Navigating economic uncertainty requires a bold investor’s eye for uncovering emerging opportunities before they hit the mainstream.

Bob Clippinger, president of Clippinger Investment Properties, joins the show to discuss Opportunity Zone investing in the California Bay Area, and why he thinks now may be a great time to invest in real estate.

Episode Highlights

• Modular student housing in Oakland, CA, and why Bob is bullish on the East Bay.
• Real estate sectors with tailwinds in 2024.
• Opportunities for real estate investment during periods of economic uncertainty, and parallels between now and previous periods of uncertainty.
• How to maximize returns by being a proactive investor, rather than a trend following investor.

Guest: Bob Clippinger, Clippinger Investment Company

• Bob Clippinger on LinkedIn
• Clippinger Investment Company

About The Opportunity Zones Podcast

Hosted by OpportunityDb founder Jimmy Atkinson, The Opportunity Zones Podcast features guest interviews from fund managers, advisors, policymakers, tax professionals, and other foremost experts in the Opportunity Zones industry.

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Show Transcript

Jimmy: Welcome to the “Opportunity Zones Podcast.” I’m Jimmy Atkinson. My guest today has spent four decades helping his clients build their wealth in investing in high-quality multifamily properties. Bob Clippinger joins us from my old hometown of Los Angeles, California. Bob, thanks for being here. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Bob: Thank you so much. I’m great. Thank you. How are you?

Jimmy: Absolutely fantastic, as always, and it’s because we’re talking Opportunity Zones. I love talking Opportunity Zones, so I’m always fantastic when I’m on the show here. Bob, let’s talk about you and your firm, to start us off. Some of my audience of Opportunity Zone investors and advisors may be familiar with your firm Clippinger Investment Properties, but for anyone who might be unfamiliar, can you briefly explain a bit about your background, what your firm does, and what makes your company unique?

Bob: Certainly. Thank you, again, for the invitation to the podcast. I appreciate this opportunity to get on here and talk a little bit. So, our company is Clippinger Investment Properties. We’ve been in business for about 35 years. I’ve been doing this formally for about 40 years. If you take in when I was 12 years old, painting apartments, you know, it’s 50, a little over 50 years. Our company, you know, is based here in Los Angeles. We’ve got offices throughout California, and have been doing real estate sponsored investments for 35, 40 years. A long track record, every asset class. We’ve been in mostly multifamily, but a lot of office and industrial, student housing, mixed-use, shopping centers, medical office, everything. We’re very hands-on, so we’re vertically integrated, which means that we manage everything from the curb to the gutter, to the financials, to the statements, to the economics and tax filings on our properties and everything else.

So, very involved with a lot of families we work with, for many, many years. We invest alongside of our partners. Very attuned to our partners’ needs, business plans. We sometimes kind of consider ourselves like the extended arm of a lot of our families. We kind of work with them, alongside them, tax planning, intergenerational wealth transfer, things of that nature. So, a keen eye, really, for opportunities. And so, we’re constantly looking for deals that we can work on, that we can add value to, that we think are gonna be strong economically. Obviously, the Opportunity Zone brings another element to that, which really adds to the viability of the investment. But, bottom line, we always look for economic strength, strong business plan, ability to add value, significantly, and a project that we can hold on to long-term. Even if the business plan is sometimes short-term, we like a long-term perspective, because we all know economic things can change, causing a change in the ability to buy and/or sell that particular project, so…

Jimmy: Absolutely. Well, I wanna talk with you about your macroeconomic viewpoint a little bit later in the episode today. You also mentioned you’ve been involved in a variety of asset classes over your 35 to 40-year history of putting together real estate deals. Wanna touch on that as well, but first, let’s get to the heart of the matter here, which is Opportunity Zones, since this is the “Opportunity Zones Podcast.” You’ve been working in real estate for four decades, but you’re just now gearing up to do your very first ever Opportunity Zone deal, and I’m curious what led you to Opportunity Zones, and what’s your overall Opportunity Zone investment philosophy?

Bob: Thanks for asking. You know, I think the overall philosophy about getting into them is because we basically have found a deal that came to us, that was a very, very economically feasible deal. Basically, the outcome of interest rates doubling, and a developer having a need to kind of sell the project before he got to the end of it. The bank come to us and say, hey, we know you do these kinds of projects. We’ve got an ability to cut you a deal on this project. We think we’re buying it below market, and we’ll be able to add value by finishing the project and then leasing up the project, adding a layer of what we do in student housing and in our boutique properties, of really dialing in and meeting the need of a specific niche in student housing. Where we’re not part of the university-owned housing, we can do things a little bit faster, a little more nimbly than other people can. So, this opportunity, I think, is really strong, and the economics are great. Obviously, the tax benefits add on top of that, kind of the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Jimmy: Very good. Well, let’s talk more about that project that came to you, that Opportunity Zone deal. It’s a modular student housing in Oakland, California, set up primarily for UC Berkeley students, if I understand correctly.

