CrowdStreet’s Brent Hieggelke is joined by Shiv Jayaraman, a CrowdStreet investor, to talk about how he’s evaluating commercial real estate investments in the current economic environment, how he thinks his past investments will perform in the near future, and why he’s still a long-term investor.
Brent Hieggelke, Chief Marketing Officer
CrowdStreet
CrowdStreet
Brent is a high-growth tech marketing executive focused on start-up and early category innovators and disrupters. He is a seasoned evangelist, and public speaker across a wide-range of topics.
He is a former CMO of several leading SaaS companies such as Urban Airship (mobile), Brandlive (video), Webtrends (data and analytics) and Touch Clarity (AI, machine learning), which sold to Omniture. In 2009, Brent co-founded a real estate start-up, Second Porch, which built the first sharing vacation rental site and ultimately exited to HomeAway, now Expedia. Brent has keynoted and led panels at global events like SXSW, Mobile World Congress, Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, Adtech, and hundreds of other conferences. Brent has been featured or quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Advertising Age, and hundreds of other publications.
Brent holds a BA in Economics with honors from the University of Chicago.
00:00:06 Hello everyone. I'm Brent Hieggelke, Chief Marketing Officer at CrowdStreet, and welcome back to StreetBeats our new short video series to keep our entire community informed with updates from various perspectives from across the country, from investors to sponsors to capital markets experts. Today we're here with one of our investors, Shiv Jayaraman, and we thought it'd be helpful to hear from Shiv about how he's thinking about evaluating today's investments in this current market. So Shiv, welcome. Please give us a brief introduction of yourself and talk a little bit about your CrowdStreet experience so far.
00:00:39 Good afternoon, Brett. Uh, thank you so much for having me on. Um, ideally I should, uh, say that having us on, because I'm gonna be speaking on behalf of my wife as well, we are joint investors. Uh, I'm Shiv Jayaraman, and my wife Dipa. Both of us are Silicon Valley geeks, if I might use that word. Um, she's at Apple and I was very recently at Facebook till I took a break from work for the last eight months. I'm due to go back, but with all this happening, I've not gone back to work yet. Um, yes, we are investors. We've invested in all, uh, aspects of the market, and commercial real estate is something very close to our heart. And for long we've been waiting for a marketplace like Grout Street where we could actually be rid of the responsibility of having to go and search for sponsors. A centralized place where we could easily look up the sponsors, the deal, and most importantly, a centralized place where all documents can be found in a particular order. So in that sense, our experience with CrowdStreet has been great. We wish that the marketplace growth and we'll have more deals and more sponsors there. So thank you so much for the experience.
00:01:42 Excellent, excellent. Great. Well, uh, obviously we're in a lot of, uh, turmoil right now with the markets, uh, with Covid 19 kind of taking over the world and a lot of the headlines. So, uh, one of the big stories that's evolved is the stimulus package that's coming out right now. And as we're talking today, uh, supposedly checks are being cut to individuals. Uh, I think the airline bailouts have started. So how are you thinking about investing now, kind of given the stimulus package out there? Has that affected your perspective at all?
00:02:14 Well, everything affects each one of us, right, because you're also interdependent in today's world. Well, I have to admit that the stimulus package does not directly impact us. Um, we know that it affects our investment strategy. Um, if you had asked me a year back, I would've said I was gungho on the hospitality industry. Um, we even went in with a deal at CrowdStreet in the hospitality sector, but we believe it's going to be one of the worst affected, at least in the near term. And when we use the word near term, me and my wife, we typically talk about the next two years, not just the next two days. So sectors that we believe are not getting the love and stimulus package are definitely going to be affected. Like you mentioned, Brett, the airline industry seems to have got the benefit from the, uh, stimulus package.
