The following Q&A was completed as part of our conversational Commercial Real Estate FAQ Interview Series, we hope you find it helpful.
The best way to determine the trustworthiness of a partner or business relation in the real estate industry is to trust your gut. Do your research and make sure that there aren’t any glaring red flags, but also see what your instinct says about them as well. If your gut is telling you to skip out on a deal, and you can’t find layers and layers of amazing press or media proving you wrong, it’s best to avoid the deal altogether.
How can you quickly tell who to trust or not in the real estate industry? You know, trust is the most important thing. You have to go off of referrals, personal relationships, you need to check references; I don’t think there is a quick way to tell who to trust. I think you should build a relationship with somebody in depth before you give them money, and I also think that you can do a lot of research and see if somebody is well regarded in the press, whether they’ve got lawsuits filed against them, online a simple Google check will tell you a lot about somebody and whether they’re credible or not. You also have to just trust your gut, if you get a good feeling about them after you’ve done all your research and the objective stuff, you feel good, you get to know them and the seem and feel trustworthy, they don’t just say the right things I think that that’s really important. Another thing, too, is that you’ve got to trust your instincts. If you’ve got any red flags, or you just get a bad vibe from somebody, typically we sometimes want to ignore that because it’s inconvenient or we put a lot of time and energy into a deal or looking into a partnership with somebody, and the reality is your gut, your instincts, are usually correct. And so my best piece of advice is just don’t ignore your instincts, and if you get a bad feeling about something, if it’s totally unjustified then maybe do a little more research, but if you just get a bad vibe about somebody and then you do some research, and it’s not just all amazing press and PR and good media out there for them, if they’re not just squeaky clean, then I would probably avoid it if I got a bad feeling from somebody.
