Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Bashir Mansour, who is the VP of Acquisitions with Woodvale. Welcome.

Bashir Mansour: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you and appreciate your audience today. I’m honored to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Woodvale. How you serving folks?

Bashir Mansour: Yeah, absolutely. I’m Bashir Mansoor, VP of acquisitions at Woodvale. As you mentioned, I’ve been with the firm for over five years now. And Woodvale is a real estate private equity firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. We specialize in solving challenging issues with an anchor and commercial real estate. We have a variety of different assets under our portfolio, and we play in a variety of different segments. We are asset agnostic, as we like to say, which means we’re not focused in one specific segment of commercial real estate. But we are focused across the board where we find uncommon opportunities. Our objective is to create impact through our projects and also generate return for our investors. So we’ve been in business in Atlanta for five years now as a consolidation of a variety of preexisting real estate ventures over the course of the last several decades, in fact, dating back to the 1980s. So Woodville is really a family business that spun off into a real estate private equity shop that has about, like I said, half $1 billion under management today.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you explain to our listeners a little bit about maybe the real estate market and a macro standpoint? We hear a lot of headlines about a high interest rates and how they’re impacting residential real estate. But can you talk about how it’s impacting commercial real estate.

Bashir Mansour: Absolutely. So in order to to paint this picture effectively, Lee, I need to take you back about five years to the Covid 19 pandemic. It’s a thing that we we all look forward to never speaking about again, but unfortunately we’re still in a position where that history is relevant. So in 2020, when the Covid pandemic hit, we saw a pretty wide level retraction in public markets and private markets, including, you know, in the stock market being down about 30% in 2020. The same was true for real estate values and real estate transactions. And in fact, this was pretty much the case across the board even in small businesses. A lot of your audience today may recall, you know, the way that we the way that we were shopping, the way that we were dining, the way that we were traveling, everything was changing. And so this had a tremendous impact on real estate, because real estate really is the backbone of the country, of our small businesses and our large businesses as well. And so in order to combat this, you know, economic retraction and the risk of really a wide set economic recession, that would have been, you know, pretty catastrophic. There was a lot of free stimulus pushed into the market, about $5 trillion over the course of a couple of years.

Bashir Mansour: There were there was also a reduction in interest rates from about 2% at the base level. And the base level was really what you would think of as the rate that the Federal Reserve sets as the minimum. And typically your interest rate is a spread or a yield that the bank sets over that base rate. So for your audience members, they probably remember interest rates in 2019 were about 5% into 2020. Those interest rates came down with the reduction that the Federal Reserve made from 2% to zero. Those interest rates ended up being somewhere around, you know, 2 to 3%. So a lot of your audience, in fact, may own homes that they bought in that period, and they’re locked in at those low interest rates. Well, that sort of economic stimulus, uh, plus, uh, the lower interest rates cause a lot of robust economic activity. Um, and especially in the real estate segment, which pushed values way up. Just generally speaking, we had a historically high period of inflation. It was the highest since the 1980s. And in order to combat that, inflation, which was becoming a real issue, if it was not, uh, maintained or if it was not controlled, um, the Federal Reserve then raised interest rates in the most aggressive rate hike cycle since the 1980s as well.

Bashir Mansour: So interest rates at the base level went from 0% up to about 5.5%. So that, as you can imagine, is really challenging anybody with an adjustable rate mortgage or anybody with commercial real estate debt that originally had their debt at around 2 or 3%, was now paying somewhere between 7 and 9%. So in some cases, their cost of borrowing capital tripled. And that had a remarkable impact on the economy and on the real estate market in particular. We saw it because of that transaction volumes decline about 60 to 80% over the course of 2023 into 2025. And in the market, you know, we were hearing a lot of survive until 25 and a lot of kicking the can down the road in terms of commercial real estate loans that were coming due over the course of the last couple of years. And so today, we are really in a unique period of time where transaction volumes are still low and it’s caused some impact at the value level as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, wasn’t there also kind of a systemic change in the sense that the work from home kind of trend became more firmly established with at least the younger generation of workers that that that became something that they preferred rather than going back into the office. And a lot of companies said, you know what? Why are we holding on to this real estate when no one’s in the office?

