In this special memorial edition, we remember Joe Soley, CEO and Founder of Monopoly, LLC, whose remarkable journey from delivering newspapers in New York to becoming a successful real estate investor stands as a beacon of dedication and entrepreneurship. Joe's career began with humble roots, delivering newspapers and serving in the Coast Guard. His early ventures in Baltimore included significant projects for companies like Black and Decker and Dunkin' Donuts. His move to Maine marked a transformative period, where he developed properties in Camden and Portland, including the iconic Old Port area. Join us in remembering Joe Soley's legacy in the real estate industry.
In this special memorial edition, we remember Joe Soley, CEO and Founder of Monopoly, LLC, whose remarkable journey from delivering newspapers in New York to becoming a successful real estate investor stands as a beacon of dedication and entrepreneurship.
Joe's career began with humble roots, delivering newspapers and serving in the Coast Guard. His early ventures in Baltimore included significant projects for companies like Black and Decker and Dunkin' Donuts. His move to Maine marked a transformative period, where he developed properties in Camden and Portland, including the iconic Old Port area.
Join us in remembering Joe Soley's legacy in the real estate industry.
Joe Soley, CEO and Founder of ...LC - The Boulos Beat Episode 4
Fri, Dec 20, 2024 10:10AM • 45:25
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Portland positives, commercial brokers, Coast Guard service, real estate start, Baltimore expansion, family enterprise, Old Port investment, restaurant challenges, art collection, property acquisition, economic concerns, retail future, waterfront development, political challenges, building permits
SPEAKERS
Joe Soley, Greg Boulos
Greg Boulos 00:07
Could you summarize what you see, some of the positives Portland has going for it. What advice would you give commercial brokers just getting into the business for the next 10 to 20 years, what do you see happening to commercial real estate here in Maine, we'd like to welcome our listeners to the Boulos beat podcast. I'm your host, Greg Boulos. The Boulos company is northern New England's largest commercial real estate services firm with offices in Portland, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We've been selling and leasing real estate in Maine, in New Hampshire, since 1975 this is a series providing insight into Maine's real estate movers and shakers. I'd like to introduce this week's guest, Joe soley, as far as I can tell based on information I've researched. And you tell me if this isn't correct, Joe, but you were born in 1931 in New York City, son of Max, who was a doctor and Sandy, who was an English teacher. Exactly. Joe grew up on the edge of Hell's Kitchen in section of New York, and your first job was delivering the New York Times at the age of seven. You moved to Baltimore at the age of 17, and then in 1953 you went into the US Coast Guard. And then the same year, you married Barbara Berman, and you have four children, Richard, Tim, David and Jack, right? You were educated at John Hopkins University. Graduated 1953 Johns Hopkins. Johns Hopkins and you have a Master, Master of Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT from 1982 I believe it was so welcome, Joe. So if I look at that timeline, 1953 when you graduated from John Hopkins, you got married, joined the Coast Guard, that was a pretty busy year, wasn't it, I
Joe Soley 02:13
was drafted, actually. Oh, you were drafted, yeah. And the war was on, really heavy, and they asked me to come into the academy. So I went to the Coast Guard Academy was became 120 day wonder. But about two or three days before we were issued our final commission, they said, because you've gotten through this and it was tough to go through, you have to stay in four more years. And at that point, I said, look, I mean, I'm drafted. I'll serve right to the duration of the war, which was hot and heavy, but I don't want to be committed to four more years afterwards. So I bugged out. 80 more people in the service did the same thing, which they accused me of being the ringleader, which I probably was, because I was firm about it, and we all went into whatever they wanted to do, and they put me on a destroyer, and it was a tough service, but it was worthwhile and important.
