3/2/26 Downtown Reimagined: A Conversation with Sage Equities

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, March 2nd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: Anna & Austin Smith, Sage Equities website: https://sagebakersfield.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Anna & Austin Smith and their business are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 02

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey, well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey, said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me? Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the MoneyWise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  And welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you are on KGO Money Talk, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. We are your hosts, I'm Sharad Wade and...

• 1:01Speaker 04

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  Sammy, this is the dream team.

• 1:03Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  I mean, every day is the dream team. We've got great, great people that participate in this program, but I do enjoy being here with you.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  Yes, we have some great guests today, great conversation.

• 1:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so for those who are tuning in live, we will be joined here shortly by the co-owners of Sage Equities. It's Anna and Austin Smith. If you're not familiar with the Smiths and the work that they've done here in town in development, you know, there are a few really amazing homegrown developers in town. These are just, you know, locals that are ambitious and are dedicated to their craft of, in this case, bringing new housing into the downtown core area. So we've got a ton of questions that we're going to ask the Smiths about. If you've got questions, it's a great time to send them our way.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  You can text them to 661-396-1000. In fact, Sammy, we've gotten a few great questions and let's go with them.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm far from being rich, or at least of what I define rich, but does your office have a limit to be a client and for younger people that need assistance setting up their financial future? Does your offices have programs that will help them with this?

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is a great question, Sammy, and obviously, there is...

• 2:29Speaker 03

  There's always going to be a need for people to get good financial advice. And we have always viewed MoneyWise as that community resource or a place, a place that people can go to get solid, academically driven financial and investment advice. And that is, that's the purpose of this show that we've had now for over 20 years, is to try to educate the public on the fundamentals of investing and finance. And we extend that out with our services at MoneyWise. And that can be done, it's never, there's never a cost to just call the office.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  And that's always the first step is to just reach out to the office and explain what it is that you're looking for. For some people that are younger, that are maybe just looking for a little bit of advice, that can happen very easily with no cost. And that might be as simple as just a conversation over the phone with one of our financial advisors. Or it might mean after some questions, you know, setting up a time to come in. Either way, we don't at MoneyWise want to surprise people with some sort of bill or invoice that they're going to get. So anything that is going to cost is going to be explained ahead of time. But we don't know what we're going to charge sometimes until

• 3:57Speaker 03

  we at least have an initial conversation or initial meeting. And that's why when you ever call into MoneyWise, there's always going to be some offering of help. Even if you don't meet our minimums, we still want to be able to offer help and advice in some way.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  That's correct. That's correct. In fact, I would attest to that. I got a phone call from one of my former coworkers. And he just asks for an introduction to one of the financial advisors we have to just have a conversation, which took place last week. A young guy, far from retiring, far from retirement, but just wanted financial advice, how to build a financial plan, some leverage questions and things like that. Spent an hour, I think, with one of our financial advisors. Very constructive. I got a very nice text afterwards thanking me for the introduction. They learned, they learned much from Dustin. So, yes, it's available.

• 4:58Speaker 04

  Call the office. The person that's going to answer is going to ask a couple of questions so we know exactly where we can put you with the right financial advisor. And just take, take advantage of that time, that introductory call or meeting, just to at least answer some of the questions that potentially you might not have an answer to.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and let's address also Sammy's sort of what are, what, what minimums are. And this is, this is always a difficult conversation sometimes to have with people. And that is, in our industry and wealth management, investment advisory, we, we, we're fee-based firm, which means we charge a fee that is generally based off of the assets that we're managing. Now, if the assets are at a level that are, that are, are, are low, then it doesn't make sense for us, nor for the, for the customer, to pay an advisory fee when, say, for example,

