#139 - Holding a Rental 14 Years and the IRR It Actually Made

#139 - Holding a Rental 14 Years and the IRR It Actually Made

The guys go deep on the operational grind of construction and demo focusing on the economics of Marc's Circle Waste business, transfer-station logistics and tipping fees, his new labor-saving gear (a mini excavator and a stair-climbing crawler), and a riff on robots and exoskeletons eventually replacing job-site labor. Dan also tells the story of catching a contractor on camera illegally dumping about 20 yards into his Dorchester dumpster and winning restitution in district court. The headline, though, is Dan and Ray selling the final unit of their very first joint purchase. A 2012 Dorchester three-family they condo-converted which is a lesson in real estate as a long game and the trap of over-optimizing every decision.

#138 - The Multifamily Minute

The guys open on the frozen capital markets for multifamily development. Banks are eager to deploy senior debt at reasonable terms, but equity, mezzanine, and pref capital have gone into hiding, leaving big approved projects unbuilt while smaller deals still pencil. From there, Ray launches a new "Multifamily Minute" news segment covering three timely items: the Darby Development v. United States case, in which the federal government may owe roughly $1 billion to settle landlord claims over the CDC's COVID eviction moratorium; a stealth 3% rent-increase cap on Massachusetts MRVP voucher holders that functions as backdoor rent control despite no legislative process; and the first real softening of Boston-area rents in years, down an estimated 4–7%.

#137 - Are Most Subcontractors Breaking Labor Laws?

Fresh off a crash course with his labor law attorney, Marc pulls back the curtain on Massachusetts non-competes, non-solicitations, and the brutal world of employee misclassification including a real pest control case where workers walked away with a seven-figure judgment. The guys dig into the three-part test the AG uses to decide if someone is truly an independent contractor, why the "nuts and bolts" rule trips up nearly every GC and subcontractor, and how wage-theft damages stack up fast with double pay and attorney's fees baked in.

#136 - Operational Excellence and How to Keep Jobs Moving Forward

The guys break down what operational excellence actually looks like on a construction site — from how to build a 13,000 sq ft, five-townhouse project in just 9.5 months to the hidden advantages of self-performing as the GC. They get into the mechanics that actually move jobs forward: pre-construction meetings, three-week look-aheads, cash as "the lubricant," and why trust with subs matters more than any schedule on paper. Along the way they tackle the death-by-a-thousand-cuts problem of buyer changes, share a controversial take on why full-time superintendents are overrated on smaller projects, and kick things off with a wild story about San Francisco landlords intentionally leaving units vacant under rent control.

#135 - The 'All-Electric Trap' That's Quietly Wrecking Multifamily Deals w/ Charles de Jager

Charles de Jager — aka "The Hunter," founder of Energy Credit Consulting joined the guys to break down what's actually saving developers money now that federal incentives like 179D and 45L have been gutted by the One Big Beautiful Bill. He walks through how his team finds millions per project by running hundreds of energy models and challenging "default" specs like triple-pane windows, continuous exterior insulation, and the rush to go all-electric (including the "All-Electric Trap" where heat pump water heaters score worse than a simple Navien tankless).  They also play a round of Marc's favorite game - Overrated/Underrated/Appropriately rated covering solar panels, ducted heat pumps, battery storage, and the political risk hanging over MassSave incentives.