Episode 363: 04-07-16
On this week’s show, we discuss the Key West real estate market with Kent Ducote of Truman & Co., Chaim Cahane shares why Forte Capital Management is investing in the Wynwood submarket of Miami, and Marc Hurwitz tells us why it’s important to know who you’re doing business with.
CCIM Voice – Key West Update
Kent Ducote is Broker Associate at Truman & Co., Key West, FL. Ducote is one of the most dynamic commercial real estate brokers in the Florida Keys. With national experience and local knowledge, he possesses the skills and expertise demanded of a CRE team by today’s savvy investors.
Kent and his associate, Keith Bland, formed their commercial team in 2012 and have consistently been one of the top commercial teams in Key West having brokered over $66,000,000 in commercial real estate through 2016.
We discuss the Key West real estate market and why Kent obtained his CCIM Designation.
Evolution of Miami’s Wynwood District
Chaim Cahane is President of Forte Capital Management, LLC. The firm specializes in the acquisition, development and management of real estate with a special focus on retail assets, shopping centers, single tenant NNN leased investment opportunities and development of retail properties.
We discuss why they are investing in the Wynwood District of Miami.
Corporate Private Investigations
Marc Hurwitz is President of Crossroads Investigations – Xinvestigations.com – Private Investigations & Due Diligence, Miami, FL.
Hurwitz began government service with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and continued in the U.S. Department of State’s Human Rights Bureau. He then worked in the White House for three years, where he served as the aide to the Deputy National Security Advisor.
Hurwitz went on to become a counter-terrorism officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In 2008, Hurwitz opened Crossroads Investigations to subcontract for retired CIA Chiefs of Stations with corporate due diligence contracts. Crossroads has since expanded into a full-service private investigation and due diligence firm.
We discuss why it is important to know who you are doing business with.
Episode 363: 04-07-16
Transcription:
Jim Fried: We’ve got a great show. Stay tuned for more information you can use today. It’s going to improve your life, it’s going to improve the things you know, you’re going to have a great time learning it. We’ve got the CCIM voice. We’re going to give a Key West update on real estate. We’re going to talk about the evolution of Miami’s Wynwood District in South Beach and we’re going to find out who you’re going business with. We’re going to talk about why it’s important to know who you do business with. We’ve got our friend. He’s an ex CIA agent. We’re going to talk about how to find out who you’re doing business with. It’s Marc Hurwitz. We’ve got Marc Hurwitz, we’ve got Kent Ducote, we’ve got Chaim Cahane. We’ve got it rocking. Stay with us. We’ll be right back. More information you can use given to you the way you like it. Back after this. AC, it’s yours.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We are back and we have got the CCIM voice segment. We’ve got Frank Melo Rodriguez on and we’ve also got the CCIM voice this week, Mr. Kent Ducote. He’s the Broker Associate at Truman & Co., Key West. He’s the top thug in the Keys. Kent, welcome to the show. Frank, you’re back. Frank, why don’t you introduce Kent?
Frank Rodriguez: Yes, absolutely. Good afternoon, Jim. I’m glad to be on the show. We have one of our newest designees. He got designated in Austin last year and we’re so happy to have him on the show. He’s very active in the Keys and we want to hear all about him and just wanted to really update you at tomorrow’s event for CCIM. It’s sold out. We meet the second Friday of every month in our new venue. It’s Morton’s. And tomorrow we’ve got economic development director from city of Coral Gables and that’s a sold out event that’s right around 70 people. I’m sure we’re going to enjoy hearing Kent today as our CCIM voice.
Jim Fried: Awesome. Frank, thank you so much for the intro. Looking forward to seeing you at the event. Kent, welcome to the show. I read where you’re breaking records down there. Tell me about the deal you and your partner just closed.