Greg Boulos 03:12
And were you in career at all, or was it along the coast? Where would you like
Joe Soley 03:16
to get to? I said Japan. I never saw Japan, and the cutter that I was on could never make it. It was a dde that the Navy took over because of submarine warfare. The Navy, we had a navy commander came on board, a guy named scalabrini, and he was tough, so we had to repaint the ship with camouflage colors, no more white ships. And we had to work nine. I mean, it was a total thing. You worked eight, but down four, eight and four right around the clock. So I still can't sleep one four hours, because you got those valuable four hours, and then you have tough eight, and you could be doing anything, but that's the way the Navy works, and the Coast Guard is much more relaxed. Again. Two photos over two years. Yeah, so Joe,
Greg Boulos 04:01
how'd you go from serving in the Coast Guard to buying investment properties? I mean, how'd you get your start in real estate? And where
Joe Soley 04:09
I ended up in Baltimore, because I was married in Baltimore, and I had been living there, I went through Johns Hopkins, and I graduated the same year, 53 from Johns Hopkins. And I love Baltimore because I worked my way through Johns Hopkins. I had no scholarship or anything, and I was pouring concrete and building and 11 million guys would got honorable discharges like I did. So after we took a tour of Barbara and I took the what you call the money, when you get your honorable discharge, they give you a few $1,000 we went all over the world, and I came back to no job at all. So Barbara had a wonderful job because she was a psychiatric social worker, and we were hell bent on having children. So I just got to work and just luckily things worked out. I started building at night. Daytime, poured concrete. Wonderful contracts. I contacted Black and Decker. We did all of black and Decker's work. For instance, Armstrong, cork, Life magazine, just a number of people who are situated in Baltimore. And through just hard work, we built up a great crew of
Greg Boulos 05:15
300 people. So he really started from nothing. Well,
Joe Soley 05:19
completely nothing. I had no no gifts or anything. But the whole city started from nothing, because that city was on a real expansion mode. So I just went with it. It was a post war expansion that was magnificent, and Baltimore became a city to really take notice from a city that was pretty droll and unhappy before. And when I left Baltimore, it was at the top of its king time, it was a million population, or close to a million. Now, I understand it's been let down, but that was part of because I left, of course, if that's the
Greg Boulos 05:54
reason, I'm sure absolutely. Now on the right over here, we were talking about former vice president Spiro Agnew, who was at one point before that, he was the governor of Maryland, but you knew him
Joe Soley 06:08
very, very well. Yeah, Ted was a very good speaker, and he was also head of the PTA before that. And when he was head of the PTA, that was a position in Portland and Baltimore. Excuse me, I go back and forth from Baltimore to Portland. Mistake, and he spoke for us at the zoning hearings, because with all the buildings that we built, we had to get appropriate zoning. And he was magnificent speaker. Did a very good job for us. We fed him lines. We worked things out. He was a very amiable guy, very friendly, very sincere, appearing and so forth. But of course, when he fell in bed with Nixon, other things developed, not happy things, as you well know. And
Greg Boulos 06:51
did you stay friendly with him during his time in the in when he was with Nixon? Well,
Joe Soley 06:56
part of that time, but we were not very friendly with Nixon, obviously. And that put a real crunch on things. But he really went overboard with Nixon, unfortunately. And he got in trouble, of course, and he had to resign and under fire, which was sad, yeah, I
Greg Boulos 07:14
remember it well. Said, Joe, sadly, your wife, Barbara, after giving birth to four kids. Four sons died at the age of 32 or 3333 of cancer. And I'm just wondering, how did you raise four boys, and also have your career be so successful?
Joe Soley 07:34
It was hard work. She was very helpful to me, as well as having a full time job. And she really worked. We were just worked together real hard. But somehow raising four boys together is a lot easier than a single child, I think, because the boys all pitched in, and they still do. And the beautiful thing about the boys is they love each other, and I was always telling them that I'm expendable because I acted as mother and father for them. And I said, you're very, very fortunate, because you all get along well, and to this day, they're just terrific. In fact, Richard my tallest he's six foot eight, second son. He built a house for all of us. He's all over the world, and he built a house for us about two hours south of Santiago, Chile, and we go back down there frequently. In fact, we're going there in a few months again, and the whole family goes down well, I'm taking AVI and Timmy and David. We try not to put too much of a load on him, because we all have our rooms in this house he built right between two volcanoes in a small Cape just about two hours south of Santiago.
Greg Boulos 08:39
Avi is your grandson, I assume, actually,
Joe Soley 08:42
AVI is my great grandson, great grandson.
Greg Boulos 08:47
And I know you are close with your sons, because I think every Friday, don't you get together for lunch.
Joe Soley 08:52
We do that started in Baltimore. We started having Friday lunches in Baltimore, and the boys decided to continue it up here. And that's really nice, but it's more than that. We pretty much talk with each other, at least every day or every other day.
Greg Boulos 09:05
Now I know that all the sons are very successful in their own right, and I know, of course, Tim Soley, your son, Tim, owns a lot of real estate in Portland. Do you ever compete with each other?
