Katie Mitchell  18:17  

right? Yeah. I mean, the upfront costs are no joke for Reddit, and especially if you’re trying to attract tech tenants got to really invest in those spaces. So yeah, it’s fast. And, you know, we’ve seen that a lot of the AR 10, especially, most of our portfolios is industrial, that they, you know, have been kind of like essential businesses for the pandemic. And, you know, for a lot of them as well, they’re, they’re small enough that they’re like, they’re nimble, and we don’t have to wait for, you know, the, the tech company like style HR department and all these stakeholders to make decisions on where they want offices. And I mean, there’s a lot of steps for these big companies to make decisions on what they want to do with space. Whereas for these smaller groups, you know, they, they’re, it’s the business owner and a few employees and you know, that we can get back to them quicker. And the exchanges are just a lot easier. We have for all these small tenants.

Greg Owens  19:19  

Yeah, yeah. And so they’re, like you said, they’re mostly essential businesses. So they’re there. They’ve been staying open this whole time. And there has been no restrictions basically, to them. Maybe they’ve changed up their own policies internally and that kind of thing. Right. That’s great. That’s wonderful. Yeah,

Katie Mitchell  19:36  

it’s been a, you know, stayed pretty strong. And I think we did find that that the tenants who were struggling or weren’t able to renew or tenants that had struggled before, I think COVID maybe just, you know, weeded out some of those businesses, the businesses that were strong, I mean, they they really did weather COVID pretty well. I mean, we we were able to collect quite a bit of of the Ran during that kind of really tough period where a lot of other businesses were closed.

Greg Owens  20:06  

Yeah, I read a statistics recently about Marin County. And I forget what the number was. But there was a looming number of businesses that went out of business. But I knew some of those businesses and they were teetering before COVID. So COVID took them right out. right and right, there was no recovery from that. Right. Yeah.

Katie Mitchell  20:25  

Are you? Are you finding that there’s kind of a vacuum for you to fill now that maybe there’s less competition? Or?

Greg Owens  20:34  

Oh, well, as far as being a painting contractor?

Katie Mitchell  20:37  

Yeah, just yeah. With other vendors that might not have survived COVID? Is there? Are you feeling like there’s more workers, it’s just hard to tell, because we

Greg Owens  20:45  

build all of my all of my competitors still, like, because painting is so even all construction, you know, it’s, there’s not it’s not an intense investment, sort of, you know, type of company, you don’t need a lot of equipment, that kind of thing. No, what we’re experiencing is, it’s pure craziness right now, because there’s so much packed up demand. And now that commercials coming back in a big way that demand is coming back in. And so there’s both both the problem of finding employees finding, you know, qualified people that can do actually do the work. And it’s not like we have endless kids knocking on the door saying, hey, I want to be a painter, your age. They kind of want to do they want to go work for Google here. And they want to go work at different companies. And then the other side, which is really interesting is the supply chain guy seriously disrupted because of COVID. And some of the tariffs and some other things that we’re running out of materials on a regular basis, including like when Texas froze, right Euston and all that a lot of the paint manufacturers get their raw materials from there, and all of that slowed way down. So then all of a sudden, we’re running out of product in, we couldn’t find steel, and it’s gone up like 300%, right, like, so it’s it’s tough. We’re trying as best we can. We’re trying to order things ahead of time just to get ahead of it and just have it in our own warehouse to be able to, like, you know, fulfil the projects we have going on, right?

Katie Mitchell  22:15  

Yeah, no, I mean, we’re seeing that as well. Just and it’s, it’s tough, because I think some of the smaller businesses are getting beat out because the larger ones have the right connections. And you know, they can eat some of the costs to stay competitive. But a lot of these smaller groups are just really struggling with getting getting like basic materials, even, you know, or like one piece of a part for an HVAC system. You know, they’re missing screws, but they have everything else, you know, and so it’s just, it’s so frustrating for a lot of these guys,

Greg Owens  22:47  

right? We’re running into the same thing little tiny, like one little part to a bank right now is taking three weeks to get like, like, how is that possible? This is a it’s like a two year old man.

Katie Mitchell  22:58  

Yeah.