Kent Ducote: The deal we just closed – and by the way, thanks for having me on the show – the deal we just closed was a 20-unit hotel I should say a bed and breakfast that’s closed for $450,000 a unit or $9 million and that is a break-a-record since the recession, the only higher sale that occurred was just before the bust. Lodging property tier is just going pretty crazy and we specialize in that since 2012 and doing a lot of deals here. Key West is just like paradise that we would have. We have limited growth here because of the environmental sensitivity of the Keys and also there’s a hurricane evacuation model we have to follow and of course, we’re on an island so there’s limited land. And alone with height restrictions and a finite number of hotel transit licenses, the supply side is so limited and investor can come down here and we got pretty much on ending demand and a very static supply so it’s a great investment opportunity in Key West.
Jim Fried: Tell me a little bit about the CCIM. Is that helping you with your business? What prompted you to get the CCIM?
Kent Ducote: It is helping me with my business. It was a great thing. I was working as a residential Realtor and a past business associate in 2012 asked me to list his guest house and so I got together with my commercial associate at my office, Keith Bland who has a lot of national commercial real estate experience and we got the listing and we sold all three of this friend’s guest houses for about $9.2 million in total. So that wasn’t so bad. It’s just about eight months to sell the property and after that I knew that I needed to educated myself to be able to do this full time and really transition more into commercial and it worked out very well for me. And the CCIM educational program is just amazing. From where I was, a few years ago to where I am now and what I know now is a huge difference.
Jim Fried: We talked about hospitality. How about retail and office? I know that you got to have retail down there and everybody needs to have a place to work.
Kent Ducote: Yes. There’s a huge retail market here. If you know Key West, Duval Street is our main drag, tourist drag. And there’s a ton of retail going on here and the North Roosevelt Boulevard is another area which is more locally dominated but also a very big retail commercial district down from that way as well.
Jim Fried: My wife and I, we love going down there, we love staying at one of the hotels and then there’s just some great restaurants that are just in the middle of it. It seems almost like residential neighborhood. So it’s really a beautiful place. Tell me a little bit about how you mix the different uses like that.
Kent Ducote: I’m not sure exactly what you mean-
Jim Fried: Here’s what I mean. Let me be clear because I knew the minute I asked it, it was a bad question. I’ll take the flag for having a bad question. Down here in Miami they like to.. You’re not going to see a restaurant across the street from a residential home. So it seems to me like you need a little bit of call it ”use management”. I know you’re really involved down there in the community. How does somebody get a restaurant in the middle of a residential neighborhood like that?
Kent Ducote: It’s not easy to do that anymore thanks to a little bit looser in the old days here. But if a restaurant say has been established in a place for a long time and it closes, it can retain that use as a lot of grandfathering in Key West. It’s such a small place that you do want that happening some commercial properties in residential neighborhoods and vice versa. So grandfathering is pretty much how that occurs.
Jim Fried: I know that there’s a big push to redevelop some of the hospitality deals just as I guess it’s US 1 kind of dead ends and then circles around the island. When it dead ends right into the island right by where Mr. Spotswood would have his property across the street they were doing all kinds of different trades and rehabs. What’s going on with that?
Kent Ducote: That was really interesting. They took four hotels of about 530 units and they redeveloped them. And over period of a couple of years there were 500 hotel rooms off the market. So our occupancy rate was just historically very high and ADR very high just help with that. The amazing thing about Key West is that those 500 rooms went back online last year but ADR still went up. The occupancy got a couple of points knocked off but really insignificant compared to what’s been happening. We have some of the highest occupancy ADR rates in the country. In 2015 we had a 84.5 occupancy rate and $283 ADR which, it was in Forbes Magazine, I think in one quarter of last year we were the highest ADR and occupancy rate in the nation. Even surpassing Maui, which is amazing.
Jim Fried: You’re a little island too. But here’s my question, how about the quality of the facilities? Are people reinvesting the kind of income in the hotels and bringing them more up the speed, more modern? Is there a super luxe place to go, something like that?
Kent Ducote: That’s just definitely happening. It’s turning into a luxury market for sure and it has to with those kinds of rates. What I’m finding because we specialize in small lodging properties and what we’re finding is the mom and pops of 20 years ago are ready to retire now and they’re selling. And those who are coming in for the smaller places are really investors and those investors sometimes create a collection of guest houses so that they have what would be comparable to a big hotel just in different location.
