ReConvene 2024 - What did you miss?
A unique real estate conference
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Just the other day in Santa Monica I attended ReConvene 2024 “unconference” in Los Angeles. It was an absolute breath of fresh air from many stuffy real estate conferences I’ve attended. Sorry to those who put on events, but there are a lot of them that just don’t stand out. That doesn’t mean that yours is not awesome!
At ReConvene the get-together is for “real estate operators” who own and operate real estate across the risk spectrum (from developers to buy & hold), geographies, product types, and scales. At first this seems counterintuitive as to why a cross section of people who don’t all do the same thing would want to hang out together. But in practice one of the nicest things is there is no one there trying to sell their services. No offense to service providers, I’ve been one, but when more than half the conference is trying to get face-time with an owner operator, the owner doesn’t get to “hang out with” and learn from other owners.
From the moment I arrived I noticed everyone wanted to connect with everyone else. Yes there was the odd person with a huge ego who thought because they owned more than 1,000 units they are a big deal…but many “big deal” owners/developers were super open, there to learn and to meet interesting people. Now that is refreshing.
So for the presenters at an event like this how is the line-up decided? Well the organizers, Moses and Simran Kagan, clearly looked for inspirational speakers and people who could go deep on analytics. The conversation included speakers on the Main Stage and those who presented in break-out sessions. Having attended a few conferences in my more than 20 years in the business, my expectations were that a few nuggets could be had, etc.
Here are some notes on the speakers I caught:
Northland, CEO Matthew Gottesdiener - He provided an overview of what he and his firm is seeing in terms of multifamily trends across the United States. He is extremely incisive, yet humble and someone who loves the data to the point of creating their own internal metrics. He shared insightful data that he and his company use to make decisions. He asked that we not share it publicly, so I’m going to respect that here. Matthew was open and fun to listen to on the future of multifamily and where he saw opportunities to invest at scale (downtown Class-A multifamily towers).
Rankin Holdings, Owner/CEO Logan Rankin - Logan shared how he operates his multifamily portfolio of more than 5,000 units and how he built it with no outside capital. His background working at Target for 10 years then starting his real estate entrepreneurship journey is incredible. What is more incredible is his creation and use of industrialized processes in the multifamily value-add space at scale. Truly inspiring. He is also a former college basketball player, which of course is a great thing.
Experiential Hospitality, Founder Isaac French - 25 year old Isaac shared his story, building a small short-term rental resort (7 homes in a compound style site plan) in Waco, TX. To market the property he used Instagram and obsessed over the details of the design, construction, and guest experience. It paid off with the sale of the property for more than $7MM. A successful entrepreneurial story where someone built a business from the ground up doing things the “right way”. There are clearly big things ahead for Isaac in our industry.
The people on the event were of the highest quality. What does that mean? I mean there were extremely successful operators and developers there. There were also family offices, Co-GP’s, and investors. To the credit of Moses, there were also emerging sponsors and young people who have built or are currently building real estate operator type businesses. The early stage sponsors I met were both excited and grateful to be in a room with others who were building as well.
Will I go back in 2025? Absolutely. The spirit of entrepreneurship is stronger at this event than any room I’ve ever been in. Until next time, keep on building.
Cheers,
John
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