Planning for Real Estate Families

Lisë Stewart: Hello, and welcome to the EisnerAmper podcast series. I'm Lisë Stewart, and I run our Center for Family Business Excellence, and we provide a wide array of services for family owned and closely held organizations. Today, I'm with Lisa Knee, and we're discussing the very important topic of planning. Hello, Lisa. I am so pleased that we could take some time to chat today about one of my favorite subjects, and that's planning. I'm particularly pleased that you are my podcast partner today, because I know that we share a lot of the same ideas about the importance of planning, but first, tell our audience a bit about you and about what you do.
Lisa Knee: Thanks, Lisë. It's great to be part of this session. I'm Lisa Knee, Co-Leader of EisnerAmper's Real Estate Services Group and National Leader of the firm's Real Estate Private Equity Practice. I work as part of a large national team providing advisory service to a wide array of real estate clients, including legacy real estate families, owners, operators, developers, funds, and investors. We've learned that collaboration is critical in advising all of our real estate clients.

LS: Lisa, we're planning a whole series of podcasts, webinars, and articles around the different types of planning that we believe are vital to the success of our real estate clients. I'm curious, what you see are the key differences between those clients who have undertaken some future planning, and those who have not done any planning?
LK: Yeah, great question. Planning certainly makes you more prepared for whatever the future has in store. We certainly know that it's been a little bit difficult these past few months, the demonstration of how rapidly the market has been changing, and how personal goals and family goals can shift. We've seen in practice how those businesses with plans can be nimble and adapt rapidly to change, whether disaster or an opportunity. Those without a plan for the future or set procedures for addressing risk factors are struggling in both of those scenarios. Decision-making, rallying teams, and convening resources in a time of change without a plan is proving to be difficult, to say the very, very least. When you prepare a plan that gives your organization some structure to address personnel changes, adapting to market conditions, and pivot direction in the face of a major event, you're certainly better able to adjust quickly and make better decisions for a new future.
LS: I absolutely agree. You know, we see many of the same sorts of things. In fact, we're really trying to make sure that our business owners don't just carry around those plans in their heads, because then when something really does happen, nobody else on their team, nobody else sometimes in their family or on their board, or whatever it might be, they don't really know what to do. It's as if the one person carrying all the information really has all the power and control. That may be okay for a little while, but when things go south, other people really need to know what to do.
LK:Absolutely. Communication with that information is absolutely vital. From a financial perspective, being unprepared can be a nightmare when these things suddenly change.
LS: Exactly. In fact, if there's one thing that COVID has brought home to all of us is that the world can change so quickly, and we need to know how to pivot quickly, too. We've got to be able to think strategically, and we have to be able to execute thoroughly. The more effective we are when we're communicating our ideas and testing our assumptions and making plans for a whole range of contingencies, then the more likely we are to survive, and we really hope, thrive through these sorts of circumstances.
LK:Which is exactly why we are so excited to be offering this multi-disciplined approach to planning. Our combined team is able to help our clients, prospects, investors be prepared for the future, no matter what the circumstances become. Most of our discussions with clients have been making sure their governance, operations, processes and procedures are resilient enough to withstand a disaster. Planning is crucial and critical in today's environment.
LS: Yes, absolutely. We really think that this series that we prepared is going to be helpful. For all of you listening out there, thank you so much for joining us, and if you'd like some more information, you can learn more at eisneramper.com/REFamilies. Thank you.