Jim Fried: We’ve only got about a minute left. What’s a real take away that you can give as far as Key West’s market and what do you see going forward as maybe an opportunity there?
Kent Ducote: I would say that we are just going through the roof with our market, both residentially and commercially. It’s a great investment. You look at the statistics going years in reverse, even through the recession and we’ve done very well. There’s tons of demands and very little supplies so it’s hard to lose.
Jim Fried: If somebody wants to place a bet on Key West and they want to do with the top guy, how do they reach you?
Kent Ducote: I’m Kent at kentducote.com or my phone number is 305 394 5818 and I’d be happy to help. I’m CCIM of Key West.
Jim Fried: So you’re the only CCIM in the Key West?
Kent Ducote: There’s a couple more.
Jim Fried: We can’t wait to see you as next year is the premiere CCIM in Monroe County. Kent, thank you so much. Frank, thanks for hanging with us. See you tomorrow bud.
Kent Ducote: Thank you.
Jim Fried: Great CCIM voice. Back after this. We’ve got more information that you can use today. We’re going to talk about Wynwood and South Beach, real estate markets. Then we’re going to talk about how to know who you’re doing business with. We’re going to have a fun, entertaining time. Stick with me. I can barely control myself. AC, it’s yours.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We’ve got absolutely great show. We’re now going to talk about Wynwood. We’re going to talk about Miami Beach. We are going to talk real estate in South Florida, and we’ve got a special guest. This segment is sponsored by Julio Gonzalez and Engineered Tax Services and Don Weidenfeld of Magnum Energy Solutions and we’ve got a special guest, Chaim Cahane, not related to the famous rabbi. But he is a rabi when it comes to talking about real estate in South Florida. Chaim, welcome to the show.
Chaim Cahane: What’s going on, Jim? How are you doing?
Jim Fried: You’re going on. Aren’t we having fun yet?
Chaim Cahane: Always having fun. You’re fun to watch.
Jim Fried: I love it. See us on Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter and that stuff. Let’s talk a little bit. You bought some deals in Wynwood. Tell me what motivated you to invest in Wynwood?
Chaim Cahane: I saw a lot of similarities in Wynwood that I saw in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, the artistic culture, the nature, the vibe. When you walk in that area you just feel an amazing energy that I felt first time that I was there. And I was just really attracted to it.
Jim Fried: The amazing energies because it’s a block and a half away from where I live. But continue.
Chaim Cahane: Yes. So it took us a little while to get familiar with what worked over there and really understand the layer, the ground of the market but once we did, we worked very quickly to try to acquire as many deals as we could. And in about a year we probably acquired about 10 properties.
Jim Fried: High five to you. So you’re well positioned then.
Chaim Cahane: Pretty well positioned, yes.
Jim Fried: Are you done? Are you going to look at the next market?
Chaim Cahane: In Wynwood?
Jim Fried: I don’t know. You’re done in Wynwood. What are you looking at these days?
Chaim Cahane: I think for now I’m done in Wynwood.
Jim Fried: Brokers are listening. They may send you properties.
Chaim Cahane: It’s been hard for me to buy in Wynwood. Most of the stuff that I bought over there is between what we purchased significantly last two things we’re trading at today so it’s hard for me to get my arms around it. It reminds me of a conversation that I had early on when I started looking in Wynwood with a local broker who’s been in the market for 30 years. I was sitting in Jimmy’s kitchen with him and he was telling me that he just can’t understand the market because he remembers it from 10-15 years ago when things were trading at $10-$12/foot and two years ago we were buying, we were trading at $220-$230/foot and today things are trading at $700-$1500/foot. Actually the last trade was at $1700/foot on 2nd Avenue. So when I bought stuff at $200-$250/foot it’s hard for me to get my arms around the pricing that’s here today.
Jim Fried: I think that now you can understand why the other person had the issue when it was $50 going to $200.
Chaim Cahane: Yes. But the problem was I was making fun of him, then, so now I’m laughing at myself a little bit.
Jim Fried: I think you’re doing just fine. You got really good strategic real estate. I looked at your website. I’m very happy for you. I think you’re going to do fine. What are you looking at coming up?
