George Ross on Government Real Estate
Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot of what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I’m your host, Victor Menasce. This is the weekend edition. We’ve got a very special show for you today. We have a repeat guest, none other than Mr. George Ross. George is famous for having been the executive vice president in the Trump Organization.
On today’s show, we’re taking a close look at the first week of the second Trump presidency, getting perspective on what some of the executive orders will mean for specifically real estate investors. Listen to my conversation with George Ross. Welcome, George. It sure has been quite a week up to 40 executive orders compared to what’s happened going forward.
In the last few minutes, I checked that Donald averaged 55 executive orders per year during his first administration, and he has done 40 in the first three days. He is going to move very quickly. There is no question. Over the past week, I’ve started looking over the executive orders, trying to make sense of them from the perspective of what they mean for real estate investors.
One of the things readily apparent to me is the tremendous amount of government office space that is going to be on the market at really reduced prices. There should be an opportunity for investment there, particularly in smaller buildings. If you need 50,000 feet or 100,000 feet of a major building, it’s going to be available from the government.
The government will be moving various divisions, trying to figure out what they can afford to get rid of and how to best do so without it adversely affecting the market. The federal government seems to own about 300 million square feet of space in totality, and I don’t know if that includes owned or leased.
There’s going to be a beautiful opportunity to do things with the government that could not have been done before Donald got involved. He is under tremendous pressure to show results. One of the major areas which could use changes to modification is the government use of space.
Government workers are mandated to come back to the office space, they won’t operate from home anymore. This space has to be occupied; it has to be renovated, and it needs to be done on a quick timetable. If a small element of the United States government requires 50,000 feet, they’ll get 50,000 feet. There’s going to be a mandate to get rid of the rest.
What I thought I understood is that if a government department needs a certain amount of space in a specific location due to something unique about that location, they’re probably not going to let it go. They’re probably going to keep that unless they consolidate that function somewhere else.
Victor, a lot of what you hear is geared towards showing the Trump organization as something that’s doing a lot, even if it’s not necessarily happening the way they say. It’s about showing results. I see an opportunity for creativity.
Creativity is the answer. If someone can take over this building, pay the expenses, pay zero rent for five years, and somehow tie it in to benefit the government, that’s where the opportunity lies.
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