Bashir Mansour: Absolutely. The work from home, uh, you know, the rise in popularity of work from home changed the way that we do everything. And it’s impacted, uh, not just, you know, the way that we work, but it’s also impacted the way that we live. It’s impacted our urban landscapes. And so, you know, today, uh, analysts are projecting that over the course of the next ten years, up to 30% of the office inventory could be obsolete. And in fact, today in Atlanta, um, we have a 24% vacancy rate, which is higher than the national average of about 20%. Now, the interesting thing there is that while these buildings are roughly, you know, 76% economically occupied, meaning there’s a lease for 76% of the property, they’re actually only being utilized somewhere around 50 to 60%. And so the physical occupancy is a lot lower. And that has caused a tremendous impact on property values. It’s caused a change in the way that our our cities feel and the way that they operate. And so it’s led to a lot of challenges. It’s led to a lot of, you know, different, uh, a lot of different dynamics that we weren’t used to before. Some of these are positive because it means that people are more flexible. Um, and there are benefits to the, you know, to the family, at the family level, at the, uh, you know, employee level. But also, you know, to our, to our downtowns and our midtown’s, um, and you can see this in some cases in Atlanta, activity has kind of slowed down and there’s, uh, not as much foot traffic, which means that the small businesses and the people that are these, you know, entrepreneurs that are running restaurants or retail shops out of these downtowns and midtown’s aren’t seeing as much activity. So this has had a tremendous effect on the real estate segment as a whole and on the economy as a whole, but especially in our urban landscapes.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, there’s a lot of talk of well, if all of those buildings are only kind of half utilized, maybe we can turn some of those into residential or home. But it’s not that simple to turn an office building into, um, you know, condos. Right? Like, it seems like on the surface it may not be that difficult, but with the plumbing and where bathrooms and things like that, it becomes a lot trickier.

Bashir Mansour: Yeah, you’re exactly right, Riley. Uh, you know, the prospect of changing a office building into a residential building is challenging. Now, it’s something that I think, you know, we need to really take seriously. It’s something that we certainly are taking seriously here at Woodville, but it’s something that you can’t underestimate. Uh, today in the United States, we’ve got, uh, by some estimates, about a 5 million, uh, home shortage. Um, the period that we mentioned earlier, right after Covid, when interest rates were really low, allowed a lot of people to get into properties and lock in really low interest rates, and that has caused a slowdown in turnovers of homes, which has resulted in an even tighter supply crunch in available homes for purchase. Um, and as the combination of that dynamic plus, uh, the higher cost of of interest rates and the higher cost of borrowing capital has also led to a slowdown in new construction starts, which means that new homes are being built at a far less frequent rate over the course of the last five years. What we’ve seen in Atlanta is that properties, multifamily properties, which are essentially just apartment buildings, are being built with smaller footprints and smaller unit sizes. That’s a product of charging a higher rent per square foot and in other words, a more profitable business model. But what we have is right now the the inventory on the market does not supplement effectively. We believe the families that are made up of 3 to 5 people that need a place to live in our urban environments, and that’s been a challenging issue.

Bashir Mansour: So we see an opportunity at Woodville and converting office assets and converting large conference center hotel assets into multifamily properties. And we think that that is a real opportunity. Now, it takes a lot of careful execution and calculation. We’re working with some of the best architects and engineers to identify what the solutions are. Not every building works. In fact, the vast majority of buildings do not work for this. Like you mentioned, there are challenges in plumbing, challenges in the mechanical systems of the building and in the layouts. In some cases, you know, a square, a box that that is, you know, 10 to 20 stories tall doesn’t necessarily work because of the challenges that you have with the layout. So we’ve been working to identify that solution, but we think that if we can get it right and we feel that we have a model that does get this right and will be, you know, ready to to launch that in Q1 of 2026, we think we can really make a great impact and get those people who support our urban landscape, who support the city of Atlanta and other Sunbelt cities into the city, living a comfortable life where they can work, live and play. And we think that that’s going to change the dynamic of our downtowns and midtown’s today.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there an opportunity to kind of rethink what a home is like, for example, in some of these buildings that are difficult to retrofit into a traditional condo? Can you create or would there market, would the market kind of see as palatable something more like a dorm setting where it’s shared bathrooms? Well, instead of trying to recreate individual bathrooms that you just say, okay, this is a shared bathroom situation and there there might be a portion of the population that would be okay with that if the price was right. Is there any kind of outside the box thinking when it comes to, you know, doing things like that or creating these tiny home communities where it’s a much smaller footprint, but maybe in some land that isn’t being utilized, um, that you can put a bunch of them there and create kind of the density you need of people who are residents so that you can support kind of the small businesses that are around there, instead of just saying, oh, it becomes a ghost town after 5:00.