• 6:00Speaker 03

  there may not be enough assets there to properly diversify in, in a way to reach whatever the goal is or the goals that the individual is looking for. That why, that is why in our industry, firms like us generally have a minimum amount of money that somebody must have in order to open up an investment account that is managed, a professionally managed investment account. And, and those minimums are, can be.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  A barrier for a lot of people of entry. Generally speaking, in our industry, those minimums have gone up and up and up every year. So I'm talking about, think of like major national household names or banks and other investment advisory firms. Those minimums recently have gone up to about $500,000. That means that in order for you to open up an account with some of these, these larger Wall Street firms, you gotta have at least a minimum of $500,000 of investable assets. Now, MoneyWise is not that. MoneyWise can work with anybody regardless of the level of assets that they have because, because we're a fee-based firm, we can charge an hourly rate.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  So we can, after a discussion, we can determine, okay, well, we're gonna have to put together a plan for you. It's gonna involve, let's say, two or three hours, and you just pay us for those two or three hours. And that is a, that's a, that's a very reasonable way to get advice, get a plan that can get you in that, in that direction to where then at some point, you might need another level of service. And you might need to engage a firm like MoneyWise to help manage and tax manage and do all of the more intimate work that needs to be done on an investment portfolio. And so, you know, that is a benefit to working with a firm like, an independent firm like MoneyWise. A great question. Yeah, very good. Also, I should mention this, Sammy. Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Because for our listener, if you're, if you, whoever sent in this question asking about what it takes or how much money somebody needs to have to be able to work with MoneyWise, besides the radio show, we do a lot of other events that are free, free to the public. And they're in-person events. Sometimes we do them virtually. There is a, there is an event that's coming up on Thursday, March 12th. So that's just less than two weeks away from today, from this air date. And it's a Family Finance Night. It's, it's essentially, one of our advisors, in this case, it's Seth. Perry in our office is going to be putting on a financial finance literacy evening is going

• 8:42Speaker 03

  to involve discussions on banking basics, budgeting, building credit, and then the basics of saving and investing. Again, this is on Thursday, March 12. It is going to be at CTEC, the Career Technical Education Center over on Old River Road. And this is in partnership with the ROC and CTEC as well as Safe One Credit Union. So Safe One is offering this to their members. But because we're partnering and we're presenting, we can also invite people. There is limited seating, and I know that tickets are limited. But if you just go and look up MoneyWise, we have other programs, we have other things that will be coming up in the future if you can't make this one.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, and the info will be in the podcast notes as well. So if you missed what Sher just said, just go to the podcast notes and the info will be there as well.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, great. Next message.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, finally got down to your diner over the weekend. And I will say, I was on the fence when I first heard the diner was reopening since this is one of this town's gems. But it looks beautiful and the burgers are tasty.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Ah, that's so good to hear. I mean, this is a restaurant that had to shut down during the renovation of the Woolworths building. And a lot of work, a lot of love went into this into the renovation of the last Woolworths luncheonette in the world, right here in our downtown Bakersfield. And with any new restaurant, there are kinks that we're working out. And even established restaurants, I will go and occasionally look at a restaurant that I know is killing it. I know that they're great. I'm a fan. They have a great menu, great service, great everything. And I will still go and look at reviews. And there's always going to be haters. There's always people on there with like, you really think that?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  You're having a bad day, you know, and so we, and we have those, you know, we don't have a perfect, a perfect review list, nor will we ever, but we will always strive to do better. And we have a ways to go, I know it, but I'm, I'm very proud of what we have right now.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Me too, and I, I would definitely agree on the burgers. I had one last Saturday, not that I needed one, but I had one. And it was really, really good.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Nice, nice. Let's go to that last question.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I started a new job last March and the business that I worked at before, before is no longer open as the business closed down. I'm wondering where would I be able to find my W two from that employer to finish my taxes? Sorry if that's a stupid question. It is not. There's no stupid questions and this is a very, very valid question because a lot of thousands of people probably are facing this or sometimes face this. So, um, um, I would say personally, my, if you know what the, the business owner, I would, that would be my first thing. Just check with the business owner and see where I can get, you can get your W two. I know you probably have tried that since you're asking us at the show.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  If, if you had a payroll, um, company running your payroll or sending you the, the, the paychecks, that would be another resource for you to call and inquire. Hopefully you had some type of a sign and ID with that payroll company where you had, you can go and access your, your information, including pay stubs and W twos. That's, uh, that's, those are the two things I could think of shared to help out.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're, the W two should have been sent from your previous employer by January 31st. That's the deadline. Now employers know that there is a deadline and they know it because if they don't send out that W two in time, the IRS actually can hand down a penalty to that employer. So employers are incentivized to send out those WT's on, W twos on time. The IRS penalties can range generally between 60 and 310 dollars per form.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  That would be per employee or per person that that should have gotten that. It kind of depends on how late that is. And larger penalties can come down if the IRS thinks that there was actual intention of the company to not send those out. So employers know that those W2s need to get out. They are also supposed to file with the Social Security Administration.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  I think it's called a W3 that the employer sends. That's the information that goes to the IRS. The W2 is what goes to the employees. So the Social Security Administration should have that information also. You may want to double check, make sure that your IRS address is correct.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  With IRS, because that maybe the mail got forwarded to the wrong.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, or you changed, if you're using a P O box or you used, you moved P O box or you moved addresses, definitely that's something to check, check on and make sure that the address is correct. Hopefully you had a forward address and file.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  One of the things that I can think of too is your last space stub that you've received would have some estimates.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  It could be used with your tax professional to do some figures if you're in a pinch.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Yes, because you still have to file your tax return. Even if you haven't gotten your W2, you still have to file your return. And so that might mean you're guessing.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  You can do some estimates and stuff. Call, call the IRS, the 800 number 829-1040. And let them know what the situation is and see if they can provide you with a transcript of your information. There's a form that you can, you can, you can fill out called Form 4852. It's a substitute to the W2. If you've never received it, and then you can start using estimates, wage estimates to, with your tax professional.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Same thing with the state tax agency. They do receive wage information, so you can contact them and, and ask if they have any information that could help you file your taxes. And to your point too, you should have received something by, or.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  By February, mid February, if you're not, then call the IRS in that 800 number that I've.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Right, because January 31st was the deadline that they needed to mail it out. So it should be postmarked by January 31st, which means if it's not there by mid February, there's probably something wrong. So look into it and don't be afraid to reach out to the former employer. They like, it's not, shouldn't be hard for them. Or if you know the payroll service that you were using before, you know, then you should be able to get the information there. We use, you know, our payroll services that we use with our businesses all, you know, make it real easy to access their employees to access their own W2s and that kind of thing.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Double check that. Well, good stuff, Sammy. Let's take our first break of the day. When we come back, we're going to be joined by Anna and Austin Smith, co-owners of Sage Equities, going to talk about development downtown real estate. We're Money Wise. Don't go anywhere.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Need to get your financial fix on the go? If so, subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast and catch up on all past shows.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Welcome back to Money Wise. I'm Sharad here with Sammy. We're your hosts today. Got some great guests joining us on the show. Anna and Austin Smith, they're co-owners of Sage Equities. I am a huge fan of these people. You guys have been on the show before, but there are, as I mentioned before, you guys came on just now. There are, there's a very small group of local developers, real estate developers, very, very small group. It gets even smaller when you narrow it down to the area of downtown that you guys have been focusing on, which is downtown. And this is, the projects that you have all been involved with and over the years,