Bob: Right.

Jimmy: Tell me more about it, and tell me more about what you mean when you say modular, and why you like the modular component of it.

Bob: Well, thanks. So, the project is just in Oakland, outside of, just outside of Berkeley, which I think is gonna be a really great location for us. I think that we… The project has a plenty of upside. The modular part of it, I think, I’m super excited about. I’ve been kind of following modular housing for a while. I think it’s just really a great way to build. So, economically feasible. You don’t have, in California, the worker’s comp issues if things are being built someplace else and shipped in. It’s simple, it’s clean. The quality is controlled. The modular parts, there’s earthquake benefits to it. There is benefits from just efficiency. There’s benefits just from the electronics and the parts that can go into the building, that are very consistent, and not requiring a lot of specialized trades on the ground, at the property. Everything is done in the factory, shipped to the property, and assembled on-site. The simplicity and the cleanliness and the ability to put something together quickly but efficiently is beautiful. Also, too, you know, modular housing is, like, you can take one unit, that is the, you know, entry kitchen, dining, living area. But in a studio, that same unit becomes entry, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom. You add on to the side of it a module that might be a bedroom and bathroom, bedroom, bathroom. You’ve got two-bedroom, two-bath. On the other side of it, for student housing, in this particular situation, either side of it, another bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, bathroom. You got four bedrooms, four bathrooms, around a central eating and living room area. It’s perfect for student housing. It’s what we need.

I think that the proximity to the college is perfect. We’re right on the major thoroughfare to get people to college. There’s buses. There’s all kinds of access. You know, we can talk about the Oakland issue if you want to do that now, or we can talk about that in a few minutes, but…

Jimmy: Yeah, I’ll talk about that in a few minutes, I think. Yeah, student housing is great for Opportunity Zones. A lot of college campuses and the surrounding areas are deemed low-income, and there’s student housing projects all over the country. I know of some in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois that were successful early on, for University of Illinois students. I know of a project in South Bend, Indiana, for Notre Dame students, and now this one here for UC Berkeley students, just to name a few. It seems to be a very popular asset class. A lot more students going to college, and always a crunch in terms of amount of available housing available for students. So, great asset class, if you ask me. What about…I wanna talk more about modular, and just help me understand, like, what is getting delivered to the site, essentially? How is it different from a more typical ground-up construction build? Are you getting prefabricated walls, or…? I know these aren’t shipping containers. There’s other types of module units that arrive as basically shipping containers, or something to that effect, but what is it exactly that’s getting delivered to your site here in Oakland?

Bob: Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I think, it’s so funny because we think about the modular, and we think about these shipping containers, and building a cabin with water rushing underneath the container. It looks, I mean, which I think is absolutely fabulous. This is akin to that, except that, I mean, what gets delivered is really kind of like a big, long, almost like a semi trailer. You’re gonna look like the box kind of thing that we were just talking about. But what’s inside, it’s wrapped in Tyvek, you know, see that kind of thing that goes around the outside of every building, kind of, that, the paper that goes outside. And what is inside of there is gonna be, like I said, it’s gonna be this door opening. And you walk in, it’s wood floor. The whole thing is there. You basically just bolt them together, and then connect the plumbing, and connect the electronics, and put a sheathing on the outside of it. The beautiful thing about this is that you can be building this project in California, right, and it looks like one thing, and you put a little different sheeting on the outside, and you call it “Coastal Winds,” right?

Then you take the same exact unit, put it in Topeka, Kansas, call it “Prairie Winds.” It’s the same thing. You just put a different cladding on the outside of it, but what gets delivered is really, like, maybe 30 feet wide, 20 feet, probably 18 to 20 feet wide, actually, and 30 to 40 feet long. And it’s either gonna be the same size. It’s gonna be either the entry, with the kitchen, dining, living at the area with the window, or else it’s gonna be, have two doors on the side, and it’s that, which go into the other module, right? And then that has a bedroom and a bathroom, another bedroom and bathroom. So, what gets delivered is all finished. It’s all done. They set it down, you open the door, and there’s a full bathroom, cabinets. Everything’s there. Fixtures, doorknobs, everything is there. A knob on the wall that attaches to the electronics for the air conditioning and heating system. You have all those kinds of electronics that are already assembled. It comes with the kitchen area. The kitchen’s in there. All the appliances are there. The floor is in. It’s covered with cardboard, to make sure you avoid doing any damage to it, but it’s basically ready to go. And then you just kind of tie it all together, you put a cladding on the outside of it, which might be stucco, it could be metal, it could be any kind of standard cladding. And you stack them up. This particular case, we’re six stories tall. You add decks off to the side of it. You know, take a unit, and above that, you don’t put another unit. You just put a deck, and, with a nice balcony. And we’ve got views to San Francisco. We’ve got views out to Oakland Hills, in Berkeley.

