Frontier Market Real Estate: Ukraine

Bruce Talley (00:00)

You know that things are happening and this is not to minimize any of the terrible tragedies that are happening daily in Ukraine But they’re building apartments in Kiev right now They’re building apartments in Odessa right now. I was just in Odessa a few weeks ago and they’re building apartments in Lviv So in Kiev less than 1 % of the apartments I believe it’s less than 1 % have been damaged or destroyed in Odessa. It’s something like maybe 1,100 apartments out of

Dylan Silver (00:00)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (00:30)

of

maybe a total stock of about 380,000. And then in Lviv, where about three quarters of a million people live, there’s something like 270,000 apartments, something like that. There have been less than 200 damaged or destroyed there. So there’s building going on right now despite that, but you see the damage is relatively small.

Dylan Silver (00:50)

all of them.

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is an international investor active in multiple different regionalities and areas across the world. And today he’s focused on Ukraine and international companies, relocation, logistics, as well as investing in Ukraine. Currently in Florida, please welcome Bruce Talley. Bruce, welcome to the show.

Bruce Talley (02:52)

Thanks very much. Glad to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:56)

I always like to start off at the top of the show, Bruce, by asking guests how they got into the real estate space.

Bruce Talley (03:03)

Sure, sure. Well, I worked in investment banking for many years in California. I worked for a ⁓ Midwest and West Coast firm that underwrote, sold, and traded ⁓ municipal bonds. So in California, there’s a huge bond market. There are several thousand issuers. And ⁓ I did that for a long time. It worked out very well for me. Eventually, I led West Coast sales. had lifetime sales of over $2 billion. Eventually, I started a second book of business.

and that was selling loan participations, mostly construction loans. And ⁓ those construction loans were for hotels and condo projects and a lot of Native American casinos. So, ⁓ you know, kind of from a distance, I was involved first, you know, financing infrastructure that went into new subdivisions in California, and then directly financing construction. Later on, I went to Russia. I thought Russia was going to democratize, develop the rule of law and become a responsible

Dylan Silver (03:46)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (04:03)

member

of the community of nations. And so I feel a little bit naive in saying this out loud, but that’s the way I thought at the time. And of course, the Russia of today isn’t the Russia it was many years ago. So I lived in Russia for almost 10 years and I did a couple of things there. And one of them was to buy and sell commercial land in South Russia in a place called Krasnodar Krai, which Krasnodar region, which is that region of Russia just on the east side of the Black Sea.

So you have the Caucasus Mountains there, there’s oil and gas, there’s agriculture, and it’s Russia’s really only warm water coastline. And so ⁓ the region was growing quickly. I bought and sold some land.

Dylan Silver (04:41)

Hmm.

Bruce Talley (05:34)

Eventually, as you mentioned, I got into the destination management business and I started a company in Sochi. We provided services around the Olympic Games for several cycles, ⁓ starting there. And so we provided television studios and long-term workforce relocation together with financial management of the contracts. We provided offices, staffing, warehouses.

TV studios, laundry, catering, events, everything you could talk, you can think of for about 45 Olympic broadcasters, partners and sponsors for about a three year period before the games and after the games. And so I took that on to Brazil and then had my toe in the water in Korea and Japan as well. But when the war, ⁓ I’m sorry, I think I’m interrupting you.

Dylan Silver (06:06)

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, no, no, that’s OK. Go ahead. I’m listening to the full picture here. You’ve really been able to pivot. And I was going to mention, you know, pivoting is one of the hallmarks of a real estate investor. You know, not just the business that you’re a part of, but also the the regionality and the location. Brazil, you know, Russia, Ukraine. ⁓ You mentioned Brazil and it sounded like Japan. What was your involvement there?

Bruce Talley (06:52)

Well…

Brazil was, and Japan, was providing services around the Olympic Games. you know, it was strictly related to that, kinds of services. We had a contract with a very large company in Brazil, so we moved our team down there and provided services in Brazil and then to a lesser extent in Korea and in Tokyo. But limited in those countries, limited.

to destination management services.