• 16:34Speaker 03

  is what inspired us to come move our business downtown and to buy a building and to develop this building here at MoneyWorx was because of what you guys have done. So I have a huge amount of respect for what you do. And now after going through this project here with the Money Wise building, the Woolworths building, it has even more so given me so much more respect and appreciation for the.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Amount of work that you guys have done and the the amount of risk that you've taken to do what you've done downtown. So welcome back to the show and thanks for being here.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  You're much too kind. We appreciate that.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  You guys are humble. You always, you guys, you guys, I know you guys know what you're doing. But let's, let's first talk about, so I always have to remind myself of your projects. I'm looking at your website. Sage Bakersfield.com and I'm like, okay, let's, let's talk about, let's talk about the projects, first of all, that have been completed.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  And how those are going.

• 17:36Speaker 06

  Sure. I mean, we've gone over this before with you, but we'd be happy to kind of look back on the future. Our first project was 17th Place Town Homes. It's 44 townhomes right in the middle of downtown. That was the one everyone thought we were crazy to do.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  You know, the first like really Class A apartments downtown in decades. But that was completed in 2017 and then we, a few years after that, developed the Q, which is 49 units. Austin can correct me on these numbers. We've got a few now, so we.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Look at that. Can't even keep track.

• 18:11Speaker 06

  No, not, I'm not trying to sound important.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  No, I know.

• 18:14Speaker 06

  And then quickly after the Q, we finished 918, which is about another 40 units. And then we are currently in the process, like pre-construction phase of developing three more complexes downtown. And we'll be breaking ground on those three in the next year.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  So we have East Bank, one of them.

• 18:35Speaker 06

  Correct. That's 50 units or will be.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  And that is right there on Mill Creek.

• 18:41Speaker 06

  That's correct. Yeah. It's kind of a little hidden spot that we're really excited about that location. We get a little bit more space to spread out and it's going to have a really nice courtyard and a pool and a good wellness center and some neat surprises. But basically it's right tucked behind Mexicali. Everybody local knows Mexicali.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  Just across creek, yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 06

  Right across the creek from Mexicali. I mean, you know, the. Through redevelopment, they put millions of dollars into renovating that creek in the park. And we feel like it's been overlooked and underused. So we're trying to, you know, help people, bring awareness to it. But also, we know our residents will love being in that location.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, and having a waterfront window.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Less traffic, too. I mean, isn't that a cul-de-sac?

