The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Victor Menasce
  • 4.9 (134)
  • Investing
  • Updated Daily

Welcome to The Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot of what's new in the world of real estate investing. Join investor, syndicator, developer, and author Victor J. Menasce as he shares his daily real estate investment outlook. Our weekday episodes deliver 5 minutes of high-energy, high-impact content to fuel your success. Plus, don't miss our weekend editions featuring exclusive interviews with renowned guests such as Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Helms, Peter Schiff, and more.

  1. 3h ago

    Supreme Court Squashes Referendum

    If you’ve been in the development game for more than five minutes, you know the scenario. You find a parcel. You spend eighteen months and hundreds of thousands of dollars on environmental studies, traffic impact analyses, civil engineering, and public hearings. You work tirelessly with the city planning staff, you follow the local comprehensive plan to the letter, and finally—finally—the city council approves your Planned Unit Development, or PUD. You pop the champagne. You start pulling permits. And then, two weeks later, you get the notice. A group of local activists who don't want seeing new construction near their backyards have organized a petition drive. They’ve gathered enough signatures to trigger a public referendum to overturn your project's zoning approval on the next municipal ballot. Suddenly, your multi-million-dollar project, your capital stack, and your entire timeline are held hostage by a local popularity contest. Here’s what happened. A project involved a site-specific Planned Unit Development in Telluride, Colorado. The land was designated for a specific site plan, including an element aimed at addressing local workforce housing—a major need in mountain resort communities. When the local authority moved forward with approving the site-specific modifications to the PUD agreement, opponents organized a petition drive. They sought to use direct democracy—a citizen referendum—to amend or repeal the PUD agreement directly on the ballot. The case went all the way to the state Supreme Court. And the Court came back with a decisive, unanimous answer: No. You cannot use a ballot initiative or public referendum to overturn an administrative land-use approval. ----------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  2. 1d ago

    Mega Answer to Bonus Depreciation

    Today’s show is sponsored by the Cost Segregation Guys. To save on taxes, visit the Cost Segregation Guys and learn how they can reduce your taxes. ------------ When the media talks about a trade war, the discussion usually focuses on tariffs. The United States puts a tariff on Canadian steel. Canada responds with a tariff on American products. Then economists calculate how much prices might rise and which industries are going to be hurt. But tariffs are only one weapon in a trade war.  There is another form of competition taking place that gets far less attention, and it may ultimately have a much larger impact on where companies decide to invest. Yesterday, the Canadian government announced what it calls the Productivity Mega Deduction. The proposal would allow businesses to immediately expense a much broader range of capital investments acquired after September 15 of this year. Instead of buying a piece of equipment and depreciating it gradually over many years, businesses could deduct the entire qualifying investment immediately. The United States has long had an advantage in this area through bonus depreciation. Canada is now effectively responding with its own version. ----------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  3. 1d ago

    The Fed Didn't Influence Your Decision

    Today is Fed rate day. This afternoon Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh announced a unanimous decision to increase the Fed funds rate by 0.25%. Today we’re going look deeper into the bond market functioning and not focus on the Fed.  But the real question is whether the Fed leads the market, or whether the market has in fact determined interest rates independently of any committee decision. Was the Fed announcement merely a reflection of what the market has already been saying for weeks? You see bond yields are determined by the laws of supply and demand, combined with a risk premium layered on top of the coupon rate. The simplest explanation for bond yield and discounting the bond price is to ask each of you listening to this podcast for your own personal decision when presented with a bond offer.  Let’s imaging for a moment that the coupon rate on a 10 year bond is 5%. That is the rate to maturity. But now let’s say that inflation is running at zero percent per year. That 5% face value on the bond is real income that is coming to you each and every year for that 10 year period. At the end of 10 years you get the final year of interest along with the full face value of the bond. That’s the ideal scenario that every investor would want.  But now let’s imaging a different scenario. Let’s imagine that inflation is running at 4% and the bond has a face value of 5%. The simple math says that your yield is only 1% above the face value of the bond. So while the bond says 5%, the currency is being devalued by 4% leaving a difference of 1%. That might not be so attractive. So instead, you decide you’re going to offer to buy the bond at a discount in order to compensate for the fact that the bond is only giving you a yield that is 1% above inflation.  You will notice that the Fed’s opinion of interest rates didn’t come into the conversation for your personal investment. You are merely making a decision about what rate you want the bond to yield in order to meet your investment criteria.  ------------ **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  4. 3d ago

    Free Help For Builders With New DOE Program

    On September 11, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a new initiative called Building America New Construction Support program. The stated goal is pretty simple. Help builders build faster, reduce costs, and deliver lower-cost, higher-quality buildings. The program is available to residential, commercial, and industrial builders, and it connects participants directly with technical experts from the Department of Energy and the U.S. National Laboratories. According to the Department of Energy, the time and cost required to construct new housing, commercial buildings, data centers, and factories have become barriers to meeting demand. The new program is designed to address specific technical problems that builders are encountering in the field. A builder can bring a particular challenge to the Department of Energy, and DOE will attempt to match that company with subject matter experts who have the expertise to help solve it. And there is an important feature here. The technical assistance comes at no direct cost to the builder. This is not a grant program where the federal government is funding the construction project itself. The value being offered is technical support. ----------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  5. 4d ago

    Rules Don't Flow Downhill

    On today's show we're talking about one of the quietest ways a deal gets killed. Not a rate move, not a cost overrun. A city council vote you assumed would never happen. Let's start with the constitutional plumbing, because it explains everything that follows. In the United States, municipalities are creatures of the state. They have no inherent sovereignty. Their zoning power, their taxing power, their permitting authority, all of it is delegated from above. Most states follow some version of Dillon's Rule, which says a city can do only what the state has expressly authorized it to do. Now, if you stop reading there, you would conclude something very reasonable and very wrong. You would conclude that when a state or the federal government creates a housing incentive, it flows downhill automatically. The state says multifamily is permitted near transit, so multifamily is permitted near transit. The state creates a property tax exemption for workforce housing, so the exemption exists. That is not how it works. And I see investors underwrite as though it is. Here's the thing. The fact that a city gets its power from the state doesn't mean the city is obedient. Let me give you real examples. Massachusetts passed the MBTA Communities Act. It requires 177 municipalities in the transit service area to zone at least one district for multifamily as of right. This is a mandate. Not a suggestion. The town of Milton hired a consultant, filed an action plan, and adopted the overlay district in December of 2023. Two months later the voters overturned it by referendum. The Attorney General sued. The Supreme Judicial Court upheld the law. And five years after passage, in January of 2026, the AG had to sue another nine towns for continued noncompliance. So even a hard mandate with an enforcement mechanism took five years and multiple lawsuits. If your pro forma assumed as-of-right entitlement in one of those towns in year one, you were carrying a multi-year hole. Florida' Live Local Act created a seventy-five percent property tax exemption for units between 80%-120% of AMI. Local taxing authorities were allowed to opt out, and thirty-four of the forty-nine eligible counties did exactly that. Their reasoning was straightforward. The state gets the policy win, the county writes the cheque. Because the exemption generally applies only after completion, lenders were discounting it at underwriting. So even where the incentive survived, it didn't reliably show up in the capital stack. Colorado is my favourite case, because it's the trap that looks like a win. Proposition 123 sent about three hundred and fifty million dollars a year at affordable housing. More than two hundred jurisdictions opted in, covering over ninety percent of the state's population. Looks like near-universal adoption. But the piece that actually matters to a developer is the ninety-day fast-track approval commitment, and as of early 2025 roughly five jurisdictions had implemented one. Opting in and building the machinery were two different votes, years apart. ------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  6. 5d ago

    Shopping Center Revival with Michael Flight

    Michael Flight has been specializing in shopping centers since the mid 1980's. On today's show we are talking about how shopping centers are going through a revival of sorts. We're talking about where the demand is and how to create value in shopping centers. To connect with Michael, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-flight/ or at his company Concordia Realty. ------------ **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  7. 6d ago

    Software Innovation in Apartments with Eddie Fong

    Eddie Fong is based in Seattle and he started his career at companies like Microsoft, Dropbox and Salesforce. In the past year he has taken that software development expertise and started applying it to the world of multi-family investing. On today's show we are talking about the US of AI in real estate and how the capabilities are evolving. To conenct with Eddie visit https://mistryos.com/ or reach out to him at eddie@mistryos.com. ------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  8. 6d ago

    Should Foreign Buyers Be Banned?

    Canada has a housing shortage. But at the same time, parts of the country have too many condominiums for sale. Those two statements sound contradictory. They’re not. Toronto has experienced a historic collapse in new condominium sales. In 2025, only about 1,600 new condos were sold across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. That was down roughly 60 percent from the previous year and approximately 95 percent from the peak recorded in 2021. This is more than a slow market. It represents the failure of the financial machinery that produced much of Canada’s new urban housing. A condominium project is usually financed in stages. Before a lender advances construction financing, the developer must demonstrate that a significant percentage of the building has been sold. Purchasers sign agreements and provide deposits. Those presales give the lender confidence that the completed units will generate enough revenue to repay the construction loan. The foreign-buyer ban was politically simple. Foreign buyers were portrayed as part of the affordability problem, so excluding them appeared to protect Canadians. The emerging condominium crisis reveals that capital performs more than one role. It can inflate the price of existing assets, but it can also finance the production of new ones. Canada may now be forced to decide whether it wants less foreign ownership or more housing badly enough to accept the capital required to build it. That is the tension. The country did not eliminate the need for investor capital. It merely reduced the number of investors allowed to provide it. ------------ **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

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4.9
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About

Welcome to The Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot of what's new in the world of real estate investing. Join investor, syndicator, developer, and author Victor J. Menasce as he shares his daily real estate investment outlook. Our weekday episodes deliver 5 minutes of high-energy, high-impact content to fuel your success. Plus, don't miss our weekend editions featuring exclusive interviews with renowned guests such as Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Helms, Peter Schiff, and more.

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