Dylan Silver (07:26)

I’m imagining that to Ukraine as a different story because Ukraine, you know, not going on in Ukraine, right? How did you decide you’re going to take a look at Ukraine when you were doing Olympic games, Brazil, right? Japan? What was the pivot to Ukraine like?

Bruce Talley (07:34)

Yeah.

Well, it’s really interesting or really good question. ⁓ So as you know, I was involved in commercial land and land development in South Russia. so my observation was, ⁓ well, let me kind of skip forward to 2022. ⁓

After Russia escalated in 2022, I was in Ukraine within about a month. And Ukraine’s a large country. It’s almost, it’s about 90 or 95 % the size of Texas. So it’s not, you know, the damage, everything that’s happening there, it’s not uniform. And it’s a lot worse in the south and the southeast of the country. But anyway, I was over there and I had been in Ukraine many times when I lived in Russia, just out of curiosity.

I always want to know what’s around the next bend in the road. And there some cultural and other kinds of similarities between the two countries. It doesn’t give Russia the ability or the right to be invading and killing people and taking their land. But there are some similarities there, both children of the Soviet Union, right? So I went over there because I believed that my knowledge of… ⁓

business in the post-Soviet space, my knowledge of American capital markets. I believe that all that could offer some value. And so I set up a destination services company in Ukraine to provide those same kinds of services that we provided around the game. So companies need to relocate, they need staffing, they need workforce relocation. Maybe they need to buy a building, they need ⁓ permits, they need, you know, lots of things, perhaps events, transportation security.

legal support, they need lots of things. So I set up a company to do that and I’ve got all the staff on the ground. I’m a Russian, I’m a Russian speaker, I speak with a, you know…

quite an American accent and somewhat fractured grammar, but as a Russian speaker, I’m able to communicate all over Ukraine. It’s about as easy for me to travel around in Ukraine as it is here. But one of the things that I have been thinking about for several years is that had I just bought residential real estate in…

Dylan Silver (09:44)

Thank

Right.

Bruce Talley (10:40)

Russia and done nothing else in terms of buying land or trying to develop land nothing else in terms of property if I would have just bought Apartments, I would have done been much more successful and so I got in contact with Doug Clayton of Leopard Capital and he is Started funded managed several

private equity funds in frontier markets like Cambodia, Southeast Asia, and even Haiti. so I think Doug agrees with me that residential offers great upside. And I just want to make one thing here clear before I go any further. This isn’t an offer to buy or sell securities. We’re discussing the concept and the strategy, but we have started the Ukraine, are in the process of starting the Ukraine Prime Property Fund.

Dylan Silver (11:11)

Yeah.

I want to ask you about, you mentioned frontier markets. I live in Dominican Republic, is neighbor to Haiti. Hispaniola is the whole island.

thing on my thousand foot view living here from the outside looking in, right? I’m not at all involved in your space, but I’m a licensed realtor in Texas. I’ve done distressed real estate deals. And so I have some familiarity with how real estate is done in the U.S. But then seeing it here as well, the barrier to entry is lower. I would say there’s less regulation, but also your dollar arbitrage, if you will. The dollar goes so far, it’s almost

mind-boggling for someone who’s new out here. And that’s one of the other advantages that I’ve seen of investing in some of these areas. When you’re looking at the Hades, you mentioned, I believe, Cambodia and other frontier or developing places, what’s kind of the arithmetic or the underwriting that goes into this?

Bruce Talley (12:37)

Well, look, I don’t personally have the experience in Haiti or and I’ve been to Cambodia several times, but not as an investor. My experience on this is, you know, United States and and ⁓ Ukraine and Russia. I would say that it’s really an interesting question you should bring up. You’re talking about ⁓ what does a dollar buy and.

Dylan Silver (12:50)

Done.

