Today we’d like to introduce you to Wolf Baschung.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Wolf. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My journey to commercial real estate was a bit circuitous, the way life is sometimes. I attended NYY Graduate Film School and majored in directing and cinematography. I moved to LA, where I became a Local 600 Union Cinematographer. At the same time, I sold real estate in NYC and invested in LA. In so doing I came to know a very good multifamily real estate broker who became a friend and mentor. In the process, I became quite successful and significantly increased my family real estate holdings. Commercial real estate became much more engaging than show business, and I switched careers. I obtained the CCIM and CPM designations along the way, and became involved with the LA Chapter of CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Members), eventually becoming President of the LA Chapter in 2013. After 10 years with my initial friend and mentor, brokering many transactions and managing family assets through his management company, I went on to form MW Real Estate Group in 2010. Today, as a CA Broker, I provide full-service brokerage and property management services. My brokerage is conducted through the MW Team of KW Commercial (Keller Williams), where I am a Director and Broker Associate, and the property management is conducted through MW Real Estate Group, of which I am President.
Has it been a smooth road?
Los Angeles is a competitive environment with many smart minds trying to gain competitive advantage. Every real estate transaction presents its own set of challenges. Forming a small business is also rife with challenge, as anyone who has tried knows. The ratio of success to failure for business start-ups speaks for itself.
Life itself presents obstacles to everyone, no matter which arena we’re in. Maintaining focus on the work at hand is key to moving forward. Leading with income and keeping MW Real Estate Group nimble has been key to success so far. I have purposely kept it small and centered around myself with a specialized service, boutique company approach. Scaling presents a whole other set of challenges which I have not been quick to embrace. Focus on the day to day and organic growth, creating solutions one day at a time, has been my modus operandi.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
MW Real Estate Group adds value to carefully selected acquisitions through financial surveillance and strong property management with eventual disposition where applicable. In case of disposition MW’s brokerage division drives revenue growth by applying real-time market knowledge, first class marketing initiatives, optimized listing exposure, targeted marketing, excellent communication, and seamless execution.
Most of MW’s competition is made up of either brokers (agents) specializing in investment property sales, or property managers, focused solely on property management. The sales “specialists” often have a superficial understanding of investment property operations critical to property performance. Property managers, on the other hand, are often less concerned with streamlining operations with a view to maximizing value than finding new streams of management revenue. By comparison, MW’s services encompass integrated full-service brokerage and lean property management that gives clients unique value and brings an analytical mindset to the management task. Thus, MW brings property management intelligence to the brokerage business, and brokerage intelligence such as deep market and financial analysis understanding to property management strategies. Finally, as President of MW, Wolf Baschung brings to the table the CCIM and CPM® designations, which represent the culmination of rigorous post-graduate education and verified management and transactional volume spanning many years. This puts him in the top percentile of knowledgeable practitioners his field.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
The sprawling small neighborhoods and suburbs of LA, with numerous commercial assets, as well as low-rise and garden style multifamily properties, make it an ideal place for anyone seeking to practice commercial real estate, and especially small to mid-size multifamily brokerage and management. On the flips side, some of the very things that make it a cauldron of commercial real estate activity and real estate value are the very things that make it challenging. From the competitive aspect, with many people seeking to make a living practicing commercial real estate, to a multiplicity of barriers for commercial and multifamily owners and developers, there’s high tension between opportunity and opportunity cost in Los Angeles.
For apartment building owners, LA City controls over one’s business, for example, are very burdensome in comparison to the regulation of other businesses. In no other business does the city exercise price controls. Thus, LA City and surrounding cities such as West Hollywood and Santa Monica, exact stringent and costly compliance requirements from landlords, all the while choking prices on goods and services they provide through rent control. In so doing these cities create a challenging environment for any landlord and, ironically, the most well-intended regulations are some of the ingredients most responsible for housing shortages that result in ever-increasing rents that push prices of income properties ever higher as investors vie for a piece of the lucrative pie.
Solutions do not come easy, as developers face similar problems with NIMBY resistance to building for higher density in order to alleviate housing shortages. In the end, State-imposed streamlined approvals processes for entitlements of higher density developments may provide one of the solutions to this particular problem. On a day to day level, from the perspective of a small business like MW Real Estate Group, an unwinding of the overly bureaucratic municipal oversight which has more than anything else simply become a lucrative revenue source for the city would help. Although navigating these challenges might be why owners might hire us in the first place!
Contact Info:
- Address: MW Real Estate Group
3183 Wilshire Blvd, #196-C6
Los Angeles, CA 90010 - Website: https://mwrealtyla.com/
- Phone: (213) 927-2117
- Email: [email protected]
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