Greg Owens  23:00  

Are you guys like somebody making that? Are you? So yeah, so it’s it’s an interesting time. I was on a contractor call though, the other day. And, and I was blown away, because there’s these companies in other countries, right? Like, say Costa Rica was one of them. And because they’re so used to supply chains throughout history, not being able to fulfil that when they’re doing a major development, they buy all of the stuff before the development even starts. All right. So if they’re building like and say they need like 600 toilets, they’ll buy the 600 toilets have all the materials like in their warehouse, that you think about the warehouse, space, the house all this, that way, they can stay on time and finish the entire project in a timely fashion and not have any of these hiccups, which I was like, wow, that’s that’s a different way of thinking about construction that I have done I’ve ever had to now I have to think about it a little bit. But

Katie Mitchell  23:58  

absolutely, yeah. Wow. That’s that is fascinating.

Greg Owens  24:01  

Right, right. It’s been really fun to learn about these kinds of things, talking to other contractors and other property owners, you know, through this podcast and finding out more. Right,

Katie Mitchell  24:12  

right.

Greg Owens  24:13  

I wanted to touch like, so. What What, what are some of the strengths you found or things you learned, like that are helping you now from having that time away? And being traveling and that kind of thing? Have you been able to see some of that skill transfer or learnings or what’s come about at this point for you? Yeah,

Katie Mitchell  24:34  

yeah, no, it’s a good question. I mean, I think maybe the presumption might be that there’s not a lot of like, take, you know, transfer transfer applicability from traveling to like the corporate world because they’re so different. But you know, fundamentally, I think a lot of the things that you know, we we we view travel as both just you know, cultural experience and spending time with each other and all of that, but traveling That long and having, you know, as much kind of free time as we did, it was really important for us to kind of focus on like, you know, from, like a personal growth perspective. And so, you know, we, we really tried to like, kind of foster this little bubble that my husband I kind of lived in and incubated. We like kind of looked at as, like an incubation period for us to just really, you know, read and explore and, you know, have a conversation. I mean, it was so it’s, it was weird, how kind of foreign that was to us, you know, you’re just so busy in our everyday lives, that sitting down, uninterrupted or on distracted and having a conversation was that was like, hard to find time to do. Or even just the energy. Yeah. And so we did a lot of that, while we were traveling, we tried to, you know, kind of figure out what habits we wanted to forums so that we could be better people and employees going back into the corporate life, I think we’d found in San Francisco, we were working long hours that we just kind of got sucked into almost like an unintentional lifestyle, we were just like robots, and you don’t realize how influenced you are, by you know, everything that goes on and in our lives. So when you kind of step away from that, you separate yourselves, like you have more time and space to really kind of think about what you want to do. And, you know, just be intentional, basically. And so yeah, I think there’s a lot of things that we did while we are traveling and and, you know, from a personal growth perspective that have absolutely transferred over into kind of the workplace, I mean, just a better like headspace, you know, communication, like my husband and I really formulated had to kind of formulate this better communication system, because, you know, when somebody is injured or not feeling great, you’re not going to ride like 60 miles out day or whatever. And we’re, you know, how do you figure out where to stay or whatever. So, you know, just like effective communication was another thing that kind of came out of that. So yeah, I definitely think that there’s, you know, a lot of benefits that we had from traveling, none of that have carried over. And to be honest, like we were just burnt out in San Francisco. And to have that time, coming back to work was really exciting. And I like working hard. And so I had this kind of renewed motivation and perspective on, you know, how I wanted to run my team and bring value to the company. And so that, I mean, that was just really, really want to come to work and, and work hard and not feel burnt out.

Greg Owens  27:34  

And I would think you also don’t have like that part of your mind. You did it. And so you have that part of your mind of like, not regretting not taking that time, right. And you realize more and more like you really, I think you appreciate everything you have now and appreciate being able to do that. And having that kind of gratitude for it all.

Katie Mitchell  27:53  

Totally. Yeah. I mean, like I said, We’d wanted to do it for a while. And we actually put it off for a few years, we kept kind of getting promotions or weddings, or I mean, things just always got in the way, you know. And finally, we’re like, all right, you no matter what, June we’re weaving, and we’re gonna go travel, so yeah, no, we’re we’re super thankful that we were able to travel even as much as we were before COVID. I mean, the timing for us was was very fortunate.

Greg Owens  28:20  

Did your Spanish improve being in Chile for five months?