Chaim Cahane: We’re concentrating really heavily on the beach. We bought some stuff on Collins, we bought some stuff on Washington. I like what’s going on over there particularly on Collins between 5th and 8th. I love Memo. I’ve been looking for some stuff over there. We’re currently on a contract with a couple of deals over there that we’re going to reposition. I love the Gables. I think the Gables is a good market. I think South Florida has tremendous amount of room to grow. There’s a lot of money coming in both internationally and nationally. And I like what’s going on down there.
Jim Fried: I know you’re buying these properties as their price.. Are there opportunities for people to co-invest with you on these deals?
Chaim Cahane: Yes, absolutely. Our business models, basically we syndicate most of our deals from local family offices and high net of individuals. We obviously invest our own money and our own capital alongside on every deal that we do. I think we have a pretty good track record and we’ve done pretty well in the past.
Jim Fried: So you manage the properties once you buy them. You’re an operator too? Vertically integrated?
Chaim Cahane: Everything we do we keep in house. We have a full office in New York, the deals are fully payables, receivables, accounting stuff. We have a full acquisition team over here. We actually brought in a guy from New York. All he does is canvas the streets so they try to find off-market opportunities for us. I would say 75% or 80% that we’ve bought in the Florida market have all been off-market transactions and we’ve been able to build good relationships with a lot of the long time local sellers.
Jim Fried: That really sounds like a great business plan. We talked in the green room. I guess then we’re going to talk a little bit when Mark comes on about some of the experiences you’ve had about finding out about people and the impact that that’s had. You’re looking at any new markets here in Miami?
Chaim Cahane: I like the markets that I’m in right now. I like Miami, I like South Beach, I like Washington. As I said I like Collins, I like Mimo. Wynwood is good, my basis that I enjoy that, I think we’ll do okay over there. We positioned some assets over there, we brought in some good tenants. I think we’re actually one of the first companies to sign a fortune 100 company in one of our buildings. We have a lease actually with Revlon-
Jim Fried: I was going to say, can you reveal? That’s great.
Chaim Cahane: Yes. We signed the lease with Revlon, they’re doing their whole East Coast national photo shoot campaign out of our building, one of the buildings that we own on 25th Street, Northwest 25th Street so really excited about that. We signed the leases with a really cool tattoo parlor called Iris Tattoo out of Argentina. They have a huge following. They are at 130,000 followers on Instagram. When the broker brought it to me, he’s like ”I want to bring a tattoo parlor to your shop”, I’m like ”It’s not really the kind of vibe that we’re looking for”. He’s like ”No, look it them, take a look at their website, they’ve been up in magazines…”
Jim Fried: They’re artists, not tattoo guys.
Chaim Cahane: They do amazing stuff. We just signed a lease with BFA Design which is very high end kitchen company that’s coming out of Design District. And we have some really good tenants that we’re talking to about some of those availabilities that we have in the market.
Jim Fried: I think people rolling out of Design District and going little south you’re going to see that, they first went north, now they’re going to go back south because there’s still a price break, they still get the same access, the same vibe, the same people.
Chaim Cahane: I remember when I came to Wynwood three years ago, the traffic light on Northwest 20th Street in 2nd Avenue was blinking because people really didn’t want to stop. And today you can’t even cross the street, the traffic is just phenomenal. It’s amazing.
Jim Fried: I know. I live there. Thanks a lot.
Chaim Cahane: It’s my fault. I’ll take the blame for it.
Jim Fried: No, it’s my fault. I’m selling all the high rise sites. You’re just doing a little bit of retail, bringing a couple of people in. I’m the one bringing 4,000 people there and I complain the whole time.
Chaim Cahane: The guys got to have a to eat, right?
Jim Fried: Yes, they got to have a place to live, a place to eat, you’re coming little off peak, everything’s going to be fine.
Chaim Cahane: Everything’s great.
Jim Fried: I love it. And the other thing I like is that the properties that you’re buying are walk-to things. That’s the big thing in Wynwood. Some people don’t realize some of locations are not walk-to. Yours are.