• 19:23Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a nice spot because you're actually just a block off of Truxton. So for all, a lot of our residents are, you know, work for the government or healthcare facilities that are really nearby. So that access to Truxton will be really nice for commutes.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  All of your places have a connection to food, it seems like. Or maybe it's just the nature of downtown.

• 19:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  But the 17th Place Town Home's right next to Smitten.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  That was your first, correct? As you said earlier.

• 19:52Speaker 06

  Correct, and yeah, some of our family members opened Cafe Smitten. And we saw that as an important synergy, that you have to be near really walkable places that serve the residents. And we think it's a nice interplay. It's good for the residents, it's good for the restaurants. And, I mean, we're a little biased, but we think the best food is downtown. So, you know, we are lucky to have all these amazing places. And then we've got Moo Creamery that came downtown recently.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:19Speaker 06

  There's just, I mean, it's just such a hub of local food. We literally just ate at the Woolworths diner right before coming here.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  You guys figured out how to do it all in one building.

• 20:30Speaker 06

  You're true mixed use. Like, you're like where we want to be, something. No, it's amazing what you guys have done.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  There has to be, the restaurant scene downtown and the activities that are downtown can only get so far if there aren't people actually living downtown.

• 20:47Speaker 06

  This is our whole theory of housing downtown. We need people living down here calling this their true home and neighborhood for, you know, the businesses in the area to feel fully supported. So we think it's an important part of the equation.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Well, all of these places, all of the places that are open that you've developed, I'll have access. Like, you mentioned Mexicali, and that's a landmark. You know, now we have Moo and we have.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  Woolworths.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Wars.

• 21:16Speaker 06

  No, we love and reverb. And then there's like Sancho's tacos. I mean, there's these little places and then then the new places will come and surround our residents, which is really nice. Like we see Centro Cali is a great asset to that block and our residents love it. And I mean, we personally love it to have all these places coming around our developments.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. So how far along is East Bank?

• 21:37Speaker 05

  We're breaking ground this week.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Oh, congratulations.

• 21:40Speaker 06

  We're so excited.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  That is huge. I know what it takes to get a project to the place where you can actually break ground and it's shockingly a lot of work.

• 21:50Speaker 06

  That's the hardest part.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  It's the hardest. Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 06

  The hardest part. Once, once you break ground, we feel like we can kind of pass it off in a little small way to the general contractor. And so it's nice to know that we have a great partner in them that Wallace and Smith that we can trust and have them take, you know, not a pass off fully, but a little breadth of relief, you know, once we get the equipment on the ground.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Also Cater Design, right?

• 22:14Speaker 06

  Of course. We, yeah, all of our projects are designed by Daniel Cater. Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Hard to get away from that. Obviously, we're fans of Dan Cater, Cater Design Group, what they did here, the Woolworths. But the projects, talk about sort of maybe the design of the project. I know this may be more of a Dan question, but you guys are involved in this too. Because they are a little different. There is, there is, does seem to be a common thread throughout the projects. There is some there, you can tell, which is distinct, but that they are different.

• 22:48Speaker 06

  Right. And that, that was really important to Austin and I. We, we love urban areas and how you have to be creative to make a new project work in an older area, like a downtown. And so you want to respect the historic, you know, nature of each block. And so every one of our projects is inspired in a, in a large way by the block in which it's located. So like we, we didn't talk about it, but Cleo is one of our next projects we're breaking ground on this year. And it's right next to Cafe Smitten, between Cafe Smitten and Town, the Town Homes. And we've, it's like a really ideal block to be locating housing at this point, because it's almost filled in with nice retail all around. But he really was inspired by that neighborhood in, in designing.

• 23:31Speaker 06

  And it's going to look pretty different than any of our others, but hopefully we, people will see that common thread. We don't want it to feel like. All of these are, you know, they feel like they're done by some large out of town master developer cookie cutter thing that was just dropped into our downtown. These things are going to outlast us, so they need to look like they're, you know, solid and feel like they are woven into the fabric of the neighborhood.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, Bravo, I mean, you're nailing it so far in these projects. Let's, let's talk a little bit about the, the successes in the projects and specifically 17th Place Town Homes was fairly recently purchased by a private equity firm. And when I heard about this, it was last year, right? I was like, this is a home run. This is, I mean, normally I'm, I get a little nervous when I hear about private equity as they, there can be a negative connotation to it. But understanding sort of how a business cycle is or the evolution of a developer, like, I was like, this is great.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Like, you have to have a way to be able to, at least for some of these properties, be able to, to move them into that phase. So can you talk about?

