Mark Allen

@homegymcoop Amazing

NEW: UCLA Football decided to turn its weight room into a megachurch for the team's annual max-out squat day.

Title IX of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is poorly constructed. No distinction between single platted and individually platted BTR projects. Many are functionally low-density multifamily. BTR represents less than half a percent of total US housing stock and is barely tracked at the national level. Regulators are writing federal legislation for an asset class that would have zero impact on home affordability. A listing I was signing this week is tabled. Part of the pipeline I have built over the last few years is on pause. How do you invest in American real estate when policy can kill your investment retroactively? Why not grandfather existing BTR communities?

@realEstateTrent Always be selling.

Actual call with a broker today: Me: Great to meet you, would love to do a deal with you. What type of retail deals do you focus on? Broker: I actually wanted to convince you to buy industrial assets instead, which is what I focus on.

Congrats to my West Point classmate MAJ Nick Dockery for being awarded the Medal of Honor and living to receive the award. I was in Afghanistan when I heard this story of Nick. I had just got into country and the first thought after hearing was “give me that same opportunity”. The culture of my unit was to be blatantly upset if we went outside the wire and didn’t see any action, so that’s naturally where my mind went. Seems crazy to me now to WANT to get shot at. Selfless Leadership had been drilled into us at West Point. You don’t train for that exact moment, no drill replicates it. When it arrives, adrenaline spikes and instinct takes over. For guys like Nick, men who love this country and the brothers next to them, fleeing was never a real option. The instinct to protect each other and eliminate the threat runs deeper than self-preservation. Great reminder that when crisis ensues, act decisively, protect your team, seek support, and execute on the fundamentals. Proud of you, Nick.

@Top100Rick Who’s got the best sticks though?!

Everyone is talking about the Dallas country club prices. Yes $250,000 is a lot. Yes $30,000 a year is a lot. But the crazy part? If you won Powerball tomorrow, you’d still never be able to join a bunch of them. Preston Trail, Dallas, Northwood, Brookhollow you better go find a member to marry if you want in.

We’re at the point in Dallas where well run deals purchased at the peak of the market, still in bridge financing, are worth the debt.

@kenmcelroy Ken, equity is gone in the sunbelt. Lenders are impaired at this point.

In 2008, 30% of sellers were distressed, triggering a market crash. Today, many sellers refuse to lower prices, even if it means not selling. They won't accept 25% less if it doesn't make sense for them. #RealEstate #MarketTrends

@BobKnakal Another 9-figure exit sounds fun.

Yes, FREEDOM! The word of the day for February 14 - the two-year anniversary of my being fired by JLL. All I can do is give a great big THANK YOU to senior management at JLL for giving me my freedom. I was stuck in a contract that would have taken me many years to get out of. My consistent interaction with the press must have been driving them crazy. I was never given the real reason for my termination other than "we are going to go in a different direction". But it is not lost on anyone that I was fired immediately after the @nytimes did a glowing page and a quarter profile on The Knakal Map Room in their Sunday edition (their largest circulation). The reason I am so thankful is that I have never been happier in my life. The entrepreneurial spirit returned almost immediately. Starting @BKRealEstateAdv has been nothing short of invigorating. In 2025, our first full calendar year, BKREA closed 43 deals containing a total of 6,160,000 existing or buildable square feet. and over $1,780,000,000 in dollar volume. The square footage sold was my highest total since 2014, and the dollar volume was the highest since 2016. But the thing I really love is that I am now again grooming and inspiring a new team of brokers that I am sure are going to go on in their lives and achieve outstanding things. The proudest legacy of mine by far is the 34 companies, or divisions of companies, that are owned by or run by people who learned the business at Massey Knakal. I offered to run 90-minute Zoom training sessions every weekend (alternating Saturdays and Sundays) for JLL's Private Capital business nationwide, and that idea was rejected - likely because they didn't want my persona to be too prominent within the company. I love the teaching aspect of a leadership position and am so happy to be back in that role. The past two years have been fantastic! We are using proprietary AI that never would have passed layer after layer of approvals, and that AI is helping us innovate and process data faster and more effectively than ever before. And the most important thing about that: our clients are getting better quality information, allowing them to make more informed decisions, and those more informed decisions lead to better outcomes. From a salesperson's perspective, there is nothing better than that - happy clients! For a more in-depth overview of my firing, the evolution of BKREA, and what provided the inspiration that has fueled my "rebirth", check out my column in the March edition of the Mann Report.