Katie Mitchell  28:24  

It did, yeah. I had taken some Spanish in high school, and I’d studied abroad in Argentina. So I had some Spanish under my belt, but you know, the accents are so different than just write the dialect. And, you know, it totally changes even from region to region within each of these, you know, countries. So that that was definitely challenging. But yeah, I mean, we, we didn’t run into that many people who spoke English unless they were in the tourist industry, but we really didn’t interact much with the tourist industry, because we weren’t staying in places. We weren’t taking transportation, like locals. So that that was cool. But yeah, I mean, we, when we were coming back from or decided to come back to the US, we had to us are just a there was a lot of pressure to like be able to communicate effectively because we had to get through checkpoints. And we had to understand what was going on in the news, which there wasn’t any news in English that we could really rely on. So it was kind of like a maker break to really use use that Spanish and understand what was going on and be able to communicate to people what what our situation was.

Greg Owens  29:36  

That’s great. Yeah, especially I can imagine that I speak some Spanish and I know that I was like on a tour like adventure sort of tour once in Mexico and the guide, the guide gave instructions in English right and then he gave instructions in Spanish which are completely different instructions. Without A lot more like really good information to know. Like, these people don’t have a clue. Great. And and so what I’d like to touch on a few things before we end here, but for people that are considering taking a break, like a sabbatical, this mini vacation, this mini retirement really, right, because in a lot of ways you gave up with some of the companies you were working for, and went off on your own and that kind of thing. What What would you say is like the first steps or how to how to get going and get get out of because I know, there’s I have a bunch of friends that are in this position where they, they want to do it, but something keeps coming up, right, and something keeps coming up, and they keep putting it off. Right. And, and then, you know, it inevitably never happens. Right? And so you How would you coach or tell those people what they should be thinking about? Yeah, I

Katie Mitchell  30:57  

mean, I think it’s maybe realizing just that, you’re never going to have the perfect opportunity to go, you know, travel or, or quit your job or take a sabbatical, you know, whatever your kind of your situation is, it’s, it is really difficult to find, like a good time to do it. But I think, you know, if it’s really of interest, take, just committing and, you know, setting a time where you are going to, you know, leave and and i think you know, just trusting the preparations is really important, but it’s just taking that step like, you know, committing buying those flights that I think is like almost the hardest hurdle. And then after that, you know, you’ll build confidence as you solve problems. And and, you know, there’s so many resources out there now with blogs, and you know, everything on the internet, it’s just, it’s a lot easier to prepare, and there’s checklists for everything and, you know, information on where to go and what to do and all that. So, you know, I think really like the biggest pieces is just committing.

Greg Owens  31:56  

Yeah, and you know, we both You sound like we both got a lot out of Tim Ferriss book, and I also liked his like, making that list of like, what’s the what’s the worst that could happen? Right, right, what is the worst things that can happen? Trying to figure out? What’s the best way to deal with the worst things that could happen? And can you live with it? Right? Can you write you know, because once you write it, and if you write it out, it sort of makes a lot more, you can look at it and be like, well, that’s not as scary as it feels right. Like, I got these

Katie Mitchell  32:23  

options. Yeah, no, I think that’s a, that’s a really good point, for sure. And most of the time, the the kind of fear based stuff is actually not that substantial. And you know, sometimes the worst thing that happens is that you spend a little money you go out, you know, and and commit to this, and then you come back a month later, if it doesn’t work out, you know, and

Greg Owens  32:45  

you’re like, it wasn’t for me, right? Yeah,

Katie Mitchell  32:47  

exactly. Yeah. So yeah, no, that’s, that’s a really good point.

Greg Owens  32:51  

I would think, too, that there’s probably a lot of fear of not being able to come back and find a good career path again, right? Because you’re on a career path. And like you said, you’re in San Francisco, and you’re, you’re working up that hierarchy and working up the ladder, and then you’re like, Oh, my God, I’m going to take a year off or more, and then how do I restart it? And do I have to start at the bottom again? What would you say to those, because I hear that fear come up a lot. Like, what would you say to that? Because you guys have worked through that, you know, and and to another city?

Katie Mitchell  33:22  

Yeah, I mean, I think if you have invested in, you know, getting certifications or learning and, and kind of building the resume, you know, there’s such a shortage of like, qualified people out there. You know, it’s, I think, it’s, it’s really tough for employers, and, you know, as a, as an employee, and if you’ve worked, you know, for Dustin, I think it’s important to work for a little while, so you can really solidify yourself before traveling, you know, coming back if we were looking, you know, during the holidays, when no one was hiring, and during COVID and in totally new city. And, you know, it worked out and, you know, we we put a lot of effort into it and researched and had a lot of informational interviews and stuff. But yeah, again, like, you just sometimes need to trust the process and trust yourself that you can do it. And, you know, I think it’s just what it comes down to is what is it worth to you, if you have to take, you know, a little bit of a step back in your career is, you know, traveling, worth it and experiencing all that. And if it is, then everything else will, you know, fall into place. It’s just what are your priorities? You know?