Bruce Talley (13:01)

The lesson that I’ve taken away from the post operating post Soviet space is that prices may not be ⁓

Well, it’s interesting the price escalation for example in Russia, know apartments in Moscow or St. Petersburg, Moscow especially, they can be two or three or four thousand dollars a square foot for prime locations in the center of the city. And in Sochi, which is you know on the east side of the Black Sea in mild climate, kind of the beach resort city for Russia, they can be you know anywhere from five hundred to three thousand dollars a square foot for

you know, the better properties. the reason I think what drives that is simply it’s it’s a question of supply and demand. You have economies that don’t have so many places to invest. They’re not trusting a public of the securities markets ⁓ and location becomes even more important in those cities. When those cities were built and planned, they didn’t plan for millions of people driving cars. So parking is an issue. Traffic is an issue. And location becomes even more important. And then if you’re an investor,

Dylan Silver (13:59)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (14:13)

If you get some money, in, again, Russia and Ukraine have some similarities in this regard. Typically what they’re going to look at is buying an apartment because you can either live in it or rent it out. And the other thing that you mentioned in relation to cost I thought was really interesting was where does the dollar go? Well,

Human labor in Ukraine is relatively inexpensive. For instance, ⁓ for a laborer in Ukraine, the costs are about 28 % out the door of what they are in Poland.

Dylan Silver (14:38)

Hmm.

Bruce Talley (14:49)

So as Ukraine moves towards integration with the EU, I strongly believe it’s going to become a manufacturing hub for ⁓ Europe because the costs are so much lower. ⁓ they’re already planning infrastructure in Western Ukraine around a large influx of manufacturing and transportation and tourism and a lot of things.

Dylan Silver (14:49)

Hmm.

I want to ask you about the real estate deals and the deals that are providing housing for people in Ukraine specifically. I see a lot in the United States of this move towards tiny homes to fix or to address the housing crisis. I believe it’s either Lennar or D.R. Horton is doing a whole tiny home subdivision in the greater San Antonio, Texas area.

⁓ But then I’m also seeing there’s this push towards people who may have traditionally been, you know, fix and flippers moving more towards ⁓ ground up construction, subdivisions, even figuring out how to break into like flex use commercial. ⁓ know, ground level might be restaurants or, you know, public facing retail. And then the top levels would be ⁓ commercial residential housing.

What are the types of deals that you’re looking at in Ukraine? And then also, is there a push for new builds and new construction in Ukraine right now?

Bruce Talley (16:59)

Yeah, it’s a great, great, great question. Things are a bit different in Ukraine. I don’t know if I mentioned this, in the cities, roughly 80 % of the people live in apartments. So those apartments, a small one could be, you know, a studio of 300 or 350 square feet. A very standard size is between probably six and 800 square feet.

Dylan Silver (17:17)

Wow.

Bruce Talley (17:23)

⁓ You get those that are 1200 square feet or even three or four thousand square feet. But again, they’re used to living in smaller spaces and many of the homes in the smaller, especially in the smaller cities where people, more people live in single family homes. Many of those would be in the six or seven hundred square foot category. So folks are used to living in smaller spaces. In terms of what’s happening right now, it would shock you to go to Keeve because you watching the news and

Dylan Silver (17:40)

Hmm.

Bruce Talley (17:53)

You know that things are happening and this is not to minimize any of the terrible tragedies that are happening daily in Ukraine But they’re building apartments in Kiev right now They’re building apartments in Odessa right now. I was just in Odessa a few weeks ago and they’re building apartments in Lviv So in Kiev less than 1 % of the apartments I believe it’s less than 1 % have been damaged or destroyed in Odessa. It’s something like maybe 1,100 apartments out of

Dylan Silver (17:54)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (18:23)

of

maybe a total stock of about 380,000. And then in Lviv, where about three quarters of a million people live, there’s something like 270,000 apartments, something like that. There have been less than 200 damaged or destroyed there. So there’s building going on right now despite that, but you see the damage is relatively small.