@mjznyc Valid concern. If yields decline from here it may because of uncertainty, which could widen credit spreads.

@MarkAllenMulti Myopic focus on benchmark rates is useless without discussing spreads. Yes Ts can be lower but I wouldn’t bet spreads will be. For those waiting out rates, spreads can easily widen by way more than Ts tighten.

Someone in the audience asked a question about a new Fed Chair and what happens if they cut interest rates. I don’t believe that will have much of an effect on long term, fixed interest rates. I redirected the conversation back to the fundamentals. Supply and demand. If demand outpaces supply, rents grow. If rents outpace expenses, prices appreciate. When prices appreciate, liquidity increases for the asset and cap rates compress. Investors need to accept that 5% interest rates for multifamily is below average and prices can appreciate if rates are generally stable at that level.

Someone in the audience asked a question about a new Fed Chair and what happens if they cut interest rates. I don’t believe that will have much of an effect on long term, fixed interest rates. I redirected the conversation back to the fundamentals. Supply and demand. If demand outpaces supply, rents grow. If rents outpace expenses, prices appreciate. When prices appreciate, liquidity increases for the asset and cap rates compress. Investors need to accept that 5% interest rates for multifamily is below average and prices can appreciate if rates are generally stable at that level.

@DallasAptGP Didn’t they just say it would roll into optigo conventional? Don’t forget about FNMA for $3M+ too.

Word is Freddie Mac plans to kill the Small Balance Loan program. This is the best financing tool that serves Missing Middle housing. Over the past decade, it has financed 600,000 apartments. $45 billion in loans. Every state. Credit to Hiten Samtani at The Promote for reporting on this today. The SBL program was purpose-built in 2014 for $1M to $7.5M multifamily deals. Five-to-fifty-unit buildings. The backbone of workforce housing. Before this program, financing a 20-unit building was a nightmare. Too big for a residential loan. Too small for institutional lenders to care. Local banks offered short terms, full recourse, and low leverage. Every market had different rules. In 2014, SBL fixed that. Non-recourse lending at this loan size did not exist before. Ten-year fixed terms on a $2 million apartment loan did not exist before. A borrower in Amarillo getting the same terms as a borrower in Dallas did not exist before. The program has funded over $45 billion across all 50 states. Nearly 600,000 units. 95% affordable at median income or below. 63% in minority neighborhoods. Nurses. Teachers. Firefighters. A decade of results. And now DC wants to merge it into the conventional desk. Here is what that means in practice. Without a specialized small loan program, local owners go back to the pre-2014 financing landscape. Local banks with full recourse. Shorter amortization periods. Higher rates. Less leverage. Less consistency market to market. The SBL program created competition in a space that had none. Remove it, and the cost of financing small buildings goes up across the board. Not because interest rates changed. Because the one lender that forced banks to compete on terms is gone. That math is simple. When it costs more to finance a building, fewer people invest in it. Fewer renovations. Fewer acquisitions. Less capital flowing to the 5-to-50 unit properties that house working families in every city in America. This hits hardest in secondary and tertiary markets. In Dallas or Miami, owners will find alternatives. In Amarillo or Anchorage, the SBL program was often the only consistent non-recourse option available. Those markets lose the most. Washington talks about wanting more affordable housing. More mission lending. More Missing Middle. I am still hopeful that this is just a rumor. That they are not going to dismantle the most successful mission tool Freddie ever built. My firm uses the SBL program to refinance construction debt after we renovate and reposition small buildings in Dallas. We currently have 8 SBL loans, closing 3 more this month, and are hopeful to do several more by the end of the year. Firms like mine will find a path. We have the balance sheet and the banking relationships to absorb higher friction. But the small owner in a small market with one small building? His financing just got more expensive, more restrictive, and less certain. His incentive to invest in that property dropped. And nobody in Washington is building a program to replace what they are taking away.

