While prepping for this episode, I started thinking about Walter Chrysler and John Jacob Raskob. With a great sense of urgency, both men built the tallest skyscrapers of their kind in the 1930s. But for what purpose? The author of The Birth of a Building first approaches the conception of a building from a philosophic point of view as he explains the idea, the financing, the design, and the construction of a real estate project.
Who Is John Coe?
In this book review episode of The Birth of a Building, I contacted John Coe to unpack the big ideas in this book. John has more than forty years of institutional real estate investment experience. He is also the producer and host of the podcast, Icons of DC Area Real Estate.
Relevant links:
Episode Highlights
- Why we picked this book to review
- The purpose of every real estate project
- The mystic of the birthing of a building
- The multidisciplinary approach to financing a real estate project
- Why this is a step-back book
- The product-market fit in real estate
- The period from ideation to making the investment decision
- Cost projections vs income projections
- “Some parts of a budget must be flexible because other parts are so inflexible. Handle the inflexible parts first. Then solve for what can be spent on the rest.“
- The finance and capital stack
- Construction horror stories
- How this book ranks with other real estate books
Books Mentioned
- The Real Estate Game by William Poorvu
- Rethinking Real Estate by Dror Poleg
- Le Deal by Byrne Murphy
- Outlive by Peter Attia
- The Power Broker by Robert Caro
- The LBJ series by Robert Caro
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack edited by Peter Kaufman
John also recommends Peter Kaufman’s speech on multi-disciplinary thinking:
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