Chaim Cahane: Everything that we bought is concentrated in between Northwest 2nd Avenue and North Miami Avenue. I think that’s where all the quarters are coming. We bought a great building on 24th Street, 151 Northwest 24th which we have the new Miami Arts Charter Schools opening up over there. And we’re actually in advance talks with a very prominent tenant. To take that space I think it will be a game changer for the area.
Jim Fried: I think that all these tenants it’s all building a mosaic. I’m going to have to talk arts, right? They’re building the mosaic, an ecosystem I said with the guy last week about technology but this is going to be an ecosystem of arts and entertainment. People will come over from the beach. The vibe that we had 20 years ago, the beach with the Revlons and the fashion shoots will come back, the Greg Robbins guy is brilliant in bringing that kind of vibe and putting all that up there and you’re going to get the advantage of that.
Chaim Cahane: We love it. Like I said, we looked at some things in Design District and for me it was little difficult to get my arms around there with the pricing but he’s done a phenomenal job creating the Rodeo Drive of Miami in a market that nothing existed and I think a lot of that would spill over to Wynwood and I think that’s where a lot of the traffic comes. It reminds me of a story when I was first year. I was on a plane flying back and forth before I moved here and I was sitting next to this person who was an associate from Morgan Stanley in the Arts Department. And I was talking to her, I said ”Where do you and your friends like to hang out?”, she’s like ”We used to hang out in the Bell Harbor Shop”. She was right. Now we go shopping in Design District and then we go hang out in Wynwood.
Jim Fried: That’s an endorsement. Listen, can you stick around for a couple of minutes? You had a great story outside. I want to bring Marc on later around the corner. We’ll do a little crossover. We’re going to talk about how you used a little background checking to protect your – I have to say – assets.
Chaim Cahane: Yes. Absolutely. No problem. I’ll be happy to.
Jim Fried: All right. Stick with us. You heard. We’re going to have some great information in the second half of the show. It’s going to be devoted to making sure you’re doing business with the person you think you are. We’re going to have Marc Hurwitz on. He’s the President of Crossroads Investigations. He used to be with the CIA, the Deputy National Security Advisor. I’m overcome. He’s qualified I think. So stick with us. I want to say hi to one of our listeners in Texas, a special shout out to the folks in Austin who always text, always love us. We love them back. So stick with us. We’re going to have great energy. You think I got good energy? It’s only going to get better. AC, yours.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: James feels nice like sugar and spice and I want to remind everybody that the 4th annual IMN annual single family rental investment forum, it’s going to be held in Miami on May 16th to 18th. Go to www.imn.org/sfr16 or just call Sara Ann at 212 224 3017. I went to the event this week. It was awesome. I made money just by attending it. I met Chaim at an event like that just a couple of weeks ago.
Chaim Cahane: Yes you did.
Jim Fried: All right. We’ve got Chaim. He’s sticking around because he’s got a great story about this. But our main guest in the second half is Marc Hurwitz. He’s the President of Crossroads Investigations. He does Private Investigations & Due Diligence. He began government service with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan – that must have been interesting – he also worked with the U.S. Department of State’s Human Rights Bureau, the White House where he served as the aide to the Deputy National Security Advisor. This is pretty good. And then he went to work as a counter-terrorism officer for the CIA. He opened his own shop in 2008. He helps me find out what other people are doing that they may not want me to know. Marc, welcome to the show.
Marc Hurwitz: Thank you very much. This is amazing by the way. There are two people in this room. One owns half of Miami and the other knows half the people in Miami. It’s incredible.
Jim Fried: You’re selling me short, him, he’s working on.
Chaim Cahane: Dangerous combination.
Jim Fried: No, this is actually absolutely awesome. We don’t do the three headed monster much but we’re going to do it today. Marc, first of all, let’s put out your credentials. Why should somebody work with your firm to find out somebody’s background, then we’ll go to this Panama Papers thing and what else all that mean. Chaim’s got a great story.
Marc Hurwitz: The daily business review says we’re the number one investigation agency in South Florida.
