Herman Enayati

Getting active on X again after a few years away, so I thought I’d reintroduce myself for those who are new or I haven’t connected with in a while. I’m a commercial real estate attorney based in Southern California with ~20 years of experience representing sponsors, developers, and investors on acquisitions, financings, and leasing matters across the U.S., with a particular focus on borrower-side financings and joint ventures. I’ll be sharing observations from deals and practical insights for navigating CRE transactions.

Prob obsolete now w new AI tools. Point was that the ability to automate standard forms has been around. With Harvey you can use the workflow agent to easily replicate what took hours to program in contract express and can have it extract info from the LOI (contract express would generate a questionnaire a paralegal or LAA could populate to generate an initial draft).

@LA_CRE_Attorney so maybe the answer is for my firm to adopt these

met this guy at a party. they do all their loans on the same form w the same term sheet, and he says his shop would be really interested in someone standardizing the process w AI and would even pay a premium if it meant the docs went out sooner than usual. in my experience, construction loans are too complicated for AI. but do you think with a large sample of form precedent, a process could be set up? it seems maybe the better question for analyzing whether AI can do something is the level of complexity involved in the task rather than the doc. drafting a construction loan agreement end to end falls into the "currently too complex for AI category". but if we start working on it now, will it be able to do it in 2 years? i think so. selling ppl on the idea of an AI RE Law Firm is like selling umbrellas in a rainstorm without being sure the umbrellas work. maybe the answer is to start selling them at a big discount with a warning and a notion that it's an investment in a process that's going to pay off.

@CRELeasingLawTX Financial reporting common across asset classes. Important distinction for retail is the type of reporting. Retail LLs want sales numbers (and not just when percentage rent is involved).

Office/industrial folks, how often do you see leases without tenant financials requirements? I usually see financials required but curious if that’s unusual

@realestatedude0 @danielgothits Life has been so much easier since I moved to OC last year.

@danielgothits South la is crazy. Move to oc

I left LA and my cortisol levels are down like 99% and I’m happier than I’ve been in years lol Seriously apart from my friends I can’t think of a single positive thing about that place Just the most demonic crime-ridden sprawling soulless city of all time

@SinaiLawFirm At least all his ideas are aimed at increasing development.

First time I can remember a politician setting a number goal (-10%) on cost of housing instead of some vague promise to build more homes

@credealjunkie Hasn't happened to me yet but my kid is getting old enough that I'm starting to dread this inevitable situation

As a parent there are few things as painful as your kid becoming friends with a kid whose parents are insufferable, and slowly realizing you will actually have to spend time with these terrible people.

@BoOkoroji 🎯 having kids provides purpose in a way that's difficult to find any other way, even if you're already a self-motivated high achiever.

Having young kids does something to how you think about time. You stop wasting it the same way. Not because you suddenly have less of it, though you do. Because you see it differently when someone is growing up right in front of you. My sons are young. Everything is fast now. That urgency they give me, to build something worth leaving behind, to be present while I still can, I don’t take it lightly.

@JeremyGlantz It's been too long. I'd love to catch up soon.

I'm about to drive to Boston. Of course, will be listening to @thepromotepod - but that won't take up my whole trip. Anybody here I need to catch up with?

@JeremyGlantz True. I think mentorship and internal sponsorship (part of having a great boss) are among the most important factors to success assuming one is willing to do the work (and a great boss makes it more likely they'll want to do the work). Certainly true at large law firms.

@LA_CRE_Attorney true, but having a great boss can help you love something you didn't think you would love.

It's usually true that you will be happier, more productive, and more successful if you do something you love. However, if you are a college senior or a young professional, be careful about jumping too quickly to take a job because you think you'll be doing something you love. If you end up working for a bad boss, that's a quick way to turn something you love into someting you hate. Instead, focus on who you will be working for. A great teacher and mentor is worth their weight in gold, and they can turn something that you like into something that you love!

@DMAC_19 Not much but the firm pays for enterprise AI tools so my personal spend is low but otherwise it'd be $100+

How much are you spending per month on AI tools?

@realEstateTrent Easier to be unfiltered when anonymous (not that you are anon).

Too filtered because they care too much what other people think, so their content is boring

@DrescherLaw I'm starting to stall after losing a similar amount but I've also fallen off the past couple weeks with diet and exercise as work and family has been crazy. Finding I plateau a bit but once I get strict again I make progress. It's getting harder to control appetite now tho.

I honestly hit a stall after losing about 45 pounds on my own. Was getting 15k+ steps a day and tracking everything I ate and couldn’t get any lower. Got down to like 1700 calories a day and still couldn’t lose, but I felt terrible. Decided to try retatrutide. Turns out I’m one of the people that doesn’t get appetite suppression for it. So I still felt hungry. But stayed on it for the metabolic effects. And the last 20 pounds fell off even though I upped my calories to 2400-2600.

I haven’t talked about this a lot on here because, well frankly, I don’t think most of you care. But deciding a year ago to unfat myself has been the best decision I ever made. I see a lot of GLP hate on here, but I take no shame in the fact that my transformation has been aided in part by tirzepatide and retatrutide. I honestly think I would have 180’ed right back around and gained most of the weight back if I hadn’t implemented them when I did towards the end of my weight loss. As busy professionals, health often doesn’t even crack our top 10 priorities. It’s hard to make time for the gym, eating clean, or going for a walk outside. But there are so many tools nowadays (and I’m not just talking about peptides) to make things incredibly doable for even the busiest of us. If you’re like me and wanting to make a change, would love to chat about it and share my experience with you.

@dtmorgan18 How dare you try to base your decisions on facts! Seriously tho, good on you for questioning ish.

New policy position just dropped: We should base tax policies on good assumptions.

@AdamB1438 This is awesome

Stop what you're doing and watch this

@jasonjosephlee Worked on so many of these pre covid but these days between interest rates and the increased cost to vacate it's become far more difficult. Good on you for executing and doing so in a way that helps all involved.

We bought this value-add 24 unit property in San Diego for $3,100,000 and now it's worth $6,000,000. All of the major investors in the area had seen this deal and had passed on it. The building was filled with senior housing tenants paying under $1,000/mo and no one wanted to deal with the California rent control laws. It was a 2% cap going in. We were willing to take the risk, because we know how to properly vacate buildings in CA, and this basis was way too low to pass up on. Plus the senior housing restriction was now gone. We brought donuts and drinks to all of the tenants. We made friends with them and strategized on how we could get them into much cleaner and higher quality housing without breaking the bank. It turned out that most them could afford a higher rent in a much nicer building. This building was infested with cockroaches, mold, termites, and broken appliances. It was a mess. We were able to transition the current tenants to better housing by paying for all of their moving costs, gave them 100% of their deposit back, paid for their security deposit at their new place, and paid for 3 months rent at their new place. 99% of the tenants were happy to move and we kept one of them there as an onsite manager because she was such a great person that knew the building well and she was in a financial crunch. She only pays $500/mo now. We renovated all the units and turned the property into a 7.25% unlevered yield on cost. A huge win for our investors while also treating tenants like humans, not objects.

@KenjiCapital Pass

Thoughts on this new “Spoken For” terminology?

To be clear, the leases likely allow LL to do this without cooperation from tenants but how do you manage the relationships while all this is happening?

Shopping center near our house in Anaheim Hills — full reno underway with a new Trader Joe’s coming in. This should breathe new life into what’s been a struggling center, but it's gotta be rough on existing tenants: entire site under construction, half the parking lot blocked off, and all the signage stripped temporarily. Retail LLs, how do you deal with shop tenants in a situation like this? Do they cooperate knowing business will improve once TJs is open?