Greg Owens  34:31  

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great advice. And what’s and what’s your origin story for becoming, getting into real estate, property management, that kind of thing?

Katie Mitchell  34:41  

That is like most people fell into it.

Greg Owens  34:44  

But it’s so true. This question no 60 times and it’s amazing how often it’s like, not something they were seeking, in a way No,

Katie Mitchell  34:53  

no, I mean, I have both my parents in real estate so I was kind of aware of, of property management. And just, you know, kind of the lifestyle associated with real estate in general. And I, you know, was applying to a bunch of different jobs kind of got my foot in through the door at Ghirardelli square with Jameson, which at the time, I had no idea what a great opportunity that was I just showed up and I had never even been to Ghirardelli Square. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is crazy. And you know, started as an admin, and then, you know, just worked my way up. But it really was not like an intentional choice. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated from college, I think probably most people don’t really know. And there’s, it’s hard to I mean, even in this last transition, I tried to talk to as many people as possible in different parts of real estate to see if you know, brokerage, or construction management, or I mean, there’s so many different avenues. And I still and I spent five years in real estate, but still found it hard to really understand what everybody does in those roles. And whether that was for me or not. So I mean, at some point, I, you know, I kind of just realised that and I was like, I just got to get into it. And and luckily for me, I got into a great job and absolutely loved it. So yeah, I mean, it was it was very much just kind of not not a determined path that I was going to go work in property management,

Greg Owens  36:20  

right. And one of the things I’ve tried to touch on in this podcast as well, two things, one is like, some of the like, the great benefits that people don’t realize, in working in this profession, this industry and that kind of thing, whether or not you’re a contractor or within the real estate, like there’s, there’s professions out there that I think up and coming young people don’t even know exist, right. And, and but there’s benefits to it, right. And I see a lot of personally feed a lot of the benefits and like, you know, you have to become a generalist in a lot of ways not not so specific in this in one thing every day is different, right. And for some types of personalities like mine, that’s really important that I’m just always on the go and moving and doing different things. Right. And I and, and that’s one of the benefits. What else do you see from your side? Some of the benefits that you would share with others?

Katie Mitchell  37:11  

Yeah, I mean, I would say, and I think a lot of people will share this who are in real estate, like the tangibility is so incredible, the fact that you can go to a site and see what you did, you know, or I mean, I, I don’t understand what the cloud is, and, you know, software is just goes right over my head, but like a building I can walk up to, and I, you know, I see it. And I think but kind of what you said is like, there’s a lot of applicability, especially, I mean, or I can only really kind of speak to property management. But, you know, the, there’s a public ability from what we do in our jobs to to everyday life, right. I mean, building a budget, and sticking to that budget, you know, completely translates to, you know, personal finance, or, you know, if I’m gonna go paint my house, like, you know, negotiating with vendors, buying our home, I mean, that was it was so nice to be comfortable reading contracts. And so I think, you know, that’s been been really great is that there’s just so many things I do in my job that have helped me, you know, in kind of my personal life, as well. And the other thing, you know, it’s just the the small, it feels like a small community within real estate, especially when you’re in San Francisco, and seems like everybody works in tech. And then you find one person that’s, you know, a vendor or whatever that’s working in real estate. And it’s kind of an instant connection. And I really love that I mean, you, you do start to see if you go to enough events or, you know, talk to enough vendors, you start to see the same people. And that’s just a really fun aspect. I actually, Andrew Gardner, who you had on a few months ago was like one of my good friends from back in San Francisco. So it’s funny to see even you know, he was on your podcast.

Greg Owens  38:53  

Yeah, yeah, he he’s got a lot of friends on LinkedIn, because I’ve gotten lots

Katie Mitchell  38:57  

from people well connected.

Greg Owens  38:59  

He’s well connected.