Jim Fried: High five to you by the way.
Marc Hurwitz: Thank you very much. I have a lot of government experience. The people who work with me have a lot of government experience. We have a lot unique access, unique contacts all over the world.
Jim Fried: You really helped me out. I had a couple of people I really wanted to find out about. One person, it was rumored what was going on, I asked another person, I had no idea. But before I got involved with them I wanted to know because you never know when you’re putting it all on the line you want to make sure the other person is who they represent they are. Tell me a good story about somebody that you unearthed maybe wasn’t all right with anything.
Marc Hurwitz: There were so many.
Jim Fried: What’s your favorite? Come on.
Marc Hurwitz: Our best clients are the ones that have already been taken advantage of. And when we have to deal with those checks after the deal has been done, that’s the painful experience for those guys.
Jim Fried: Chaim, I know that you deal with a bunch of investors. You had a great story you were telling in the green room before we’re on. You’re on, soft ball tossed.
Chaim Cahane: We had interesting situation. We were on a contract to buy a property on the beach, something that we closed on and we were out raising equity from our investors and an individual came tossing all for us. So we thought it was really favorably economic terms and something didn’t really make sense and our attorney advised us to maybe do a background check on the person and we did a background check on the person and we basically unearthed that the individual had some issues in the past in the early to mid ’90s that would’ve really prohibited us from getting financing so it’s really important to know who your equity is especially if they have the majority of the interest because the lenders today have the ”know your investor” rule and it’s really important to know who your investors are. And fortunately, this particular deal we had to go away from this guy and I was telling you in break room that we decided to go hard on the deal ourselves with a significant deposit and now we’re able to thank God pull it off but it’s really important to know who you’re dealing with.
Jim Fried: Marc, what a soft ball. Happened often with you?
Marc Hurwitz: All the time. You have to check that box, how can you not? Whether it’s a business deal, whether you’re checking a nanny, whether you’re going to business together, you have to. You have to know what you’re getting into. You have to know that person’s criminal history, you need to know leans, bankruptcies, judgments, foreclosures, the evictions of properties, the reputation, you have to check plugs you have to check the media, you have to check their finances.
Jim Fried: I know the report you gave me was 300 pages long but it was all totally right on. It said that the person had such and such a history, and it said where they lived, and the person told me all that and so it actually checked out and then later on in the deal, maybe three or four months, the person you had mentioned, the person wouldn’t be necessarily financially strong and it hit. Now we could structure around it in that case. But knowing that we would have to really was important. What are some of the other things that you’ve seen happen here? I want to talk about the Panama thing right after that though. Tell me.
Marc Hurwitz: You have to know if someone is vulnerable. Because what we learned in the intelligence community is someone’s vulnerability will motivate them to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. So that’s what we’re looking for. If someone is weak financially, they’re going to do something, they’re going to take advantage. That may not be the person that they are but they are at that moment.
Jim Fried: Desperate people do desperate things. I guess that’s the first line in your handbook there.
Marc Hurwitz: There you go.
Jim Fried: Chaim, you put together investment transactions. Do you regularly check people? I guess after that experience you must.
Chaim Cahane: It depends. Most of the investors that we take in, they’re not a majority equity investor but if there’s an individual that’s coming with a significant amount of capital and the banks are going to know who they are, we’re going to want to know about them. Today, lenders they have this rule depending on the lender, if you’re investing or you own more than 10%-20% of the equity they want to know all about you and they underwrite you. So when we deal with those investors, if they’re hesitant to give us information, we usually raise the red flag for us.
Jim Fried: It’s something you really need and it’s not just here and it just hit the papers. Marc, what’s your take on what happened with the Panama revelations? And I got to believe there’s a lot more to come.
Marc Hurwitz: Absolutely. We do a lot of international due diligence. And when the money traces back to Panama that has always been an automatic red flag. That’s the new Switzerland. It really is. And that’s just the first law firm. That’s one law firm.
Jim Fried: There’s more firms that do this?
Marc Hurwitz: Of course. It’s unbelievable.
