Thesis Driven Mailbag: September 2023

Thesis Driven dives deep into emerging themes and real estate operating models. Today’s letter is our monthly mailbag in which I answer questions from subscribers. Want to ask me an anonymous question? Email me at brad@thesisdriven.com

The average Thesis Driven letter weighs in at a bit north of 2,500 words. While that’s a reasonable length for a deep dive into farmland investing or PropCo structures, it doesn’t afford us much flexibility to tackle other topics of interest to our readership.

So we’re introducing a regular (monthly?) mailbag in which I respond to anonymized inquiries from Thesis Driven readers. Today’s topics include:

• What US city I’d pick to invest in real estate;
• What I’d do if I were CEO of WeWork;
• My take on real estate operating expense inflation;
• The biggest mistake I see real estate tech entrepreneurs make;
• An update on the Thesis Driven developer database.

If you had to buy real estate in any US city today, where would you pick? —JD

Am I looking to preserve wealth or create wealth? If I’m a high net worth individual looking to park $20 million I’d have a different answer than if I were a GP looking to clear a 8% pref return hurdle in 3 to 5 years.