@lsanger Same with your salvation, vice versa.

As my son points out, this is free money. Bet that Jesus won't come back. If he doesn't, you win. If he does, will your money really matter?

When your deal dies 9 times but you bring it to a close.

Enjoyed NMHC this year with many meetings with my Colliers colleagues from around the U.S. I’d characterize the sentiment as “opportunistic”. Everyone wants to do deals, but the top Buyers are buying just a few deals per year.

Fake journalist Don Lemon celebrates arrest as he becomes relevant. His white husband is probably worried he’ll cheat on him if he goes to jail.

@jakecrandall @grok with the current inflation rate, what is $2.5M in 30 years in today’s dollars?

30 years old and make $400K a year? The S Corp will create an additional $2.5MM by age 60. 1) $25K of savings per year 2) Invested at 7% 3) $2.5MM at age 60 Build the money-making machine, then optimize!

@jt_ryder I skip past AI posts, which seems to be about 80% of content these days.

Mixing with CRE professionals in Vegas... I'm hearing lots of social media comments and shoutouts. I will share my main point in those conversations: If you try to post a bunch, you will fail. If you become a creator/writer, you won't. To me, it's that simple. All about identity.

@bryan_johnson Think this applies to all greens supps?

I’d cancel your AG1 subscription. They just completed a clinical trial and the results show no clinical benefit.  This has been obvious for years.  AG1 has no real product substance and is fundamentally an influencer heist.   Two simple alternatives (75% and 56% less $), outperform AG1 in randomized clinical trials. Two simple mono-ingredient alternatives that outperform AG1: 1. Chicory inulin 12 g daily ($20/mo) 2. Resistant starch 30 g daily for 12 weeks ($35/mo) AG1 is not worth $79/mo. AG1 study results (4-weeks, N=30): + No significant changes in blood biomarkers compared to placebo (CBC, CMP, lipids). + No statistically significant improvement in digestive quality-of-life scores (p = 0.058). + No significant metabolic or inflammatory biomarker benefits of any kind within the scope of what was measured in the trial. + Only small shifts in microbiome taxa but clinically irrelevant at this stage. + The intervention did not increase microbiome diversity compared to placebo. Alpha diversity was unchanged, and the taxa changes seen were only from pre- to post-analysis within each group. Between-group differences were limited, and the placebo actually showed similar or even potentially larger shifts. This means the observed changes fall within normal placebo-driven variability, not a real treatment effect. No global microbiota shifts were detected. Chicory inulin 12 g in constipation patients + 12 g of chicory inulin daily for 4 weeks (compared to maltodextrin placebo) + Global microbiota shifts: enrichment in butyrate-producing Bifidobacterium and Anaerostipes, and depletion of the pro-inflammatory Bilophila. +The effect was seen by comparing intervention vs placebo in a cross-over setting, a very rigorous type of clinical analysis in which each person serves as their own control, eliminating a lot of individual random noise. + The trial also met its primary objective by improving constipation symptoms in the targeted patient group. Resistant starch daily 30g for 12 weeks in older adults + Significant increase in Bifidobacterium in both middle-aged and elderly participants, with an increase in the beneficial microbiome byproduct butyrate, and reductions in Proteobacteria (including inflammatory Escherichia–Shigella) in the elderly. + Resistant starch also significantly reduced blood glucose, and produced greater reductions in blood insulin and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in the elderly group.

@daniel_mac8 What excel project takes two weeks? I’m intrigued.

Microsoft Excel is still the most popular business application, by far. Now, any normie in their corporate job can directly experience the magic of Claude in Excel for $20/mo. Personally completed a project that would have taken 2 weeks in 30 mins. This is a huge deal.