Oh, that’s great. That’s wonderful. And what would you tell like young people, or somebody having a career transition that looks at this and says, Well, I want to get into this, I want to learn more. What what’s what would be some of your recommendations in order? Yeah,

Katie Mitchell  39:15  

I mean, I think just talking to people is really helpful. If it’s, you know, a certain job. I mean, I’ve been really, you know, pleasantly surprised at how generous people are with their time. I mean, I, I’ve, when I was, you know, considering moving into something other than property management, I mean, I talked to probably, you know, 40 something people in Denver, but, you know, the, the amount of time that they were able to give and advice and all that and then they would always, you know, refer me to somebody else. I mean, don’t Yeah, don’t be scared to reach out to people because I think you’ll find that people are really generous with, you know, either giving recommendations or advice or, you know, references for people to talk to, I would say the other thing too, is that there’s so many traders organisations out there. And I found it a little bit difficult to like network effect effectively at like happy hours or networking events, but where I really found like I could make connections was actually getting involved in committees, and then you’re around those people every month or however often they meet, and, you know, solving problems together. And like, that’s really I think, what makes like true connections. And so I found Yeah, getting involved in committees and BOMA has a ton of committees. I know, they have, like a young professionals group for just starting out in the industry. So I found that that was an easier way for me to network, then, you know, just go into, like, happy hours and, you know, events and stuff like that.

Greg Owens  40:41  

I totally agree. So I’m not very good at small talk, like, you know, and, and not and not having a depth of conversation in that. Right. And, and but if you’re working together, and you’re achieving something together, there’s friendships that come out of that right and right, to kind of prove your worth in a lot of ways, you know, through your actions. And that’s, that’s great. Yeah, yeah. That’s wonderful. Wonderful. What’s so what’s exciting for you this coming up in when you’re coming into Summer here soon? What are you looking forward to doing? And, and the opportunities there in Colorado?

Katie Mitchell  41:17  

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it’s amazing to see everything kind of open back up, I feel like there’s just such a liveliness right now, especially with, you know, the nice weather. And, you know, it’s just awesome to see people walking around and getting together so that that’s been just great, you being a part of that energy is really exciting. And for my husband, it’s just, you know, getting out into the mountains and backpacking and mountain biking, and rock climbing and doing all that. I mean, we’re just we’re so excited to do that, because that’s really kind of our happy place and why we moved to Denver. And you know, in San Francisco, obviously, you have so much access to nature. And it really is an incredible mix of city and nature. But you know, we’ve got a drive

Greg Owens  42:00  

to drive a bit to it. And

Katie Mitchell  42:05  

the traffic is just so nuts that we didn’t even get up to this year as much as we would have wanted to. So

Greg Owens  42:12  

psychologically to go over a bridge, right? Like my friend, my friends that live in so I’m in Moran. And my friends that live in San Francisco are like, Oh, man, I gotta go over the Golden Gate Bridge. But I’m like, you get to go over the Golden Gate Bridge

Katie Mitchell  42:26  

four people.

Greg Owens  42:29  

So beautiful, but

Greg Owens  42:30  

I guess there’s like a block there. Like, but I got to prepare for that today.

Katie Mitchell  42:37

Might as well be hot lava or something. But yeah, so really just kind of getting outdoors and meeting new people and just being in a whole new area. I mean, we’ve got a totally new backyard that’s an undiscovered yet. So we’re we’re really excited. So much,

Greg Owens  42:51  

so much great opportunity out there. I mean, but they’re, I mean, I’m particularly like Colorado a lot. It’s, it’s wonderful. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful time talking to you here on the podcast. How would people find out more about you is would LinkedIn be the best way?

Katie Mitchell  43:09  

Yeah, my LinkedIn sender Katie Mitchell, and you know, I’m happy if anyone is interested in in traveling or you know, what have you. I’m happy to have a conversation and kind of share, share my experience.

Greg Owens  43:21  

Did you start a blog or anything like that of that time? Yeah, we

Katie Mitchell  43:24  

used Instagram as our as our kind of blog forum. If anyone’s wants to check it out. It’s Hahns. H A H N S not solo. My husband’s a Big Star Wars fan. That’s where that comes from. But yeah, Hahn, and s not solo.

Greg Owens  43:43  

Okay. Yeah, maybe you could send that to me. I’ll put it in the show notes.

Katie Mitchell  43:47  

Sounds great. Yeah, sure.

Greg Owens  43:49  

Yeah. And then people so that’s a place that people can track what you guys have been up to and all your exciting adventures there. And now in Colorado?

Katie Mitchell  43:57  

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The adventure continues.

Greg Owens  44:00  

Okay. That’s great. That’s great. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been wonderful talking with you today.

Katie Mitchell  44:06  

Yeah. Thanks, Greg. Take care.

Greg Owens  44:08  

Yeah.

Outro  44:18  

Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.