Joel Ross Joel Ross

Last week I ended my Rant with the warning that the left, and the kids being turned out of universities with the belief that they can yell and scream and get their way, despite what the majority thinks and wants, are impacting zoning and development. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published an article reporting that development in LA, San Francisco and some other left-leaning cities is grinding to a halt on the demands of the screaming left to shut down market demanded projects unless there is a 20%-25% “affordable housing component.”

This simply once again demonstrates the utter lack of any understanding by the left of what is required in terms of costs and return on equity to incentivize anybody to develop, or provide equity for a project. They seem to think developers and real estate investors are here to serve the interests of the left and the minority view. They are completely devoid of any understanding of risk, return, or what it really takes to get through entitlement and development. Having developed major brownfield projects, and having had to endure hostile community meetings, I have a good understanding of how uninformed most people are as to what development requires to be successful, and the returns required to justify the time and risk. 

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Joel Ross

Joel Ross began his career in Wall St as an investment banker in 1965, handling corporate advisory matters for a variety of clients. During the seventies he was CEO of North American operations for a UK based conglomerate, and sat on the parent company board. In 1981, he began his own firm handling leveraged buyouts, investment banking and real estate financing. In 1984 Ross began providing investment banking services and arranging financing for real estate transactions with his own firm, Ross Properties, Inc. In 1993 Ross and a partner, Lexington Mortgage, created the first Wall St hotel CMBS program in conjunction with Nomura. They went on to develop a similar CMBS program for another major Wall St investment bank and for five leading hotel companies. Lexington, in partnership with Mr. Ross established a hotel mortgage bank table funded by an investment bank, and making all CMBS hotel loans on their behalf. In 1999 he formed Citadel Realty Advisors as a successor to Ross Properties Corp., focusing on real estate investment banking in the US, UK and Paris. He has closed over $3.0 billion of financings for office, hotel, retail, land and multifamily projects. Ross is also a founder of Market Street Investors, a brownfield land development company, and has been involved in the acquisition of notes on defaulted loans and various REO assets in conjunction with several major investors. Ross was an adjunct professor in the graduate program at the NYU Hotel School. He is a member of Urban Land Institute and was a member of the leadership of his ULI council. In 1999, he conceived and co-authored with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Hotel Mortgage Performance Report, a major study of hotel mortgage default rates.

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