How This New Broker Closed a $7.5M Hotel Deal Just 4 Months Into Her Career

0:03 This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Sky Velez. Sky is a commercial real estate broker out of Bethlehem, PA. Sky, thank you for being on the show today. Thank you for having me, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you context. Sky's husband is a badass broker who I became friends with from the Internet a few years ago. Sky has since jumped in with two feet and I'm really excited to hear about your journey. Sky for the listeners, tell us about who you are and how we got here today. OK, so I'm newly licensed in December, but I'm not super new to the CRE world because about six years ago I was working in a casino cocktail serving and my amazing husband. What?

0:53 Well, back story, I was pregnant with our first son. So this was like, yeah, 6, about six years ago. He's like leave the casino. Like you can stay home with the baby. And I'm like bet, like that's exactly what I want to do. So quit my job. But he was about five years into real estate now. So I was just helping him on the back end like wherever I could. Like he was teaching me. I'm helping with contracts, prospecting, like we're canvassing with my big belly. We're like walking around from like in shopping centers, just like wherever I could help. But I never adopted that as my, like, I didn't feel like that was my career. Like that was like his thing. And I was like kind of helping where I could. So time goes on and I'm like ready to go back to work. I end up back at the casino, a cocktail serving. This was about two years ago.

1:43 And after some time there, I'm like, this is just like, I'm, I'm not feeling fulfilled. I'm not, I'm putting so much energy and so much work into something that's like it's not giving much back. I'm like, what can I do that's going to like fuel the family, cater to the family more like I want to be a part of like the family business. Like I want us to be like more of an empire instead of like me putting my energy somewhere in him, putting his energy somewhere. So I just had this like download. It was like 2:00 AM one night. I'm home. I think Robert was away. I have this like download. It's like get license. I'm like, should I looking up like real estate school? I did try to get license in the past.

2:23 I tried to do like an online course and it was just I I went through it, finish it and I just never took the test. Like I was like, OK, so I'm like, let me run this back, let me do this again. I know like years ago. So get licensed and it's December and I'm like, OK, great. Like I answered the call like now what I'm like do I, am I gonna do retail? Am I gonna do industrial? Am I gonna do like offices? Like like wasn't feeling any of it. And I'm like, I didn't feel like I could do multifamily cuz I felt like that was Rob's face. I'm like, as cool as it would be to be missus multifamily, like I wanted to shine like my own area. So this part is like so embarrassing. Robert, he's mentoring me.

3:10 He hands me off this kind of like off market deal. It's freestanding like retail, tenant occupied movie theater, off market. They're looking to sell. So I'm like, OK, retail cool. So I'm reaching out to every retail owner that I could trying to see like who's going to buy this building? Who's going to buy this building? This is the embarrassing part. I ChatGPT because I like I felt like I exhausted all of the retail people. Like no one was really like getting back to me. Like I'm like, who else? Who else would buy this and ChatGPT says reach out to hospitality. I guess because this have like a rush movie theater had a restaurant reach out to hospitality News flash, no hotel owner wanted to buy this movie theater obviously, but I was new.

3:59 I was like naive and I didn't even think twice about it. I start, I start reaching out to every hotel owner that I can and they were so responsive. They didn't want it, but they were so responsive and so like just engaged and, and willing to have the conversation. So, and I was already coming from that hospitality, like cocktail server service industry, like I felt like I was already kind of in that space even though it's like so completely different. It just felt familiar to me. So yeah, I just ran with it and ended up finding a hotel that was willing to sell kind of, and about 4 1/2 months after getting license was able to close my first deal. OK, talk about your first deal, because it's insane. So it was a local Fairfield Inn, $7.5 million. It was, they bought it unencumbered of the brand. Marriott was not renewing.

4:58 So that was my first call. My first call ever was with this very large investment firm. And they didn't tell me that I could sell it for them. They said we're going to put this on the market in February. And I said, well, what if I bring you an offer and they're like, we're not listing this with you, we're going to list this with CBRE. If you bring us an offer, like we'll look at it, but like basically no. But I took it as a yes. Let it be. Yes, it sounds like they want me to sell it like it's giving like they want me to sell this. So Roberts, like, let's call, he had a contact which was like the largest operator in our region. So he's like, let's call them.

5:40 And they just from the first call, like they wanted it, like it just felt so seamless. Wow. It the deal died about three times, don't get me wrong. But I mean, Robert always says every deal dies approximately 3 times. So I, I didn't get discouraged when it would die. I was like, OK, like maybe this could come back. But yeah, it was a journey of about 4 1/2 months and it ended up closing May 8th, $7.5 million. Wow. I just, you know, talk to a lot of people, everybody, you know, we think back on our first deal, I don't hear a lot of high anything like that. So I was very excited to see that your successes and hear about your successes because that's the reality of this business is Sky's the limit.

