, it's the power of one plus one equals 11.

Rav Singh:

And that's what we talk about all the time in our world, because, yes, I only have so much reach. I can grab whatever I can. That's in my vision, in my scope. But to go beyond that, you have to stretch yourself, and for us, stretching ourselves mean actually going out and bringing people in our fold together, and so it's that one plus one equals 11. Mindset for us abundance mindset that has taken us from, you know, five, six doors to 3000 doors in five and a half years.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I love that. That's fantastic. Definitely what's part of your process in crafting that team right, what's kind of some of your due diligence patterns or what's in the framework as you put together a team.

Rav Singh:

Sure, absolutely. So you know, for us it's important that we're not looking at every single deal in the market. We're not looking at every single market that we want to be in. What we are doing is we're working one-on-one with people. Let's say, in the conversations that we're having with you right now, understanding where the team, where the people are coming from. And once we understand where they're coming from, then we really dig into their past performance to understand what they have done. And what I mean by that is the work that they're doing, the amount of full cycles that they've done, the underwriting that they did and when they exited, you know, was that alignment there? And then really I want to know them on a personal level. So we go and visit the team and you know we're in three markets.

Rav Singh:

We're in Texas, we a personal level, so we go and visit the team, and we're in three markets we're in Texas, we're in Phoenix and we're in the Carolinas North and South Carolina because we found partners there and that alignment of thought is there. And then we go there and we not only work with them to see who they are and their team that they're working with, but also we want to check out the market. So we end up meeting with folks in the community, we end up meeting with the leadership and the city itself, just to really understand where the market is headed, where the market is going. Because I think it's important for us not to just put blinders on and say look, it's not my money, it's my investor's money, let me just deploy it somewhere right. We have a producer responsibility and we're putting our own capital online at the same time, and so I think that alignment of thought is very, very important for us before we deploy even $1.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely, and I the first response will be no, until you really get into a groove and also have some of the different relationships where you do get hand fed some of those really good offerings and they understand what you're looking for in that respect too. So, jumping back to a little bit earlier, you had referenced also a mastermind. So did you start a mastermind, or tell me more about that?

Rav Singh:

So so you know I do, and that's specifically for commercial real estate agents that are very interested in the hospitality field, and currently we're only offering I'm only offering it to KW commercial, to my within my brokerage.

Rav Singh:

But yes, I do a mastermind once a month and then I offer a deep dive course into hospitality, where you know it's an eight week intensive course that I've designed, where you know participants sign in and they have to show up for eight weeks and we talk about really what is hospitality, what's a hotel, what's that industry look like, all the way up to working with owners, working with buyers and sellers, how to take a listing, where to market the listing and at the end of the day, my goal is that after the eight-week session that they've done, which is really crash course into the hospitality CRE brokerage, that they're able to at least go in the field and feel confident enough to go talk to a buyer and the seller, because you know how it is when we first start, right, if you don't have that confidence and you don't show that confidence, it's very hard for a buyer or seller to give you that assignment, um and so exactly, and and I'm the, I'm an extension of their team, so they can always rely on me and we've taken listings where, uh, we've gone together, uh, with my resume and their resume put together and take, and, you know, taking down multi-million dollars worth of listings, which not that it could not be possible without me, but I think that conference is so important to have so that deep dive course that is done.

Rav Singh:

I've done it now three separate times with you know, seven, eight individuals each, and my hope is that they're going to outshine me and outperform me and, do you know, bigger and better deals.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Right right, it's kind of like Napoleon Hill.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Right yeah, that's right yeah.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

But I think you touch on something really important and it is confidence, and that's where you hear a lot whether it's information that you're reading on LinkedIn and magazines elsewhere of how is it cultivated, and I think it was Ed Milet in one of his podcasts that had mentioned it's keeping the promises to yourself and also to others, and after a while you start to believe because you're delivering on what you're promising each time.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

And also, I think you know the position that creating this mastermind for your KW brokers and agents that is such a great gift too, because it helps them in building their confidence, because they know that they can make great promises because you're there and they can rely on you and get that information so that they're still delivering to their clients, because otherwise, if you weren't there, they can't make those or they shouldn't make those promises right, and so it's nice to have that backing that you provide and what a great way to teach them and foster it and have that. Do you think you'd ever open the mastermind up to anyone outside of KW or do you think it's going to stay within in-house?

Rav Singh:

So no, I think the goal would be that one day I will open it up, and I did that once a quarter. I've promised myself, you know, that I will be opening it up to the folks in the community itself. Just overall in the broader community.

Rav Singh:

So our first mastermind that we did it was more of a webinar than a mastermind where I brought in co-stars hospitality director and we talked about the market. We talked about what's happening within the hospitality framework in the US, and so that was really widely received. We had over 150 participants that showed up and a lot of people were owners. A lot of people were just getting into, wanting to get into, and my goal was not to say, look, I'm doing this because I want you to come and give me the listing and let me sell it for you. This and that.

Rav Singh:

No, no, we're in it to win it right, and so it's a long-term game for us, and so for me, as I said, it's about the education itself, and so learning about what's happening in the market becomes really important. We're about to do another one in September which will be more geared to hotel owners and understanding taxes and 1031 exchanges and really understanding the power of that. A lot of people, I feel like you know they still don't understand that subject, and so we're about to do that and that'll be open to the community also.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Oh, that's terrific. Do you anticipate down the road maybe opening a mastermind for the multifamily and storage as well, or do you think you're going to keep it with the hotels?

Rav Singh:

I think I'm going to keep it with the hotels for now and because that's the focus that I have. Now. We do educational webinars on multifamily and on self-storage, but that's more to our investor base in Spur Equity. We have about 1,000 people within our database, so not a whole lot. We have about 150, 180 people who invest with us on a pretty normal basis and so for them, as we are cultivating and as we're growing, we're doing lots of different educational webinars and those are the ones that we are teaching them about how to be a passive investor, what to look for, what to look in a sponsor, what type of questions to ask. So not only are they investing with us, but if they want to go invest with other people, they should have the knowledge they have the power to do that.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

That's terrific, and my last question, as we wrap things up, is what does living fully mean for you?

Rav Singh:

That's a beautiful question, this is the big one.

Rav Singh:

Yeah, yeah. So living fully means a lot of different things, not just commercial real estate. To me, I mean, this is just an avenue that we have. To me, living fully means, you know, going after your dreams, you know, and really not just chasing your dreams, but more than that, you know, accomplishing some of those dreams in life and that could be related to, you know, health, that could be related to spirituality, that could be related to family, that could be related to so many different things. It's encompassing those dreams that you have into reality. To me, that would be probably living fully.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I love that right, Because we're not singular, focused right, we have many parts and aspects of ourselves Definitely Well. Rob, thank you so much for joining me and please do share how can people connect with you and learn more about you.

Rav Singh:

Well, absolutely. I'm always on LinkedIn. You can just type my first name, last name, CCIM, so Rav Singh CCIM. You can look me up there. Or you can go to our website, which is spur equitycom as S-P-U-R-E-Q-U-I-T-Ycom.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Rav Singh:

Thank you, I love being here. Thank you very much. Thanks, bye bye, bye.