Bashir Mansour: You know, those are those are two great ideas. Lee. And I think that they both have merit. Now, what we have been discussing here at Woodville, and I credit our founder and managing partner, uh, Rahim Charania, who, uh, founded Woodville back in 2020, and all those other businesses that were consolidated under Woodville. Um, he’s a he’s a great guy and a dear friend and a great mentor to me. Um, he likes to say that we need to reimagine our, uh, vertical real estate and think about it the way that we’ve thought about our horizontal real estate development over the course of the last few decades. So what that means is mixing in different utilizations into high rise office buildings or in general, high rise buildings in urban infill markets. Um, and reimagining what a a home looks like. And there is an opportunity to turn buildings, uh, to turn, uh, you know, these buildings into micro housing, which is sort of, you know, along the lines of what you mentioned, where you have smaller units and shared restrooms. We think that those can effectively support the workforce housing demand that’s out there and get people into the city right now. Uh, those who don’t earn over $60,000 a year have a really tough time affording to live in Atlanta.

Bashir Mansour: So that’s that’s a challenge. And I know that there has been a lot of progress made in the city over the course of the recent years, thanks to both public and private efforts, but there are opportunities to scale that, that progress. Um, we think, however, that instead of going smaller, there’s an opportunity to go larger. We think that, like I said, you know, those families that are 3 to 5 people who can’t afford to live in the city today or who don’t have enough space to supplement them because a lot of the new inventory that’s been pushed into the market has been studios and one bedrooms, we think there’s an opportunity to build larger units for those folks, and that could solve some of the challenges that exist today with revitalizing and adapting some of these office buildings by creating larger footprints at a more affordable rate and not having to do as much mechanical and plumbing and electrical work, because you’re not trying to stuff as many studio units into a building as possible. So we do see that as an opportunity. We think that that that’s where we’re where we’re going with our, uh, new vehicle that’s going to launch next year. And that’s what we’ve been working on with our teams.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you educate us a little bit about kind of affordable housing? That’s something that is an important topic. And you kind of touched upon a little bit. The part I don’t understand about affordable housing is are you trying is the objective to just make the rent affordable for a renter, or is it is it to make, um, an equity opportunity affordable for an owner? Um, because those are two different things. Like are you just trying to find opportunities to give a person a low rent in order to live in an area you’re encouraging people to live in, or are you really trying to help somebody build wealth so that the the it’s going to appreciate over time? Like, like we’re seeing that even areas that are maybe on the edges, um, get bought up by investors and then all of a sudden they’re not affordable anymore to the people who previously lived there, but they are creating wealth for the people who own them.

Bashir Mansour: Absolutely. You know, with our focus currently under this fund that we’re planning to launch, we’re really looking at our urban landscape, and we’re really trying to drive value for folks who need more affordable housing solutions. We do see an opportunity in converting assets into condos rather than converting them into apartments and selling. And so it’s a unique dynamic, and it really depends on the building. Uh, there is a need for both affordable, uh, uh, home purchases and, and affordable rents. And so we see an opportunity in both markets. Um, right now we are really focused on identifying the right, uh, engineered system for conversion. And then depending on the market that you’re in, depending on the costs of the land, depending on the cost of the asset, which has to be tremendously low when you’re buying these assets and priming them for conversion, you have to really get in at a very low basis in order to make the deal work, so you could afford to do all the adaptive reuse construction that comes along with that strategy. But we see an opportunity for both something along the lines of developing condos, sort of like those, you know, small homes that you discuss, those, you know, miniature home communities that have been popping up around the outskirts of metro Atlanta. We see an opportunity to provide a similar solution in, uh, you know, adapted office buildings and adapted, uh, hotel conference center assets that were built in the 1960s, 1970s.

Bashir Mansour: These are really class B and class C properties. Um, and so we are trying to provide a, uh, less rent restricted, uh, opportunity for these folks to, uh, rent spaces in our, in our urban environments and provide that at a rate that’s below, uh, ami and, you know, make it so that they can afford to rent those spaces that they currently cannot afford to rent. Um, because of the, you know, premiums on market rate. But we also think that there is an opportunity if you can develop for the right dollar figure and if you can find the right building to build units that people can actually purchase and help them build some equity. So, you know, we are we are really a developer by nature. And so we are looking at this from the lens of a real estate developer. And there are a lot of nuances. And we work with a lot of excellent third parties that help guide those nuances in terms of, um, you know, the laws and the credits and everything that surround, uh, surround that type of solution. Um, but at the moment we’re really focused on engineering the right physical solution for this problem.

Lee Kantor: And so, I mean, you’re going into areas that maybe aren’t the most desirable today, but with the hopes that you’re you’re on an edge that can become desirable and eventually will appreciate. So it will create value and wealth for all those participating. That’s sounds like philosophically where you’re at.