Dylan Silver (18:43)

all of them.

Bruce Talley (18:48)

And the other thing that would be kind of different than the United States,

Dylan Silver (18:48)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (18:53)

have a builder that will come in and build a large multifamily project and then somebody, either they or somebody else, owns the whole project and rents the whole thing out. I don’t know of a single instance of that in Ukraine. What happens is the developer builds and during the building process they sell each apartment out. Earlier in the building process that you put your money down, the cheaper the price.

Dylan Silver (19:05)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (19:23)

typically the apartments are just delivered without floor or wall coverings, kitchens or baths, so the owner would be responsible for those finishings.

Dylan Silver (19:23)

Yeah.

Now is it is it a form of seller financing that they’re doing, meaning the developers taking an initial down payment that people are paying over time until completion, however long it takes, or does ⁓

Bruce Talley (19:44)

Yeah, are a variety of ways

that that’s done. But yeah, that’s one of them. the quicker that you put your money down, the more of your money that you put down, the better deal. And of course, there’s some risk involved in this because you have to assume that the property gets finished. But there some really good developers and builders in Ukraine.

Dylan Silver (20:13)

I’ve seen the same thing out here and the first couple times that I saw it, I said, who would buy this project that has designs up but hasn’t broken ground? Who’s putting up money for this? And it’s so common out here. ⁓

that I’ve spoken with realtors, realtors here and realtors in the US who have familiarity with the Dominican real estate, I’ve realized, know, do we do this in the US? I couldn’t think of one example where people were buying, and maybe there are, but I can’t think of too many examples where people are buying apartments before they’re built.

Bruce Talley (20:49)

Well, I think that there are some structural reasons why that happens there. One of them, course, is currency stability and interest rates. So, ⁓ you know, if you’re going to finance a project in Ukraine using debt, it’s pretty expensive and difficult to get that financing.

Dylan Silver (21:10)

Yeah, you know that that’s not something that I when I’m thinking about all the different angles. It’s you start peeling back one layer and you see, okay, well, I have this, I have this, I have this. It’s an interesting conversation. I want to ask you about what your business is focused on these days because I know that with so much going on, you have companies relocating, you’ve got the investments. ⁓ Are you primarily looking at one asset class or one vertical, one niche or

Are you simultaneously assisting with the logistics and the relocation as you are looking for these developments and these deals?

Bruce Talley (21:47)

Well, yeah, I mean, there isn’t a lot of relocation going on at this point. We’ve taken some investors in to look at opportunities. We’ve taken some tech people in. There’s not a lot going on there. I do have a staff that is capable of handling relocations. I’ve got legal staff. I’ve got interpreters. I’ve got drivers. I’ve got all the folks ready to do the work when companies begin to show up. I’ve done a lot of work to kind of get myself on the radar screen there. ⁓ Really what’s occupying a lot of my time

right now is the Ukraine Prime Property Fund because what we’re going to focus on is ⁓ apartments in Kyiv.

Lviv and Odessa. And we think these are the three key cities in the country. are some of the cities in the east simply won’t be rebuilt, like Kharkiv, probably will not ever be the same two million plus city that it was before. So there’s been a population shift that started in 2011 that was kind of to central and western Ukraine to begin with, and then this was kind of ⁓ accelerated when Russia started the war.

Dylan Silver (22:45)

Hmm.

Bruce Talley (22:59)

in 2014. So there’s a big population shift going on anyway. Then you have internally displaced people and then you have millions of refugees that are living in Poland and Germany and the Netherlands and France and all throughout Europe and even the United States. So a lot of that diaspora will return. And where are they going to go back to? Well, they’re going back to where the jobs are going to be, where the opportunity is. And Lviv is a beautiful historic city. It also happens to be very close to

Dylan Silver (23:16)

Right.

