Los Angeles (near UCLA):
Coffee at Westwood Village and a quick stroll through UCLA with my Emory classmate Michael Bastan (MBA 06).
Michael was one of the few 1 year MBA classmates I got to know at Emory. I don’t recall how exactly I got to know Michael, but I do remember Michael reaching out to me when he first moved to SoCal more than 10 years ago.
Michael is from the UK and still speaks with a British Accent. I found it strange that he decided to move to LA instead of returning back to the UK or settling somewhere in the East Coast where the Emory Alumni network is much stronger. But apparently, Michael has a lot of family here in Los Angeles.
Michael is now married with 3 kids.
Back when Michael first moved to LA, he told me he wanted to get into Real Estate. He had trouble finding employment in the industry at first but eventually landed in at a Real Estate investment firm before striking it out on his own as an entrepreneur.
He and a partner co-founded Base Equities (https://baseeq.com), a Real Estate fund. They are in the process of finalizing contracts before opening up their Real Estate fund to investors.
Michael says he really enjoys starting his own business. Entrepreneurship is a lot of fun. He likes the challenge of creating his own company rather than sticking with a safe corporate job. Michael made a number of good real estate investments over the years providing him some income while he works full-time on getting his new business established.
After coffee, we walked through Westwood Village and through UCLA. Michael pointed out to me that for some reason (and he has a hypothesis) Westwood Village always has a high vacancy rate. The owners / developers for the last 10 years never seem to be able to get these properties to take off.
Too bad, I’m not interested in Real Estate. But interestingly enough, I had a similar conversation with our other classmate Daria Makhoukova less than a month ago who told me all about Real Estate investing in Atlanta. Perhaps they should partner up in the future or share real estate investment ideas over coffee.
I hope his Real Estate fund takes off in 2022. If you are interested in Real Estate investing, I suggest you ping Michael on LinkedIn or check-out his new business: Base Equities (fund to launch soon).
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