• 24:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's important to bring outside capital in because our, our projects up until this point have been all supported by the community up, up until last year, you know, local investors and, you know, we started to see a movement toward the sell of town homes and then with, with East Bank, we, we worked on a partner who was out of town. And we see that as, as really supporting what is happening downtown because it's showing that there's, there's outside interest, there's outside people investing in it. It's not just Bakersfield building improving itself. It's, it's the outside saying, wow, this, this really is a good investment and I want to be a part of it.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, it's maybe some people will be surprised to know that this wasn't just financed by your guys' pocketbooks. You guys aren't, you don't have generational wealth that you are, are, are putting into this.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  I get, I get angry, I think, sometimes when people throw out words like gentrification or.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  You can't gentrify a parking lot.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  You cannot, you cannot. And I just don't think people really understand the amount of personal risk that you took and that you're taking on these. It's not like a, it's just not like a, it's not as, it's not as I think, simple as some people think and make it out to be.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's one of the things we're the most proud of is, is bringing investment into our downtown because it's, it's a place that hasn't seen investment for, for decades. Other than, you know, the city made some, some good investments in terms of redevelopment and, you know, before that went away. And, you know, the Padre Hotel is a big catalyst and there were some others. But it's really, it's been really encouraging to us. And that's, that's something that was really essential was to get community buy-in to support these projects. And, and other projects have come along like yours, you know, for people to, to be down here and, you know, using the diner and, and coming to the concerts and all the things that are happening down here.

• 26:50Speaker 04

  I, I remember when you were doing the projects and I was a banker at, at that time and you had the, the file and I sat with you and your dad.

• 26:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  And as a banker, we looked at that and I'm like, this never happened downtown. Um, we're not sure about financing this. Maybe we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll pass. Then fast forward, the first projects became very successful. And us as a bank were like, well, maybe we can go after this and maybe get, take a look and get a package. And, and so, no, it's to your point, downtown was just not used to that.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  And banks were not used to that. So kudos because you were able to finance it, you know, through investments. I, I personally like the way you structure your investments too.

• 27:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Bringing in multiple.

• 27:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  People in. And now selling to private equity, that's a success.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  In itself, because you stabilized the property. It has history or income history and now it sells.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  And hopefully we can duplicate that, continue duplicating that downtown. I wanted to touch on the other project. Anna cannot tell me about it much. One time we were at Reverb. She said, I'm not gonna tell you, it's not public yet. But it was on the paper, so we can talk about it now, right? And that's the old Greyhound.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  Property.

• 28:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, we've been excited about this one for a while and I'm sorry.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  No, that's okay. I told Cher, she wouldn't share.

• 28:21Speaker 06

  I wasn't trying to be secretive, no. We don't usually play those games. I was just trying to respect what we had honored in our relationship.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  No, I understand.

• 28:28Speaker 06

  Uh, no, we're really excited about Greyhound. It's really kind of fun to be able to skip a little to the west of Chester. So it's not just East Chester, so we can show that it works all over downtown. And hopefully more locals will pay attention, I think, as we move a little closer to West Chester. We're just personally, I'm really excited about the design of that building too as well.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  I, we were scared because I heard the word on the street when it was purchased. It was, oh, it's gonna be a Starbucks. And I came back and I told Cher and Cher was like, what the?

• 28:59Speaker 03

  No, I was like, oh.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  And then, and then we heard about the project and I was, I was very, very happy.

• 29:06Speaker 06

  The Mojibis have been just, they have such a vision for that project and they really wanna see it. You know, respect the, the location. It's an important piece of their family's history, um, the purchase of it, you know, by their dad. And I really think they, they've always wanted to do something special with that space. And so we're just excited that they, they're trusting us to work with them on that. So it's gonna be a quality project. They're committed to creating a quality project.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  And you can tell from the other projects in Northwest, I live for sure, and the Southwest, they do a very good job when they develop.

• 29:41Speaker 06

  Yes, they do.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mojibis are, know what they're doing. And they'll, you know, great partners with, to have you guys in there. Is it gonna be called Greyhound?

• 29:49Speaker 06

  It's gonna be called Greyhound Flats. No, no association with the Greyhound bus lines. Just have to say that out loud.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Where you get your cease and desist.

• 29:59Speaker 06

  Yes, but you know, Greyhound bus line still operates out of the Amtrak station downtown. But it just as a nod to the former, you know, site, we, we decided to name it Greyhound. We're excited about it.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, what else can you share about that, about that project?