Bruce Talley (23:29)

Polish border. I believe, we believe that Lviv is going to regionally be very, very important for tourism and for agriculture, for manufacturing and transportation. They’re building a lot of transportation infrastructure around it. Kiev, of course, has an outsize influence on the rest of the country. I think the population pre-war was something of like four and a half million. And then Ades is both the major seaport, really the only seaport

Dylan Silver (23:50)

Yeah.

Bruce Talley (23:59)

significant

one now and it’s also the beach resort and it’s got this beautiful 18th and 19th century city center with all this graceful architecture. So I believe those areas are going to be very attractive and what we’re focused on is residential and you mentioned mixed-use development. there’s there and that that’s one of the areas we’re focusing on. We think that the historic city centers of these three cities will be very very attractive ⁓ to expats to returning

people to eventually retirees and tourists coming to Odessa and tourists to the other cities. ⁓ So we’re focusing on city centers but also areas that have the amenities, large mixed use development that have commercial, they’ve got childcare and shopping maybe in one building or on the bottom floor and a gym and then beautiful apartments above that. And there are examples to those cities where there are areas full of beautiful new apartments, again, that

Dylan Silver (24:54)

Right.

Bruce Talley (24:59)

still being constructed right now and that offer those kinds of amenities and ⁓ you know are attractive to ⁓ Ukrainians and the foreigners that will be coming.

Dylan Silver (25:12)

I

to ask

you about the exit strategy for some of these deals. know, when I think about the commercial residential space, I know folks that are doing syndications in the US, guests of the show, folks that I’ve spoken with in Texas when I was living in Dallas, Fort Worth and in San Antonio.

they may have a five or a seven or potentially slightly longer timeframe as an exit strategy. So people are aware, hey, there’s gonna be this time to develop the deal or there’s gonna be this time to value add and then we’re going to hold until this and then things could change, right? But this is the rough timeline, five, seven years, something along these lines, depending on the deal. In these deals, when you’re talking about, you know, things that are black swan events, right? ⁓

population displacement, ⁓ people moving in and out of cities, people that are currently living in neighboring countries when they’re gonna come back, tourism when that’s coming back. What’s the exit strategy look like for these deals? And then also, what’s the timeline like?

Bruce Talley (26:11)

Well, we’re looking at a six-year hold, and so our strategy is to buy apartments that either… ⁓

have already been finished, you know, that somebody else has done those finishings or do the renovation ourselves, depending upon supply, cost, what we think the opportunity to rent the apartment is and what we think the upside is. So it’s probably our thinking right now is probably maybe 20 or 25 % will be finishing or renovating apartments. very, we want to be very careful about that because of the timelines involved.

and costs, but sometimes there are advantages when… ⁓

you know, an owner doesn’t finish an apartment and needs to liquidate quickly. So sometimes there are advantages for that. But our timeline is to hold for the whole period of six years with two one year extensions. And our exit strategy, ⁓ we believe that this portfolio is going to be extremely attractive with rental rates, right, that will rise steeply in the coming years. And so we imagine a an

strategy with a ⁓ European or maybe from someplace else, pension fund or insurance company. And of course, that makes it, we’re buying apartments one by one and assembling a nice sizable portfolio. ⁓ And so that makes it attractive for somebody else who’ve done the work for them really. We can of course sell them off ⁓ individually or in smaller groups, but we think that that’s the most efficient, cost efficient and fastest way.

will ultimately offer the best returns.

Dylan Silver (27:57)

Well,

my hat goes off to you, both from the perspective of what you’re currently doing in Ukraine and how forward thinking that is, but also, again, the ability to pivot and to see need and to move regionalities, Russia, Brazil, Japan, ⁓ and then Ukraine. It’s impressive.

Hey Bruce, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if they’d like to reach out to you or get in contact?

Bruce Talley (28:28)

Yeah, my email, talley.br@gmail.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Dylan Silver (28:38)

Bruce, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Bruce Talley (28:43)

Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure.