Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 151
The old adage that in real estate everything is “location, location, location” is
incomplete. Location is no doubt important, whether we speak about a primary
development such as BCMUD1, or an end of stream development such as a hotel in a
bustling area of town. But location alone does not ensure success and some
exceptionally good projects, like Aerofit Villa Maria, are successful even in non-prime
locations. Other factors such as adequate capitalization and credibility, the quality of the
business plan and the people in charge of executing it are of great importance as I have
shown above. But even their combined sum does not ensure success either.
The key factor is timing, and this is probably the hardest to control because it is too
dependent on macroeconomic factors. Although an entrepreneur can try to accelerate
or delay some decisions to fit the movements of the economy, the adjustments under
his or her control are on a vernier scale only, affecting just a small band of the timeline.
Ultimately it appears that the luck factor, more sophisticated scholars call it randomness
of nature, comes into play. Throughout my career I have been visited by very good luck
and by bad business luck. The one force that weaves through both situations is
optimism. So, I have learned to be an inveterate optimist and I pervade all my business
deals with an aura of cautious optimism. It is the fourth foundation pier of my recovery.
As I said on My Creed (Chapter 1), – “If in trying I fail, I ask for the chance to try again.”
I did. America gave me the chance.
Continuing to connect my experiences to the cloth of America, I must comment on
related lessons learned. One observation worthy of discussion at the public policy level
relates to development criteria adopted by some cities. In some cases, such as the City
of Austin and its peripheral suburbs, as the residents’ affluency increases, the initiatives
of the environmentalist community are adopted for application to new construction,
always making sure that those already there are exempted from these new obligations.
These initiatives translate into building ordinances usually derived from penumbral
interpretations of federal laws such as the endangered species act, the wetlands act,
the clean waters act and other similar outreaches of the Washington bureaucracy.
Specific instances that have escalated my construction costs from one project to the
next are in the realm of storm water filtering, tree replacement, buffer zone treatments,
disturbed land restoration and wild life reserves. The bottom line is that the income
necessary to qualify as a renter in a new apartment, which is not any different than one
two years older, is significantly higher. This higher income requirement automatically
disqualifies the poorer people from living in the community, thereby producing clearer
lines of socioeconomic segregation. The wealthier residents of the city still want the
benefit of cheaper labor, but are unwilling to let them live in their neighborhoods. Thus,
the poorer people must move further out to unregulated communities, with consequent
problems of transportation, education, medical care and other social services magnified
again.
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