Jim Fried: It’s like a cottage industry. I had to use that term. I love that. I’ve been waiting to use cottage industry for 352 shows or something. So Marc, you left public practice, you got into private practice, who are the types of people who hire you?
Marc Hurwitz: People like Chaim hire me quite often for investments.
Jim Fried: Strange business cards. Making business on Fried on Business. You want to know what we do here, you just found out.
Marc Hurwitz: But I have to tell you, most of our clients are law firms. They refer us to their clients, either to their investor clients or people who are going to be litigating.
Jim Fried: That’s who referred me to you, right? JB? We’ll figure it out. It doesn’t matter because now we’re tight friends. JB, if you’re listening, please text me and say ”Hey, schmuck, it was me”. We got three more minutes in this segment. Yes, Jonathan Blecher, our favorite DUI attorney. The other guy who protects us on the holidays. Actually, he doesn’t protect us, he tells us what not to do. Do I drive drunk? No driving drunk but back to this. So people are checking them out, their attorneys, their real estate people, right?
Marc Hurwitz: Sure. They want to know of course for their tenants, they have to know if they’re credit worthy. But a lot of things, if you’re going to sue someone, is it worth suing them? Do they have money in the bank?
Chaim Cahane: Interesting.
Jim Fried: Yes, right. Tell me some other angles. This is good. You even got an ”ooh”. And I want to remind everybody that Chaim was brought to us this week by Engineered Tax Services and Magnum Energy Solutions. High five to Don and Julio, they’ll be back next month.
Marc Hurwitz: Not only do we search before the litigation but after that judgment we have to find the money. There’s a lot of fraudulent transfers people have set up bank accounts-
Jim Fried: What’s your background? What did you do before you worked for the government?
Marc Hurwitz: I went straight from college to the government actually.
Jim Fried: Really?
Marc Hurwitz: Yes. I got my Master’s at GW.
Jim Fried: What did you get your Master’s in? I’m sorry, I’m-
Marc Hurwitz: National security.
Jim Fried: Oh my God. It’s a good thing that we got this guy on our side. We only have a minute left. Marc, please tell them how you’re going to, how they can get in touch with you. Then we’re going to do a whole another segment on more great stuff, it’s going to be fun, entertaining, and informative. Marc, how do they find you?
Marc Hurwitz: We’re at Crossroads Investigations xinvestigations.com 305 929 3513.
Jim Fried: I love that. How did you get ”xinvestigations”? That’s just awesome.
Marc Hurwitz: Just got lucky.
Jim Fried: You did get lucky. People who work with you get lucky too. We’ll be right back after this. We’re going to have more with Chaim, more with Marc, more with AC, more with me. And the music is just to make sure everybody stays on the straightened arrow. Santana is going to play us.. Thank you. AC, back after this.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We played ”Evil Ways” and I’m an evil dude but that’s because we’re talking about evil people here. The second part of the show has been all about investigating. We’ve got Marc Hurwitz, he’s President of Crossroads Investigations. Let’s just put it all online. He used to be with the CIA. You don’t hide things from Marc. He will find out if you’ve got something and of course we’ve got our friend Chaim Cahane on. He’s brought here and sponsored by Magnum Energy Solutions and Engineered Tax Services. Thanks to Julio and Don, they’ll be back next month. Marc, how do we stop the bad people from messing around with us?
Marc Hurwitz: That’s a tough question.
Jim Fried: Yes, I asked it like that, the reason, I wanted to break your shops.
Marc Hurwitz: It just got a little bit tougher right this week. I think it’s going to be a little bit of whack-a-mole. This new method will come up somewhere, another country will offer their special services, offer their-
Jim Fried: Just to create some income, create a little occupancy in the office buildings.
Marc Hurwitz: It’s a ton of money in this.
Jim Fried: I mean, Panama we knew, I know Panama, there’s Switzerland, there’s the Cayman Islands, there used to be the Bahamas. What other places are – I’m just going to say it – sleazy?
Marc Hurwitz: It was one after the other. Panama was just the most recent.