Joe Soley 09:18
No, actually, it's pretty much all of us are involved in it, because East Brown Cow is not just Tim alone, like Tim headed up the projects for the the hotel on Fourth Street, Hyatt. Hyatt and Tim headed that project, with some helpers and so forth, but he got deeply involved in the hotel, but it came from all of us and its own in a large degree, in small and large degrees, by all of us, even including the little two and a half year older. So it's a family enterprise, but each in the family has a different contribution. David, because I think he's a phenomenal lawyer. He an appeals lawyer more than anything. Else he can see things that we can't necessarily from a lawyer's viewpoint, Richard sees them from more dramatic viewpoint, because while he was at MIT, they developed AI. So he tried artificial intelligence, yeah. So he tries to get us as mechanized as possible, you might say. And he really does a wonderful job there. Timmy likes to be in a leadership role on different projects, and he heads up that that particular one, and now he's going further, because we hope to build a tall building on site there
Greg Boulos 10:32
that's right at canal Plaza in the parking lot, because we are the garage, correct? Because we're a tenant of Tim's company. Is tenant floor is yours at canal Plaza? What's the plan for that tall building is going to be residential, and how many stories Hotel?
Joe Soley 10:47
It'll be over 20 stories, if it's approved and accepted. And we have credits from the lower buildings to use. From that we can use our credits on exchange Street and canal Plaza and other credits. And I think we have enough credits to do it, but it'll still take some zoning maneuvering, because I'm trying to see that the land isn't destroyed the way it's been going. Because right now, we're flooding the land with no areas of breath or air. There's no room for grass or trees. Typical example of that is what's happening. We just passed it. You and I just passed the former lumber yard lumber on commercial number, and that's getting crowded with the condos there and the hotel coming. Of course, the hotel owns that northern part of that section there and and there's just no breath anymore. Whereas if we went up of the air with thin, tall towers, you'd have the chance to have a much more interesting city where air could flow free, and you'd have some grass and trees and make it much more colorful. We're still not a major American city, where we're a contributory city, where we're a suburb of Boston, so to speak, and it would be nice to see a little more air and freedom here. So I'm hoping that's the direction we're going to go, and we're trying to lead that direction as much as possible. And if to
Greg Boulos 12:06
approve, that's going to be Portland's tallest building. Oh, it will be
Joe Soley 12:09
by far. Yeah, the tallest building we have now is 16 or 17 floors, and this will be over 20.
Greg Boulos 12:13
You know, if you do build that building, you're going to be taking my parking spot. No,
Joe Soley 12:17
we're going to parking spot for you. Okay, all right, we've got this one time sure we can find it.
Greg Boulos 12:25
Joe, what was the first property you ever purchased or developed? Probably was Baltimore, right in Baltimore. Wow,
Joe Soley 12:32
that goes way back to Baltimore. Man, that was in the 50s. I can't remember the first one, but I had a major hookup with Black and Decker, but a lot of other people there too. There was a chain of carpet stores called carpet fare, and I built all their stores. Dunkin Donuts. We did all of those. We did a whole bunch of 711 stores. And with the seven elevens, we built them in strips where we could put all kinds of other stores with them, and we developed many, many of them. And that ended up in Dallas, Texas. It had been a Japanese company, and we just started from one to the next. And we had a great crew. We lived in an area of Baltimore that was changing, and we had a great crew living with us, right around us all the time, and we would just bring them down to work and develop these things, that concrete, the steel, the masonry, and that carpentry, and it just all developed working together. And it really worked nicely. Joe,
Greg Boulos 13:34
when you left Baltimore, you moved to Maine, to Camden, Maine, and how'd you happen to move to Camden, of all places
Joe Soley 13:41
while we were in Baltimore, which is murderously hot in the summers, and the summer was our big construction and effort. It was too much, so we pretty much either worked July and let August go, or vice versa, because the men couldn't take point concrete both July and August. So I took my motorcycle as far as I could go up to Maine, figured be nice and cool. And I got to a small town about 80 miles above Portland. I said, this is beautiful. And I found the local broker who was drying out in a place, and found his wife on the street. And she said, let's go over and find him. And I said, I want a house on the water, and what do you have? I said, I've got $1,000 in my back pocket. I could spend 1000 a month. And he found a house on the water in Camden, which was absolutely beautiful, but in terrible shape, so that that's for us, had no heat but eight bedrooms. And we took that house right away. We all moved in during that month in the summer, and we had a wonderful time. And went from a city of almost a million people to a town of two or 3000 and the kids just loved it was a totally different experience. So the kids really enjoyed Camden, and we made it a home. And. Much as possible. And it became much more serious because my second son at one trip, which was a few years after we bought the house, he developed an exploded appendix. This, Richard, Richard, yeah, Richard could have died on the table and right on the way back to Baltimore, because we had to. It was a 14 hour trip between Baltimore and Maine, and we'd make it in one shift, because the kids wanted to stay wherever they were as long as possible, and then school the next day. So on the trip back, he couldn't even move. He said, I'm gonna I'm gonna die. He was really in terrible shape. So we pulled into the hospital. It was under construction Penn Bay, and luckily, we got a hold of a nurse that I knew through a friend of mine, and we got him on the operating table at 20 minutes, and they saved his life, and they said he's not going to be moved. He couldn't be moved for at least a month, and maybe as long as a month and a half or two months. So I turned the boys around, and I said, we're going to school. So what do you mean? So we're going to move to Camden full time, and we ended up at school there. Richard went into the 11th grade. He didn't even know it, because he was in the hospital. Timmy was going to ninth grade, and Timmy argued with me right at the school board because he said, I'm going to, I said timber, you're going to eighth grade, not ninth. He wanted to get it as fast as possible, naturally. So well, if you're on Ninth, which is 11th, and Jack is going to skip a year too, David was already at Bates. So that worked out very nicely, that we're all together again. And the boys really like to keep together as much as possible. They really work together, play together and interchange beautifully. They all have different assets, as I've said, and sure, very luckily, because I would do is help them pursue their interests, but building has been fun for all of us, and it's been a great activity. And then
Greg Boulos 16:54
you eventually moved to Portland, because I think it was when I moved back from Boston, 1983 I met you for the first time. And I think you said that I met you on the street exactly, just outside of my just outside of 8089 exchange street where our offices were, right
Joe Soley 17:12
exactly a few years Yeah, because we visited with Joe together, your older brother, Joe, I assume he's your older
Greg Boulos 17:18
brother, much, much older really, for the record, like 50 years older.