Bashir Mansour: Yeah, you know we are. I wouldn’t call these areas, you know, undesirable. I would say that we really are focused on desirable markets and, you know, strong.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m saying you’re on the edge of, like, the opportunities are on the edges right there. Not in where everybody is.

Bashir Mansour: Right. You know, in some cases they can be. Um, depending on the property, uh, depending on the location and depending on how cheap you can buy that asset. But to your point, for the most part, where you get those really great discounts or where you get that really great basis on an asset is a little bit, you know, it could be it could be, uh, depending variable. But in some cases on the outskirts of, uh, you know, the urban core, um, in secondary markets, in class B and class C properties, a lot has to do with the actual building. And so in the office segment, we’ve seen what we call what we consider a flight to quality where folks have been, you know, cutting down large leases and moving to fully amenitized buildings, class A properties. And that’s left a lot of the, you know, 1960s to 1970s, class B and C properties in these downtowns or in these cbd’s, which are central business districts, empty. And we think that the opportunities lie in those types of properties. So we really are working on developing a unique solution that, uh, it lands somewhere, uh, right. You know, right in, in, in the right area that you want to be in, uh, and provides the right amount of space for the end user, for the renter or for the home buyer.

Lee Kantor: So now what markets are kind of playing this, right. Are you are you seeing other opportunities around the country, like, like what parts of the country are kind of leaning in the right direction when it comes to, uh, you know, taking advantage of these opportunities?

Bashir Mansour: There are, you know, select developers in every market who are tackling these issues. Well, I think Atlanta has seen a tremendous lift in this, uh, you know, in this space over the course of the last several years. And there are some, you know, large players in the Atlanta market. We we are really focused on the Sunbelt United States. Um, these are not incredibly high density markets, but they are markets that have seen tremendous appreciation over the course of the last five years. And, um, you know, relatively high amount of inflation, which has led to some of the restrictions that we see, uh, in housing and housing affordability. So we we really like the Sunbelt. Woodville, uh, plays in its backyard. We understand the Sunbelt states. Well, uh, we have assets spanning from Georgia all the way west to Texas. And so we like those markets. We see an opportunity in those markets, uh, where there’s high vacancy permeating the office market. And so we are really focused on the opportunity where it presents itself and we’re looking in the right areas. But we think that for now, our focus remains the southeast US.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your opinion about, um, things like the Beltline or or mass transit, or the opportunities for some sort of way to move people in a Non-car like manner, whether it’s density for walking or density for, uh, you know, riding a bike or getting around without a car. How important is that?

Bashir Mansour: I think it’s incredibly important. Um, one of my favorite books is a book called Happy City by Charles Montgomery that talks all about our urban landscapes and our urban environments, and how important it is to have walkability and public transit access. And in in the case of Atlanta, the Beltline has been just a complete game changer, um, in the way that we, you know, uh, maneuver around the city and the way that we get around. It’s brought a lot of commerce, uh, to the Midtown area and to, uh, the West Side. And I know that it’s expanding. It’s been a really big game changer and why it’s very widely impactful, Tactful in the city of Atlanta, so that’s been incredible. I think that there are plans to expand that, you know, is what we’re hearing. And we know that, uh, it’s been, you know, a big a big piece of Atlanta’s growth over the last several years with, you know, property, uh, appreciation in those areas and new small businesses coming up all over the place. So we, we really we really love the Beltline. Um, we’re huge fans of that concept. And we think that, you know, once it’s complete, it’s going to be just incredible for the city.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Bashir Mansour: Uh, you know, Lee, we are always open to finding, uh, brilliant minds who want to talk to us about these solutions. Hearing people’s concerns, hearing the challenges that they face. It’s a big part of how we’re trying to structure our product on the, uh, you know, new housing solution that we’re planning to launch next year. We would love to get in touch with renters, with folks who are looking to establish some equity, you know, hear about their challenges, hear what they’re looking for. We would love that. For for those of you who are interested in contacting us, whether it’s about, uh, those topics or whether you’re an investor or anything of the sort, you can find us at WW Woodville, or you can add us on LinkedIn. Uh, just by looking us up at Woodville. We’re highly responsive and we always welcome, uh, great conversations and collaboration.

Lee Kantor: Well, Beshear, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work. And we appreciate you.

Bashir Mansour: Thank you so much, Lee. This has been a pleasure. I appreciate you, and I appreciate the audience today. Thanks. And, uh, I really appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.