• 30:15Speaker 04

  It's a three-story project. It has a roof deck that we're very excited about, 360-degree views of downtown. It has a nice pool in the courtyard. So we try to raise the bar each time with our amenities and what's included. It has a nice wellness center, so.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Arguably, one of the most walkable sites, really, that we'll ever do because of its proximity to, like, the Padre and all those little shops on G Street.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 06

  That's really become a little bit of a hub for, you know, food and wine. And so we're excited about its location.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, you mentioned it being west of Chester, so it's west Chester and east Chester has really been your focus. I think, explain maybe to some of our listeners, like, why, where is this, why is this divide here along Chester? And what's, what, what, what might be different when you're west of Chester?

• 31:10Speaker 04

  It's just there were less, in the past, there's been less opportunities west of Chester because our, our housing model really requires about half an acre, at least a land, and that's harder to come by. As west of Chester is more built out, whereas there was more, more sites available east of Chester.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  I see.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  I see. So then, anything else, like, is, like, I don't know, is there, like, the people that maybe live in west Chester don't like to go just that too far east? I mean, is there any other differentiator?

• 31:43Speaker 06

  No, I just, I think perhaps east of Chester has had a bit of a stigma locally. And that stigma does not exist from a lot of our residents who are moving here from large cities. They're seeing Bakersfield as, you know, the land of opportunity in a lot of ways, like, they can either work remotely or get a great job here, have a shorter commute, better quality of life, like, rent an apartment for a lot cheaper than they could in LA. And so east Chester, west Chester, to them, it's all downtown. They want to be urban. It all works. But for locals, I think, you know, it's proximity to an older neighborhood with stately homes, right next to the Padre. I think it's seen as more desirable by locals. So we'd love to have, you know, more locals pay attention and rent and invest with us.

• 32:27Speaker 06

  I mean, to us, that's like, the goal is to keep local money local. It's why we, all of our, you know, investors in our syndications are local, private investors, putting money into their own downtown.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  I was, I was just curious. I mean, it's, there is success with the properties you're building from, from just an occupancy standpoint. How are we doing there?

• 32:49Speaker 05

  It's typically between ninety and ninety-five percent occupancy. Yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Great for, for downtown. And the people and bringing people to actually that live here and spend money here economically. That's a great, great plus.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. The businesses downtown are very excited. Whenever we, you know, start a new project, we talk to the, the neighboring businesses and they, they're very excited about, you know, new residents coming in and.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  I imagine you don't get any pushback. Do you get any?

• 33:15Speaker 05

  No, and that's unique to, to developing downtown, I would say, because we don't have other neighborhoods necessarily nearby. It's really commercial businesses that are going to benefit from these residents moving here.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  Especially retail.

• 33:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Well, and also you're dealing with, um, what do they call it? Like high density housing? More higher density housing, multi, multi.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Level?

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  And, uh, those, those projects can be more difficult to put off in other neighborhoods, right? The west of town or whatever.

• 33:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, there is a stigma about apartments. I think that stigma is changing though. I will say I've noticed, especially with younger generations, because people are either like renting by choice, like home, like home, homeownership is a little less important to a lot of younger people. I don't know if you guys have noticed that. Um, and it's also just more out of reach. So affordability is a problem. So nicer apartments are seen as a nice way to live now. It's not seen as like this low income sort of option and, and not that we don't support low income housing as well, but ours are class A. And so, you know, it's, it's seen as just another option of a place to live for a high income professional. It doesn't have the stigma, I've noticed.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 06

  Like it used to.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah. And I guess we're following suit other large metropolitan areas where like they prefer to live in an apartment, you know?

• 34:35Speaker 06

  Yeah. And a lot of our residents could afford a house. They could afford to rent or buy a house easily. They just don't want the maintenance. It's just a different lifestyle choice. They'd rather travel and be able to leave their apartment and lock the door and know it's taken care of.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  There, there are some cities that require a certain amount of housing to be affordable, more on, on an affordable rate. I don't know if Bakersfield, I think Bakersfield may be a ways away from that.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think that's for the best. It makes the. Projects more difficult.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 05

  The less tenable, yeah.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it also seems like a very, you're putting a very awkward, you're putting, you're putting the tenants in an awkward position. You know, um, you know, you can't use our, can't use the gym, you can't use some of the amenities and like now you're creating like this weird caste system.