00:02:59 So we would be definitely looking into how the airlines work, hospitals, hos, the hospital industry is some, is an industry that's also been, uh, that's also going to gain from the stimulus package. So that is going to be definitely in a radar, hospitality and office spaces. These are two, uh, in the commercial real estate, um, segment. These are two segments we have to be watchful about because, um, it's an interesting spin with all the telecommuting that's been forced on us. Um, and I know a lot of people have been discussing this, is this a new normal? Uh, would companies, uh, say, Hey, you know what, it's perfectly fine if people work out of home and what does, what would that do to the office space in the commercial real estate segment? So these are some of the things that are going through multi-family dwellings. Again, we have to see how that goes. Um, while we've always believed in multi-family dwellings, will people have any problems paying their rents? Of course the stimulus packages and dorms are going to help people, but for how long, uh, if you're looking at multi-family dwellings as uh, a cash cow for, uh, uh, earning, I'm talking from an investor perspective, how long can an investor be patient? So these are some of the questions in our mind.
00:04:08 Yeah, well those are very good and, and you're savvy to pick up on, on those specific points. It certainly, sector by sector there are things happening that are going to have impacts and uh, I think there's a lot of folks who are having the same kind of conversations, which is what are the pervasive things that stick as a result of this sort of sudden shift in kind of how we're consuming and how we're living and how we're working. Uh, how are you thinking overall about the current state of the market? Are you, are you feeling active today? Like how, what's your perspective?
00:04:42 Our opinion might not be the most popular opinion out there. We've never looked at the market on a daily basis, right? The upswing today or the downswing today has never bothered us. Um, we've always been cautiously optimistic about any event, a huge crash, a huge search. There are always opportunities for any serious investor. We've always been extremely focused, long-term investors. So in that sense, um, much as I hate to say it, it's a great opportunity for us. I know a lot of people are struggling, uh, with their livelihood, small and medium business as are affected. But as an investor, I have to say, I look at this as a huge opportunity. This is the third big downturn that we are looking at as a couple. And, um, we knew that after every downturn there's a huge opportunity. So our, if I can loosely use the word, our macro strategy is not changing 20% in commercial real estate, 20% in fixed income and dividend stock, 60% in growth stocks. It's more because of our age that we have the split and we are gonna stick to it. And in all these three areas, we think there are tremendous opportunities, but we have to be extremely careful and not follow, follow the market. We have to be extremely careful and be diligent about it. That's our a strategy.
00:05:57 Yeah. Well it sounds like you have a, uh, a very calm and measured approach, which I think is uh, is is very admirable. And I think your perspective on the fact that there are opportunities in, in any sort of market ups and downs, uh, is, is actually absolutely correct and, uh, certainly something that, uh, a lot of our investors are reflecting back to us. So hope we're certainly, uh, very enthusiastic to have investors like you on the marketplace with us. So, um, any other thoughts before we close out today's street bead?
00:06:27 Thank you so much for, uh, giving me the opportunity. I wish my wife could join me as well. Um, glad to share our views and all the very best. These are interesting times. We wish CrowdStreet the very best in all the other industries as
00:06:39 Well. Great. Well thank you Shiv so much for taking time. We hope to have you back on a future broadcast of some form. Thank you for tuning into today's StreetBeats and if you'd like to subscribe to hear the future updates, you can subscribe to StreetBeats and we'll send you a weekly digest. Thank you for joining us today and stay safe. Thank you.
00:00:39 Good afternoon, Brett. Uh, thank you so much for having me on. Um, ideally I should, uh, say that having us on, because I'm gonna be speaking on behalf of my wife as well, we are joint investors. Uh, I'm Shiv Jayaraman, and my wife Dipa. Both of us are Silicon Valley geeks, if I might use that word. Um, she's at Apple and I was very recently at Facebook till I took a break from work for the last eight months. I'm due to go back, but with all this happening, I've not gone back to work yet. Um, yes, we are investors. We've invested in all, uh, aspects of the market, and commercial real estate is something very close to our heart. And for long we've been waiting for a marketplace like Grout Street where we could actually be rid of the responsibility of having to go and search for sponsors. A centralized place where we could easily look up the sponsors, the deal, and most importantly, a centralized place where all documents can be found in a particular order. So in that sense, our experience with CrowdStreet has been great. We wish that the marketplace growth and we'll have more deals and more sponsors there. So thank you so much for the experience.
00:01:42 Excellent, excellent. Great. Well, uh, obviously we're in a lot of, uh, turmoil right now with the markets, uh, with Covid 19 kind of taking over the world and a lot of the headlines. So, uh, one of the big stories that's evolved is the stimulus package that's coming out right now. And as we're talking today, uh, supposedly checks are being cut to individuals. Uh, I think the airline bailouts have started. So how are you thinking about investing now, kind of given the stimulus package out there? Has that affected your perspective at all?