Jim Fried: What do you think they’re going to go next? Someplace else in Central America. I loved the name, Lichtenstein. I love that. I can see it. Lichtenstein, that was the place, right?
Marc Hurwitz: That was the place.
Jim Fried: We know they’re not going to go to Belgium. I don’t think anybody wants to go to Belgium right now. No offense to the Belgians. Is that what they call themselves? Belgians? Now Marc, what is the first thing that you do? I pick up the phone, I call you, I go ”Marc, I got a problem” and we called. It was like I needed you immediately. I had to do something the next day and I didn’t want to do it if the person was a dirt bag. You ran the thing, it was done in an hour.
Marc Hurwitz: Yes. We can do it that fast if we need to. The most important thing I need to know is what do you want to know, how deep do you want to go. Because we offer a whole range.
Jim Fried: What kind of range? I don’t even know what the range is. I know my ID’s been stolen, my tax return has been filed, my bank account has been hacked, I’m just out there. I don’t even think I have any shorts on any more. So I tried to protect everything. If you look, I got different seven keys, ‘’swayze’’, email thing that Jim Angleton.. our good mutual buddy, hey Jim I hope you’re listening you dirt bag. So what can somebody really do to protect their – I’m going to have to say it – their assets?
Marc Hurwitz: That’s a deep due diligence. We have had people do it on themselves including politicians. Of course, they want to know what’s out there on themselves.
Jim Fried: You know, you probably don’t even know. And even if you do your own credit report, stuff drops off after a while but the bad boys, they’ll find it, they’ll dive deep on you. How deep can you go?
Marc Hurwitz: I have a team of former CIA analysts who do all this work and they’ve been trained by the best in the world. And we will dive very deep, no rock is left unturned, the financials, the reputation, whatever we need to find, however deep the client will let us go.
Jim Fried: Chaim has got a little cat smile on because he knows he’s hiring you. Now you were ranked number one by the Miami business review recently, weren’t you?
Marc Hurwitz: Yes, daily business review.
Jim Fried: Yes, you give great answers. You can’t come on it unless you can do more than a three-word answer. You got great info. Give it to me, why did they rank you number one?
Marc Hurwitz: We’re pretty well known in the business community. We do a lot of sponsorships, we are involved, we help the community, a lot of charities and we are known for our good reputation with the law firms so we do a good work.
Jim Fried: I know Chaim knows where to get you. He got your card. If people want to find you, because I only got two minutes left and I got to thank everybody, it takes an hour, so how do people you, Marc?
Marc Hurwitz: xinvestigations.com.
Jim Fried: I love that guy. This guy is the best. I want to thank Don Weidenfeld and Julio Gonzalez, Magnum Energy Solutions and Engineered Tax Services for bringing my new best friend, Chaim Cahane. We’re going to take over Miami, me and Chaim. I got Marc Hurwitz here to protect my assets, Marc give me the fistbump. And of course, I’ve got AC writing back there. I want to thank my sponsors. I want to thank the Related Group. You guys didn’t know I had the Related Group as a sponsor; Spectrum Mortgage, you heard, UHealth, you heard, Warren Henry, Magnum Energy Solutions, Engineered Tax Services, EarlyShares, KIND Snacks, the NFL Alumni Association, the Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies, the Miami Marlins, I want to sing that tune, I don’t care; the CCIMs, South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine, Xpresso Marketing, Social Media 305 and our good friends protecting our kids at Lauren’s Kids. But the most important people I want to thank is you. I want to thank our listeners. Go to our Facebook page, like our show, tell your friends, join our community, give us feedback, comments. Tell me who you want to hear and who you like. I can be tweeted @JimFried, @FriedonBusiness, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube. The website keeps getting more and more hits. If you missed today’s show, it’s going to be up on our webpage www.friedonbusiness.com. This is Jim Fried for Fried on Business. Look for us on 880 next Thursday at 6:00. Why? Because I just love doing this. We’re going to have a great show again. Remember, this is not a rehearsal, this is your life. The person who wants to do something finds a way, the other finds an excuse. Now go out there and make it happen. I’m tossing it back to AC. Thank you everybody so much. See you next week.