• 35:24Speaker 06

  And Austin, Austin and I fully support affordable housing and I'm not just saying that, like, we love that there are affordable housing options downtown even. Like, that's nice to have a diversity of housing. It doesn't hurt a neighborhood. It doesn't hurt our projects. It makes everything better to have different places for people to live at varying degrees of, you know, cost. But we do not feel that that onus should be placed on the developer, especially when we're putting a lot of personal risk on the line. And then to have to, on top of that, you know, provide affordable housing units that would take away from our bottom line. And we are grateful that the city sees that.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I'm glad too. That can be a mess. Last, before we let you go, what, anything that you're, what are you looking forward to? What are you looking forward to most in terms of what you're working on?

• 36:12Speaker 05

  I think just the continued growth downtown. You know, we are so encouraged by what you guys have done and just all the other businesses that are moving downtown. And more established Bakersfield businesses coming down here, I feel like really is taking downtown to a whole new level. That it's, it's not just, you know, hey, you can have cheap space in downtown. It's, you know, I have a successful business. I want to locate here and be a part of all the exciting things happening downtown.

• 36:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, I would agree with Austin. I think for a little period of time when we first started the townhomes, we thought a lot of the stuff that was cool that was happening downtown. Like, we either knew about it or had a finger on it or knew the person running it. Now we don't, and I love that feeling. I love that there's like cool stuff happening all over that we have. No knowledge of until it happens.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:59Speaker 06

  That that feels like it's a movement and it's not just a few people.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:02Speaker 06

  Trying to do something crazy.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I I agree. This this past weekend was a good was a good weekend for downtown. We had the wrestling state wrestling championship, which brought a lot of people here. We had there were some other markets going on and it was just it was good for the luncheonette. It was good for Woolworths, but it was good for downtown. And the more people that we get coming down and enjoying our our our urban core here, the better it is for everybody, even if you live out on the outskirts. So wonderful. Well, thank you, guys. Thank you, Anna and Austin for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. That's Anna and Austin Smith, co owners of Sage Equities. SageBakersfield.com is the website if you want to find out more. Thanks, Anna and Austin.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  Thanks, Sherrod and Sammy.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  We'll be we'll be right back. We're MoneyWise.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the MoneyWise office at 661-847-1000 or email [email protected] for more information.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Welcome to MoneyWise. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Sherrod, your host today with Sammy. I want to thank the Smiths for coming in. Great stuff.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, great stuff. Always enjoy them.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  You know, Sammy, over the weekend, we have a geopolitical event. And this was the, I guess you would call it attack or invasion or what do you call it?

• 38:37Speaker 04

  War.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  A war? Okay, a war, beginning of a war, potentially with Iran. And this, you know, taking out its leader and certainly causing a lot of uncertainty across the globe because it happened on the weekend before the US stock market opened up. I think a lot of people were expecting, myself included, a lot of volatility today in the stock market. Turns out that the S and P 500 actually ended up today. The Dow was down just barely, 0.15%. The S and P 500 was essentially flat. It was up about two points, almost three points.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  They regained. I mean, I woke up early today and I started looking at it and it was in the red very early in the morning. So it sounds like it's gained back whatever it lost, the S and P that is.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  This is a phenomenal story. I think I talked about this when we had Chad Hathaway from Hathaway Energy on a couple of weeks ago about the surprise that I'm constantly faced with when we have a major disruption in oil, in the global oil trade, and it's sort of brushed off. Wall Street will brush it off. And that has been confounding to me. When I, I grew up in an era where, you know, you could have any little thing happen, especially around the Strait of Hormuz where.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  20% of the world oil, or no, more than that, travels through that strip.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Through that one street, right there, right? Which, you know, Iran has a huge part in that.

• 40:08Speaker 04

  Yes, because between Iran and I don't know if it's Oman, or I have to look at my geography. Is it Oman or Qatar from the other side? It's about 23 or 33 kilometers only. So you can see the other side, basically.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  So it's very, very narrow.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, very, yeah, very small space that is, that is in, that plays such an important role in the global energy trade. This is, it's complicated and why that's the case, why that impact has been not as felt as in years past. And mostly, most of it has to do with the fact the United States has increased its production exponentially over the last 10 years, especially 20 years. You know, we don't depend on that as much and OPEC has become no PEC.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  So two weeks ago, I believe, two weeks ago, UAE and Saudi Arabia increased their production of oil to hopefully, I don't know if it was just ahead or they knew that this thing is going to happen, but they've increased their production two weeks ago. Mind you also, we are in control of the oil production of Venezuela. And some of that oil does come now and gets processed here in the United States. So I don't know if this is how it's, the whole plan is working out, whatever, but.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  Avoiding disruption to the oil market as much as possible is definitely