6:32 Yes. Oh, I like that. I like that. How do you underwrite a hotel property? So typically a hotel buyer, they're going to want the price, the asking price to be about 3 times the revenue. That's kind of like a rule of thumb. Like if I get financials and I see that they're asking three times the revenue, I'm like, oh, OK, this we might have a deal here, but it's hard right now like with interest rates and just, there's so much going on just in the market and things like that right now. A lot of times like sellers are asking for like 4 times or more.

7:14 And if that's just not feasible typically for the the hotel buyer, especially with like cost of goods and things like that, anytime a hotel is transitioning owners, they're the brand is going to ask them for a pit for a property improvement plan. So not only is it going to be the cost of what it's going to be to purchase the hotel, they're going to have to put some money into the hotel to make sure everything is, you know, up to up to par with what the brand wants. So that's typically what I'm looking for is like 3 times, yeah. So since you closed out your first hospitality deal in May, have you gone just head first into hospitality? What it?

7:59 What does it look like since then? Yeah, I think for me, I'm not someone that can be dabbling in all types of avenues like I, my brain needs to learn as much as I can about One Ave. and just kind of go full speed ahead into that. So I've just been continuing to search for deals. I, I like to do things off market. I kind of found like fun in that. So I'm just kind of working with off market buyers and seeing what kind of deals I can come across. Drum up. Yeah. You came in at an interesting time because it's like it's ugly right now. Like I was on the phone, a guy called me the other day.

8:41 He said, I want to let you know I quit brokerage after 13 years and I'm a 1031 guy now. And that, I mean, aside from you're seeing a fallout of like first year, second year, third year brokers, to hear someone who's been doing it for that long throwing in the towel because of how excruciating this market is was eye opening to me. You started in an interesting time where it's hard to, it's extremely competitive. Seller expectations do not match interest rates or buyer expectations, right? All these sellers got an appraisal from 2022-2023 and the numbers are not the same here in 2025. And people think that real estate only goes up, and it does, but it takes longer for some periods of times, product types, whatever.

9:41 So it's an interesting time for you to get into the biz, but I think it's really interesting that you niched aggressively and I think it's the right thing to do. All we do is industrial. So I don't get calls about multifamily. I don't want calls about multifamily. And no, it's smart. It works really well for us so. Yeah, I do think it's important to niche down and just become an expert in that area. Like I remember when I was getting licensed, I was like the only one who was saying I was going to be doing commercial. And the instructor was like, why are you categorizing yourself to that? Like you could do so much more if you do residential. And I'm like red flag because no shade, but he's like a residential agent who's all like, I guess dabbles in commercial.

10:31 And I just feel like some and like, you know, everyone's going to do what they want to do. But I feel like I don't want to be doing a disservice by dabbling in a million things. Like pick something, learn your expertise, and just like, roll with that. I'm right there with you. So how are you getting in touch with with people? What's your I? I've talked to Rob about this. How? How do you find to cut through all the mania to get in touch with the right people? I contact people a lot through e-mail and I find usually my emails, sometimes I have to do a little bit of digging. I like to use Co star a lot, but sometimes like if you get that bounce back e-mail of oh, this e-mail is not no longer in service like I'm on true people search like I'm like kind of hunting for a phone number and e-mail.

11:21 Any any way to get into contact? I've thought about just like popping up at hotels because I feel like sometimes the operators are there a lot it depends on like what kind of operator they are. I haven't been brave enough to do that just yet. But you never know, Sometimes you might have to just pop up. You will. You'll get there. I get it. Are you only trying to transact right now in Pennsylvania or are you thinking of expanding? And right now, I do have more of a focus in PA, but I've had buyers reach out that they're looking in other areas. So if I have a buyer that I know is like a strong buyer and they want in a in a certain target area, I have been kind of like reaching out and seeing what I can find in that area as well. I have a friend here in town.

12:13 I should probably connect you. She is maybe like two or three years into the business and she essentially did the same thing like she realized when she was contacting hospitality owners that So the interesting thing about Denver where I live and warehousing, it's like the most common product type anybody wants is a warehouse in Denver. So our owners are really fatigued by brokers reaching out to them. So we have to get really creative with how we right approach people. Whereas my friend Amanda and it and it sounds like you have realized, oh, we can like there's so far fewer people contacting hotel, motel, etcetera, owners that it's easier to get a hold of them.

13:04 What advice would you give a first time commercial real estate broker listening to this podcast? I think someone that's just starting out, I think there's is power in being maybe new and fresh to it. Kind of how with like the ChatGPT, like I just kind of ran with that. If I was more seasoned, I would have said a hotel owner is never going to buy that, like never going to buy a movie theater, you know what I mean? So I think just like going for it and just believing that you can learn, putting aside the imposter syndrome because that's a huge a huge one too, is just like, do I know what I'm doing? Do I know what I'm talking about as I'm reaching out to these owners who own like multiple. I think just like being confident and just going for. It, it's really interesting, like our business is a business where historically it's been like fathers teaching their sons, but recently, you know, I, I'm seeing a trend of fathers teaching their sons and fathers teaching their daughters. And then just like, you know, we have this in common our, our significant others.