Joe Soley 17:26
What a good guy. Though, your
Greg Boulos 17:27
company's called monopoly, yep, which, I love that name, and I'm sure I can guess why you named your company monopoly. But what is there a story behind that? How'd you happen to come up with it? Well,
Joe Soley 17:39
because we play Monopoly all the time, and the winner is always Timmy’s youngest son, Maxie, who's named after my father. And he is a cunning, cunning, brilliant player, very smart guy. And you know him because of school? Yeah, my kids went to school with him, but he's a brilliant guy. He really is, and he's so much fun. I've taken him to school very often, been through all of his classes at school, and he's a pleasure to work with. He's up at winfleet, right? Yeah, but he graduated Wayne fleet, and he started today. He starts in Bowdoin well, so he's at, I think, today, or actually, we went up there yesterday, so he will pursue a nice career. That's if he's ready for college, which I don't know, because he didn't think he he really needed college, but he because he's got so many interests, he takes apart cars and trucks and puts them all together, and he just has done so many things. He loves making film more than anything else, so
Greg Boulos 18:33
that's his priority. Well, he's got different passions, for sure, a lot of
Joe Soley 18:37
passions. Music is a wonderful thing. Of him singing. He just got so many interest in the arts, and Wayne fleet was a perfect school for him, as you well know, because your kids are there with Timmy’s kids. His older brother really enjoyed it. His older brother graduated, like three years ago now, that's great school, really great. What a great place that is. I love being there with him, too.
Greg Boulos 19:00
Joe. Most people associate the name Joe Soley with the old port, and you were one of the early investors. Looking back, that was obviously a great move. However, at the time, it wasn't so certain, because the Old Port wasn't what it is today. What attracted you to the Old Port? What did you see that others didn't seagulls?
Joe Soley 19:20
I really mean that. I mean the birds loved it. We're right on the edge of the water, beautiful waterfront. I couldn't understand how a city was in such bad shape, and yet it was right on the waterfront. Now, I had done the same thing in Baltimore with a fellow named James W Rouse, and we did a lot of work for him while I was in Baltimore, because he was my mentor, my backer, my lender through mortgages, as well as my partner. And we wanted to do the same thing in Portland. When I invited him up to Portland, Jim Rouse said, it's not for me. It's not for me. And boy that was. All the encouragement I needed, because I saw it as a wonderful opportunity. And we started purchasing right at foreign exchange, right around the area, and it worked out better and better and better. And we had both sides of exchange Street, most of Fourth Street, and we just expanded that whole section in there more and more and more. And it's worked out beautifully. It
Greg Boulos 20:21
was your first building for exchange street
Joe Soley 20:23
that you purchased. It was, yeah, it was buildings, and you helped me, as a matter of fact, right along the edge of exchange street, I remember, and 579, 11, Henry. Henry will, let's building Exactly. Well, let's you were very, very kind, because you had another contract going on it. And you told me the situation, and you said, if I could do it today, we'd do it. And we did. I turned my contract over to you exactly. Good memory. No, you were a pleasure, really. It's wonderful,
Greg Boulos 20:51
Joe. You You're an amazing 88 and a half years old. When are you going to retire and
Joe Soley 20:57
go to Florida?
Greg Boulos 21:00
Where's Florida really? Yeah, you just enjoy working.