00:02:14 Well, everything affects each one of us, right, because you're also interdependent in today's world. Well, I have to admit that the stimulus package does not directly impact us. Um, we know that it affects our investment strategy. Um, if you had asked me a year back, I would've said I was gungho on the hospitality industry. Um, we even went in with a deal at CrowdStreet in the hospitality sector, but we believe it's going to be one of the worst affected, at least in the near term. And when we use the word near term, me and my wife, we typically talk about the next two years, not just the next two days. So sectors that we believe are not getting the love and stimulus package are definitely going to be affected. Like you mentioned, Brett, the airline industry seems to have got the benefit from the, uh, stimulus package.
00:02:59 So we would be definitely looking into how the airlines work, hospitals, hos, the hospital industry is some, is an industry that's also been, uh, that's also going to gain from the stimulus package. So that is going to be definitely in a radar, hospitality and office spaces. These are two, uh, in the commercial real estate, um, segment. These are two segments we have to be watchful about because, um, it's an interesting spin with all the telecommuting that's been forced on us. Um, and I know a lot of people have been discussing this, is this a new normal? Uh, would companies, uh, say, Hey, you know what, it's perfectly fine if people work out of home and what does, what would that do to the office space in the commercial real estate segment? So these are some of the things that are going through multi-family dwellings. Again, we have to see how that goes. Um, while we've always believed in multi-family dwellings, will people have any problems paying their rents? Of course the stimulus packages and dorms are going to help people, but for how long, uh, if you're looking at multi-family dwellings as uh, a cash cow for, uh, uh, earning, I'm talking from an investor perspective, how long can an investor be patient? So these are some of the questions in our mind.
00:04:08 Yeah, well those are very good and, and you're savvy to pick up on, on those specific points. It certainly, sector by sector there are things happening that are going to have impacts and uh, I think there's a lot of folks who are having the same kind of conversations, which is what are the pervasive things that stick as a result of this sort of sudden shift in kind of how we're consuming and how we're living and how we're working. Uh, how are you thinking overall about the current state of the market? Are you, are you feeling active today? Like how, what's your perspective?
00:04:42 Our opinion might not be the most popular opinion out there. We've never looked at the market on a daily basis, right? The upswing today or the downswing today has never bothered us. Um, we've always been cautiously optimistic about any event, a huge crash, a huge search. There are always opportunities for any serious investor. We've always been extremely focused, long-term investors. So in that sense, um, much as I hate to say it, it's a great opportunity for us. I know a lot of people are struggling, uh, with their livelihood, small and medium business as are affected. But as an investor, I have to say, I look at this as a huge opportunity. This is the third big downturn that we are looking at as a couple. And, um, we knew that after every downturn there's a huge opportunity. So our, if I can loosely use the word, our macro strategy is not changing 20% in commercial real estate, 20% in fixed income and dividend stock, 60% in growth stocks. It's more because of our age that we have the split and we are gonna stick to it. And in all these three areas, we think there are tremendous opportunities, but we have to be extremely careful and not follow, follow the market. We have to be extremely careful and be diligent about it. That's our a strategy.
00:05:57 Yeah. Well it sounds like you have a, uh, a very calm and measured approach, which I think is uh, is is very admirable. And I think your perspective on the fact that there are opportunities in, in any sort of market ups and downs, uh, is, is actually absolutely correct and, uh, certainly something that, uh, a lot of our investors are reflecting back to us. So hope we're certainly, uh, very enthusiastic to have investors like you on the marketplace with us. So, um, any other thoughts before we close out today's street bead?
00:06:27 Thank you so much for, uh, giving me the opportunity. I wish my wife could join me as well. Um, glad to share our views and all the very best. These are interesting times. We wish CrowdStreet the very best in all the other industries as
00:06:39 Well. Great. Well thank you Shiv so much for taking time. We hope to have you back on a future broadcast of some form. Thank you for tuning into today's StreetBeats and if you'd like to subscribe to hear the future updates, you can subscribe to StreetBeats and we'll send you a weekly digest. Thank you for joining us today and stay safe. Thank you.