14:12 I brought my husband into the business. Your husband brought you into the business and suddenly you're it's exactly like what you're saying. It's like there's a whole new eyes on this business, there's a whole new perspective. Then couple that with the Internet and it's like, you know, there's a lot of work to be done in terms of figuring out the ways that we can use the Internet and navigate brokerage, buying, selling, leasing, etcetera. But we're just getting started and there's, like you said, new fresh faces and opportunities. And I am overwhelmed by the change that's coming because it's, like I said, like the fathers taught their sons, you know, you hit the Rolodex, you hit the golf course, and that works. But now people are looking around, going, wait a second, there are other ways to do this.

15:07 And here, 7 and a half million dollars later for your first deal, here we are. Yes, absolutely. And I think just the demographic of commercial real estate in general, like I don't see, I guess I see some women I love if I see like a woman doing commercial, I feel like a lot of times like when I said I'm starting in real estate, people are like, oh, you're going to sell houses like that's great. Like a lot of times like the demographic you're seeing that's selling commercial real estate is not like you or I, you know what I mean? And I think that there's something fresh about that, too. And I think it works really well for, you know, some are hesitant, but a lot are very open to it. And you just work with those people, double down and work hard.

15:51 And it's crazy what happens in this business with a little bit of effort. Yes, absolutely. So. So have you gotten Rob to do hospitality at all or he's still sticking to? He's going to stick with his multi family thing. Yeah, I think if I ever need help, like he's there, I'm obviously like he's my mentor, so it's nice to have him at the right at my fingertips if I need him. But at the same time, I think it's good that we have our own like we're going to be working together. We both work from home most of the time. So we're together all the time. I think it's good for us to kind of target our own thing, but it's in the same kind of realm.

16:36 So and he just like he lives, eats and breathes multi family like he loves it. He loves it and I love that for him. And I'm starting to feel the same way about hospitality. I'm just getting so into just the whole hotel operation and just the people and the all of the things that go into it. So I think we both are on like a good little path for ourselves. I I agree, you have to look up, there is a gentleman by the name of Sam McVey. He's a luxury hospitality broker in Australia and he essentially like I think he said, he, he doesn't do any transaction under 60 million. He only goes north of that.

17:23 And it's like these iconic hotels on the, you know, eastern, we'll say like throughout China, Australia. But what I learned from Sam was go big because the time it takes to do a small deal and the time it takes to do a big deal, actually it generally takes more time to do a small deal. So if you fish in a pond with larger fish, you will catch larger fish. And that's what I think about my early days as a broker, like cold calling, like 1500 square foot warehouses. And I'm just like, yeah, that was an interesting use of my time, but.

18:03 A learning experience, but it's true. It's like you're putting in the same amount of effort, like you said, if not less sometimes to do like those bigger deals, because when you're doing something local, something smaller, I think they're expecting a lot more from the agent. But when you're working with those larger groups, like they have someone that's going to do everything, you know what I mean? Like for this hotel, I remember, I will never forget, I'm sitting on this call with like this firm's legal team, like their attorneys and their vice president. And I'm just like, they were handling all of it, like I didn't have to do much, you know what I mean? If that was a smaller deal, I would have definitely had to have been. But they kind of have their people to do that stuff. And you're kind of just playing matchmaker with the deal. But I was just like, holy smokes, like how did I get here? It's the it's where you belong and it's a great place to be. Yeah, absolutely.

18:58 So, Sky for the listeners, what is your commercial real estate secret? OK, my commercial real estate secret. Be open to the opportunities, find your people, and just allow what's meant for you to come to you as well. Amen. I'm right there with you, Sky. For the listeners, where can they find you, Follow you? Have you sell their next hotel? OK, so I am on, I guess it's not Twitter anymore. It's X that is my CRE platform. It's at Sky Velez, under score CRE. The rest of my pages are more personal just because I'm still kind of trying to navigate how to combine like my life with commercial real estate.

19:52 I'm on Instagram, under score, Sky Velez, and my TikTok is sky dot BNB. It's more of like a travel. Kind of page, but that's where you can find me and take a look into my life. Amazing Sky, really excited to see you come into this business flourish and very excited to have you on the show. So thank you for being here today. Viva, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Yeah. And for everybody listening, we'll see you next week. That's a wrap for this week on commercial real estate secrets.

20:33 If you found value, do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review and share it with a fellow commercial real estate lover. For brokerage services or to connect, visit warehousehotline.com. I'm Aviva. We'll see you next week.