Joe Soley 21:03
I love working. I love working with the boys, with all the kids, really, especially one of my grandchildren, is really terrific, outstanding guy, and I think he'll go a long way. That's Daniel. Yep,
Greg Boulos 21:16
I know I've met him. He's great. You know, in the 1980s I remember the Baker's table at 4/34 Street in the Siemens club at the corner of exchange in fourth streets. Not only did you own those buildings, but you own the restaurants that were located in them. How did you like the restaurant business? Terrible. And why is that brutal?
Joe Soley 21:38
Brutal business. It's day and night, day and night, because you depend upon so many other people for coming in for their shifts, and it depends how responsible they feel. For instance, the Siemens club, we worked around the clock. It worked out beautifully, but we had 62 people on the payroll, and that was a little bit excessive. At Baker's table, we had a much smaller payroll, because people would pick up their own food at the counter, so it was a different type of operation. But while we did that, we also built many other small restaurants and bars, and the combination of having so many at once was too much.
Greg Boulos 22:14
And did you say you had something like 43 or 44 bars you built or owned? I
Joe Soley 22:19
call them restaurants and bars, but the best one is Blythe and boroughs, which is our 43rd and that's worked out beautifully, but we learn each time. We make mistakes on them and grow from them and try to improve them at each occasion. And Blythe, I think, has worked out really beautifully, and we've also built one or two since then that are not quite as good as Blyth. Well, they all can't be winners, right? But we've learned how to put intimate spaces in these in these restaurants and bars, instead of one big, open area, to give small, intimate spaces where people can converse freely and exchange ideas and really join and meet each other.
Greg Boulos 22:57
When you buy a piece of real estate, is it? What do you look for? How do you know something's a good deal as a certain criteria, or is it a gut feel? A lot of people run the numbers until the cows come home. What do you do?
Joe Soley 23:11
I think it's more gut than anything else. The most important thing is the location, that it's convenient to everything, and also that it be structurally right. The first thing I check on each of these places, because of my experience with MIT, mostly, is to make sure that the building is absolutely plum and absolutely level. And I check that immediately with my transit to make sure that the building is not going to be trouble later on. And then you go into the mechanical stuff in the building. But more important than anything else is that it opens up as a retail environment, because I see the future as retail spaces working with each other. For instance, when we have an opportunity to work with a new tenant, the one recently that we installed is Lululemon. Oh sure. Now Lululemon is just a wonderful institution, and it brightens an area that would otherwise meet not quite as bright. So we put them between an outstanding jeweler in town, he's been with us now 37 years and two or three other stores, and it makes that whole block come alive. It's not a bad thing to have all those beautiful girls come in there to buy their their latest equipment, whatever they buy in Lululemon. But we try to mix them up in different things. Across the street, we have a dog lady of all kinds of things. I didn't think it would fly, but she's terrific, and she loves to have people come in with their pets and get proper things for their pets, and all plus be good is in that location and other things, and it works out very nicely to have a we have toco in that area and a lot of other stores. So we try to put stores together that really can get out there and make people feel good about themselves when they shop. Because I see retail as the future,
Greg Boulos 24:58
yeah, I mean, because retail has had a tough. Go over the last few years, but you think long term, it's an okay bill. To
Joe Soley 25:04
my mind, it's better and better, and it depends how the mix has worked out. You don't want to have a dry store like JCPenney or something like that. You've got to have a mix really, that work for everybody as much as possible. We put up a little store that sells those those donuts. Oh,
Greg Boulos 25:25
the holy donut. Oh my gosh. When I picked you up today, there's a line out the door,
Joe Soley 25:30
and there always is. They make a wonderful product, and we put them in there, right next to the corner, and that really stimulates that whole traffic. But there's always people on the street and exchange street. So exchange Street, when we bought it originally was a dull, quiet, nothing Street. Now it's active and moving and happy and really great. And of course, it lays out perfectly for the new restaurant, Blyth, because people just come to Him, if they've never heard of him before, they try it out, and they just love it, and they repeat back and forth over and over again. So it really works out. We've done the same thing in South Portland, at Clark's pond and Corner Brook, and the same thing also in Falmouth, where we have both sides of us route one.
Greg Boulos 26:15
So in Falmouth, you own the the Walmart, and you also own the Shaws Plaza, exactly. Probably on about 80% of the retail in Fauci What did you that's kind of getting out of the Old Port, certainly getting out of the Old Port. What did you see in those two opportunities that made you jump on
Joe Soley 26:31
the thing I like best is its proximity to Portland, because it's really less than 10 minutes from Portland, no matter how you try to go. I mean, it's, what, two miles, maybe, if that, you know it's so can be right over the bridge, really. And if people don't want to come into Portland, where it might be a little harder to park or you might have to wait in line for things, Falmouth was a good alternative, because you're putting the retail right where the people live, because that's a wonderful center of living people right there. And we've taken the stores on both sides of the street, they're both full at this point. On the left side, in addition to Walmart, which we purchased 84,000 square feet, we put the movie theater right in front of it, addition to that, as a Verizon store in front of that. And then further down, we have a medical Arts building that's totally full with a neat restaurant, a neat Thai restaurant, and some other businesses of all kinds in the building, and that's always been full too, and we've also filled up the shores center as well. Now, Shores is not shores anymore. It's owned by Albertson, but it's still going to be called shores and but they put a real impetus in it to compete with Hannaford, which is tough competition, as you well know, as is Walmart, their grocery division across the street makes other right. And in
Greg Boulos 27:53
Southport, you mentioned your own Corner Brook, also the shops at Clarks pond, and you were attracted to those because of the approximate of the main mall, I assume
Joe Soley 28:03
right the main mall is centered right around the million square feet. It's our largest mall in Maine, certainly, and it was thriving at one point. It doesn't appear to be any more, except for one store. Of course, Apple is in there. Now Apple's the new anchor, which is the anchor it is, but Apple's not going to be staying there. Clearly, Apple has no future there. I don't know where they're going to be going, but in the next few years, I'm sure we'll find them in a much more interesting location, you might say, a little more accessible, more accessible, more more attractive, more people, more people will see and know of this place, because the mall has not developed the way we'd like to see it developed at all.
Greg Boulos 28:43
So Joe, are you still actively buying property, or are you content to manage what you have and, oh,
Joe Soley 28:49
no, we're buying all the time. It's an ongoing thing. There's no way you can stop once you're rolling in this thing. You have to be very, very judicious and careful, and you have to either improve your properties, or sell off a property if it's not working out, and certainly add on other properties, because you've got a great property for sale right at the entrance to Clark's pond, the GH bass building. When we hope to proceed happily on that with you all, well, we'll
Greg Boulos 29:16
be happy to sign a contract right after this interview. We'll
Joe Soley 29:18
be happy to do it. I think I have it with me,
Greg Boulos 29:23
Joe, you've, you've, or we've been in the next economic expansion the United States and Portland in particular, for the past 10 years. And many investors have gotten into the market during this period of time, and they've never seen a downturn. Any guess on how long before the next recession hits. And does that concern you? It concerns
Joe Soley 29:43
me a lot. The fact that the rates, like I watched, the five year rate, more than the 10 or the two, the five year rate right now is 1.3% and it's going down that, coupled with the fact that more mortgage applications this week have down six. Point 2% is what frightens me, because people are thinking that rates will go even lower, and that it's an indication of a weaker, weaker economy, which it might, might very well be. I don't know the answer to that, but it is scary the way things are going. It's wonderful for building expansion at the same time, it must be telling a different story, which I'm not smart enough to figure out, but it's not a story of health, it's a story of weakness, and it really does worry me very, very much.
Greg Boulos 30:34
I mean, you've seen and I've seen at least three major corrections over the years, and I'm just wondering, have you had any properties that you wish you didn't buy? Or, I'm sure there, they weren't all winners, although they appear to be any horror stories.
Joe Soley 30:54
Wow, I've got one little piece of Clark's pond, which is not working out too well. It's the one at the eastern half of it, Eastern quadrant. But we'll get that worked out. I hope so,
Greg Boulos 31:09
where the restaurant was, yeah, the tilted. Killed. It killed. Yeah. It
Joe Soley 31:12
could be much, much better. And we're just letting them stay open as long as we can and as long as they can, but we have to divide it up or do something with it that's quite materially different from the what it is now. It's a shame, because the other restaurants, the other four restaurants, are all excellent on site, but Tilted Kilt, that concept just doesn't seem to work as it once did years ago.
