Ziel Feldman - HFZ Capital Group Part 2
EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee interviews HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman about forging a path from law to real estate development in Part 2 of this series.
Lisa Knee: Was there a pivotal moment when you were practicing law and you decided to stop practicing law and although every day being a developer you're still doing some practice of law, it comes into every single day. But was there a pivotal moment there when you said I wanted to get out of law and now start building something for myself?
Ziel Feldman: Kids come to be mentored all the time and they say I want to go to law school but end up wanting to be in real estate. Should I first practice law after I come out of law school or should I go into real estate? My own personal experience was learning a lot, 1984 again until 1989 was a crazy time in real estate. We were very active doing transactional work for clients and for me practicing about six years, it was like three years too long. Like many lawyers, you think you're smarter than your clients and through 1988, the market was on a huge upswing and a lot of wealth was created. You know, these white halls and the paradiums of the World War started there, Goldman Sachs white hall, did a lot of their purchasing of mortgages and foreclosures coming out of that crisis. So for me I learned a lot practicing transactional work, but because we thought were always smarter we started buying real estate and put together a few deals as lawyers which we closed in 1987 and was a great idea.
LK: Right timing.
ZF: I spent the next three years working out those deals that we thought we was so smart about and I made a decision in 1990 that I could have become either bankruptcy lawyer because all my clients were bankrupt. Instead we decided to form a company called Property Markets Group because of a guy named Kevin Bologna, who is also an active developer today.
LK: It may be somebody else in there as well.
ZF: Well, Gary Barnett joined. He was in the diamond business in Belgium and was making his first look for a way into New York and we partnered up sometime in the early 90s. So all the stuff, we did together in New York for period of time.
It takes a lot of drive and determination to be a real estate developer. EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee asks HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman about what drives him in Part 7 of this series.
HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman shares his secret to maintaining a healthy work/life balance in part 6 of his interview with Lisa Knee who is a partner in EisnerAmper's Real Estate Services Group.
EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee interviews HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman, who looks back on his first property, in Part 5 of this series.
EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee discusses the recent trend of the developer-turned-lender with HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman in Part 4 of this series.
HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman discusses his current projects in Detroit with EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee in Part 3 of this series.
HFZ Capital Group Chairman and Founder Ziel Feldman sat down with EisnerAmper Real Estate Services Group Partner Lisa Knee to discuss the origins of HFZ, one of the most prolific condominium developers in New York City.