• 41:33Speaker 04

  huge, huge for the success of whatever plan the government is executing right now.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  Because you cannot disrupt.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  The world is so thirsty for oil, especially, especially Europe and the Americas, and even now Africa as developing countries. You cannot disrupt that, and I think this has been taken into consideration, leading to the last weekend events.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, you look at oil prices today, at least it's up about eight percent. Benchmark crude, that is the biggest one day gain since the Russia-Ukraine escalation in early 2022. Almost four years ago now, just over four years ago. So we are seeing a shock in terms of oil, but we're still looking at oil prices being around seventy one to seventy two dollars a barrel, just still like pretty decent.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, up until eighty dollars, they remain decent. I mean, according to what we've seen in the past, I don't want them to go up and to that, but seventy two dollars, especially for the local, local producers, now local producers are making a little bit of money. They're not just breaking even or sometimes losing based on their local, local production.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it, you know, a lot of people think about the oil prices affecting their gasoline prices. That's a whole nother story. Go back and listen to the show that we talked about this with Chad Hathaway. We talked about and earlier shows about what goes into the price of a gallon of gasoline. And it's, it's just half or less than half of the price of a gallon gasoline is the oil, the crude oil.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Like the main ingredient, it just makes up like half, less than half of, half of the overall cost.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  And so there's another interesting aspect to this oil price, and you see oil prices jumping up today. That can be a good thing in terms of making the inflation numbers higher than anticipated. This is an unexpected, kind of an unexpected global event that increases prices on a commodity that's used all across the world. And why that might be good is because the Fed needs, um, the, the, the, sometimes bad news is good news because the bad news would be a way to incentivize the Fed to increase the money supply or make money cheaper. Because they know that there's other problems going on or problems that they're trying

• 44:02Speaker 03

  to keep in check, including inflation and the cost of goods. And, and, and along with that comes labor and the, the employment numbers. On Friday, we're going to get those employment numbers of, of jobs created. It continues to get downgraded from around 120,000 to about 60,000 is what's what's expected. We'll see how the whisper number and the actual number comes out, comes to play on Friday. But that's, that's, you know, we're, we're still looking at a lot of focus on the Fed because I think a lot of people are anticipating rates to come down quicker than they have.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  I, I don't know. I've, I read somewhere today that only 9%, maybe 10% are expecting rates to go down in March. So, so.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. I wonder if it's changed after today. It may have changed a little bit, but I think, is it still expected for three this year? Three rate cuts? So it may not, maybe it won't happen in March, but.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. Last, last year they were expecting a little bit more than three and then they, they downgraded to three. So, so far, 2026 is, we're expecting three rate reductions. But a lot of people are saying not in March. Maybe follow the, the, the following months, but not, the first one's not going to take place in March unless something huge happened between now and the next four weeks of the, uh, Operation Fury or whatever epic fury is taking place.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  One thing we don't talk too much about on this show, but certainly there's a lot of interest as people who are trading online and doing it on a daily basis. It's been democratized in many ways because prices have come down, which has allowed, and certain platforms have created some ways for the average person to go in and trade fractional shares and to trade, you know, alternative assets like cryptocurrencies and, and to do, you know, technical trading and which is, you know, looking at patterns and looking at things like seasonality to try to make trades and timing. We're not hands of this. You know, for the record, MoneyWise believes that taking an academic, long-term approach

• 46:12Speaker 03

  to investing is going to be, is going to win 90%, 90-plus percent of the time. So you're, you're doing more damage than, than good usually by you trying to outgame the system. It's that that's a generally a loser's game. But there is some interesting facts here. If you look at seasonality over the last 35 years, and if you look at the S and P 500, going back to 1990, you'll notice that there is no month that is negative. There's during that month. So, meaning the median return for that month, going back 35 years, there's not a single month where you see a negative. You do have a period between,

• 46:57Speaker 03

  you have June, August, and September, which is pretty low. It's just barely above zero, 0.2%, for example, in June and 0.2% in September. That's the median average return. But if you, if you look at how we've done seasonality and seasonally for the beginning of this year, it doesn't match what we had historically over the last 35 years, which is another reason why there's very difficult for an average individual and average investors sort of time these things and to be consistently winning on it. This is a plug for anybody out there listening that would like professional help. That's what MoneyWise is here for.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  We can actually help and bring that in line, your investment strategy in line with, you know, academics and actually true information. You can find out more about Money Wise at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can also tune in tomorrow. We'll have another show. In the meantime, remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.