Greg Boulos 31:36
And that's a big restaurant, too. Most restaurants are quite a bit smaller than that now, 9000
Joe Soley 31:40
square feet. So that's why breaking it up might be a serious option, which is costly to do, but looks like it might be necessary. You
Greg Boulos 31:50
know, getting off real estate just for a second, I sure, I bet most people don't realize you're an avid art collector. And I read somewhere that you had four very valuable paintings stolen. And I wonder, if you talk a little bit about that and what happened there, I
Joe Soley 32:06
had six paintings stolen. I was living in Monument Square at the time, and they broke in. Didn't know exactly where they were. They'd heard about them. I guess they came in the back, hit every floor in the five or six story building, got to my floor and escaped with six of my favorite paintings. I called the FBI right away, and they wanted to put out all kinds of noise to attract them. And I said that I can't work that way. Garden museum had been plundered already, and none of the paintings were returned. I said, if you make noise about those paintings, they're going to push them underground. We'll never see them. So we kept it quiet, but I promulgated pictures of the paintings to everywhere we could considerably, sensibly work out the museum, the local museum, with the help of the FBI, was able to take copies of these paintings and to really promulgate these wonderful paintings at all kinds of places. So the next we did, we heard about one that was offered to a house in California, and right away, one of the agents worked out talk of the source and made deliberate decisions that would snare and snare the thief. At the same time, we heard about a green Mercedes that crossed over into Texas, and there are many green Mercedes around, like green Mercedes. So through a lot of work, we figured out who it is, how it is, we captured him too, and one by one, we put them all together. And after two, two and a half years of diligence, were able to get them all together and found the thieves and took them into court and had them punished and got the paintings back. So we
Greg Boulos 34:08
were very, very lucky. And if you don't mind me asking, were these Wyeth's all NC Wyeth paintings? And you're quite a collector of Wyeth. I love his work. I
Joe Soley 34:17
think his work is outstanding. That's NC who died, oh, some years ago, his son, Andrew, just died in the last 10 years or less. But he was a great painter, because if you read his books Robin Hood, or any of his great books, the pains are taken from one of those descriptions of the activities and actions that have occurred in the scenarios that have developed in these wonderful stories, and only he could depict them so colorfully and powerfully and brilliantly, because he was an illustrator. Well, you might say, illustrator. But to my mind. Was a great painter, and he illustrated the story books in these wonderful stories, kidnapped and Oh, Robin Hood and King Arthur, and just wonderful stories that we know so well that he turned into fabulous images.
Greg Boulos 35:19
Joe, of all the deals you've looked at over the years, I'm sure you've passed on some properties you didn't buy any that come to mind that you say, Geez, I wish I'd bought that, but I didn't. Wow.
Joe Soley 35:34
I guess the property that I like best downtown is the one with the open elevator in the center section. That's the center. What do you call that property? Oh, one city center. One city center. That's my favorite property of the downtown buildings. And at some time, I would love to operate that property, and I would operate it quite a bit differently from the way it's operated, but I think it could be a very colorful and special property. It's unique to Portland, for sure. It is definitely and I think it's years ahead of the older office buildings that we've worked with for years.
Greg Boulos 36:10
Joe, looking into your crystal ball for the next 10 to 20 years, what do you see happening to commercial real estate in the Greater Portland area? Well,
Joe Soley 36:19
I think we're going to go through some rough times in something probably less than a year. And I think the low rates portend some weaknesses in different places. I think the banks are having a particularly rough time because they have to work on a sufficient edge to keep them solvent. Well, the margins are getting squeezed. Margins are really getting squeezed badly. They used to be about three points. They're probably more like a one and a half right now. And even those are being squeezed and they want to put money out and keep the place moving and active and affluent. But it's really serious that they haven't been able to move more efficiently, to narrow their own scopes down, and to work in a sphere that we keep the better locations and the better properties getting stronger, and letting the weaker ones probably go,
Greg Boulos 37:22
and Portland seems to be over banked. I mean, that's a ton of banks, and if you're looking to borrow money, you've got many options. I'm not sure why that is, but it certainly works to the advantage of folks like yourself who are in the market for commercial lending.
Joe Soley 37:38
It's a rare opportunity. I never expected rates to be this low. I mean, when you look at 30 year rates at 1.9 and 10 year rates at 1.4 it's really crazy. And then the five at 1.3 I mean, this is amazing. I've never seen that when I started off, everybody paid 6% unless you were somebody of a very, very strong, strong nature, General Motors, and they were paying 5% and that was it. You got no brakes. We went through a rough period there where they shot up, as you well know. But unfortunately, I don't think we've recovered fully from the recession of the 08 and oh nine period. I think it's more like a bright bulb that it glows and it gets bright before it dies. And I think we're at that point now where prices are so high and the bulb is so bright, and then I see an unfortunate flicker off. It happens quickly, doesn't it? Yeah, real quickly before we even know it. But if we're conscious of this, we can do something about it. We can really prepare ourselves. And I find that my best opportunity is the stock market and to pay mortgages off quickly. I've invested in the stock market, but I have to be so disciplined, and I only can buy the monopoly stocks, the stocks like Nike that has over 80% of the market in their own field, or Diageo that seems to have most of the world's liquor,
Greg Boulos 39:13
always going to be a demand for that. Absolutely, regarding Portland, what do you see as Portland's greatest strengths. What's it got going for it that you see,
Joe Soley 39:24
I see the waterfront. I always do. I think the waterfront is is amazing, and I'd like to see that develop more and more actively. It's unfortunate that it hasn't been developed as actively as it could be. But I think restaurants taking advantage of it, and also restaurants that are more casual and are more reasonable, because the last throng of restaurants that have quit have quit not because they're bad restaurants, but because they're priced out of the market, and people seem to go into. More expensive ones that are a little fancier and a little bit more, oh, I don't know, they have a little bit stranger and different foods and charge a little bit more. I'd like to see more median priced items. I think a city like Rockland, where we do a lot of work, also is a real growth city, because there, the restaurants are not pricing themselves out of the market. We've built quite a bit there. We hope to build a lot more in Rockland. I see that as a real opportunity city.
Greg Boulos 40:28
That City's really turned around. I mean, from back in the day when they had the siding factory right there on the edge of this of the waterfront and, I mean, it's, it's quite the city now it's
Joe Soley 40:37
terrific. It really is great. I mean, people are working. They're busy. The main street is active. There's walking. It feels more like exchange street than anything else, where there's never a slow time day and night, people are walking up and down that street. And the restaurants, no matter where you go, are not unreasonable. They don't price themselves out of the market. But in Portland, the pricey ones, I think, are an unfortunate part of it. Not that we haven't participated in it to some degree we have, but I see that as a limited future.
Greg Boulos 41:13
So we've talked about Portland's strength, you said the waterfront. What are some of the hindrances to Portland's continued growth?
Joe Soley 41:19
Well, the biggest damaging factor, unfortunately, is political, because we have a very bright and honest mayor. I adore him personally. Ethan strimley, he's a special, special human being. He really is. He goes a little bit too far out at times, and he's learning to bring himself in more together, but he's pretty much in conflict with our city manager, who also is a very bright, honest, excellent man. It's a shame. It feels more like John Jennings. Yeah, Jennings does an excellent job. But what feels more like our national situation where the two houses fight continually and they don't seem to work out a way that they can work together. If they did in Portland, Portland's economy would zoom to get a building per here a building permit is ridiculous. I mean, it can take a year to get a simple building permit because it goes through so many channels and it's held up and delayed unnecessarily. It's really unfortunate that it's worked through so many convoluted channels. And if one person was in charge, whether it be Jennings or Sterling, I think either one could make this thing zoom.
Greg Boulos 42:35
Do you think in terms of the building permits, because we've run into that too. Is it a staffing issue, not enough staff to process all these applications.
Joe Soley 42:43
There's plenty of staff. It's how much liberty they have and how much room they have. I think it starts at the top, where they get one opinion from one of the two leaders and one from another one, and they divide and conquer in ways that are not advantageous for the applicant, because if it was, it would be wonderful. It took so long just to convert the lighting because of all the conflict in their houses, from the terrible yellow and orange lights into the much less expensive lighting that's much more brilliant. And this is lighting where Joe street lighting? Yeah, it's terrible, but those streets should be a lot brighter. All the streets should be, and they still haven't finished the conversion to LED lights, which would save the city a fortune, both in electric and also in maintenance, because they last 15 to 20 or 30 years, and the old lights don't even last a year or two. You
Greg Boulos 43:40
gotta have people up there, changing them all the time, constantly,
Joe Soley 43:43
crazy. That's really crazy. I'm looking at the construction work. I see one street after another closed with no people working there for months and months and months. And I wonder, how can that be? But you see that I shop very often at the supermarket, and right on the edge of the Back Bay.
Greg Boulos 44:03
Oh, Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. No
Joe Soley 44:06
Hannaford. I love Hannaford. Coming out of Hannaford, you can't even get back uptown without circular routes around it, because that Street's been closed up for over a year. Yeah, nobody's working on it, but construction definitely can be worked much more swiftly by anybody who knows how to do these things in a right way.
Greg Boulos 44:26
Maybe they should hire you because you've got a construction background and you know how to get things done.
Joe Soley 44:32
I would love to get things done. I'd love to pour those city streets, pour concrete, whatever it takes to get them done in a hurry and get them done right.
Greg Boulos 44:42
Well, Joe, thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Joe, that's it for the Boulos beat this week. Special. Thanks to Joe soli for being my guest. Joe can be found on facebook@facebook.com, slash, Mr. Old Port. I. Like to thank you for listening today. And if you'd like to learn more about the Boulos company, please be sure to visit us@www.Boulos.com you can find us at the Boulos company on Facebook and LinkedIn and at the Boulos CO on Instagram and Twitter. And lastly, if you want to know the secret to owning real estate, it's pretty simple, just be sure to outlive your debt you.