So, the modular thing is really quite fascinating. The insurance is not more. It’s actually a little bit less. The timing to get it done is much faster, because everything is basically ordered at the factory, shipped to the site, crane-assembled, done. Then you spend a couple of months tying it all together and making sure everything works right. You know, in stick construction, you’ve got weather issues. You know, if it starts to rain, then you’ve gotta cover it up, and you got your wood damage, and you gotta let it dry out. We don’t have any of that here. You just bring it all on site, assemble it on site, bolt it together, more or less, connect the pieces, and you’re off to the races.

Jimmy: That makes a lot of sense. I’d imagine that there’s a lot more certainty with regards to construction budget, construction timeframe. You don’t have to wait on different subcontractors to come in and come out quite as much as you might on a regular, more traditional stick build. Well, that’s great. So, I think I understand what’s going on with modular now, and what’s happening at your site. Let’s talk about Oakland now, though, because I think a lot of people hear Oakland, California, and I don’t know if…it kind of has some negative connotation to it. It’s not the greatest place. It almost reminds me of Detroit, where Detroit’s like, “Boy, I don’t know. Do I wanna invest in Detroit?” Do I want to invest in Oakland? There’s a lot of negative sentiment around those types of cities. But why are you bullish on Oakland? Maybe you’re bullish on Oakland particularly because of that sentiment, gives you some value there. But tell me why you like Oakland.

Bob: Thank you. Well, we’ve kind of always invested in the areas, it seems, that, where there is an economic disparity or a need, right, where you see an opportunity. If you’re being best-of-class operations, best-of-class real estate, best-of-class opportunities for people to attend or live in or be a part of that, it raises the bar. It really, really does. And I believe that that’s the case in Oakland as well. I think, you know, we’ve got BART, that runs, like, right behind our building, and runs you to downtown. You can get on the BART and you can be at downtown San Francisco in the financial district, 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes. That’s pretty cool, right? And so, you know, there’s, Oakland’s a big city. You know, it’s very spread-out. We’re the northern end of it, close to Berkeley. We’re in, there’s a lot of new buildings in our area. There’s a lot of new restaurants. We’ve got the Whole Foods around the corner. There’s a, the UCSF Children’s Hospital, a half-block away. We’re gonna have nurses staying with us as well, while they’re training.

I think there’s a lot of economic intensity in Oakland. I think that there is economic diversity. There is a lot of program, there’s a lot of money being put into getting things kind of straightened up. You know, a little bit of bad news gets broadcast, and it doesn’t do justice to all the things that are actually happening really well in that city. You can walk around and drive around that city, and you see a lot of things happening that are really positive. You know, is there a struggle to get there? Sure, actually. Yes, absolutely. I think you have to acknowledge that. But you also have to acknowledge being part of the solution, and what you’re gonna do to become part of that solution. Again, the proximity to San Francisco, the infrastructure that is there. We have BART, and, you know, Bay Area Rapid Transit’s been there for almost 40 years, right? A little over 40 years, I think, actually. And so, the, you know, the ability, in that infrastructure, to get you places around town is really important. I mean, there is a building on the other side of the BART from us. I wanna say it’s a couple hundred units, maybe 400 units, and built around the fact that it’s economic Opportunity Zone as well. But, those people can get to downtown. You know, they can get anywhere around the Bay Area in 30 minutes, easily. You can get into downtown, and back up to the northern part of the Bay Area, in a half-hour.

So, I think that’s important to note. And I think that more and more people are gonna be investing like we’re doing here. We’re actually looking at a second building, about four blocks away. So, I think it’s a really good time to buy. Again, when things are somewhat uncertain, but you’ve got people concerned, and invested in making things better, that’s a time to invest. After it’s already all over, and the story’s been written, it’s too late at that point. People like me are gonna be, like, cashing in, or, you know, realizing the gain that we’ve made by venturing into an area where there’s some kind of opportunity and/or disparity and/or not assurance of the bedrock of solidity. Great. That’s fine. Give it to us. We’ll work on it. We’ll take that. We can raise the bar. We can put in a program at that location that’s gonna be phenomenal. We have staffing that’s experienced. We have opportunity. We have the ability to really create an environment there that’s gonna be super welcoming to people, and very opportunistic, and a little bit different. And people are gonna be boasting about living in this location, soon.

Jimmy: No, that’s great. I think, you know, getting there before the community fully transforms, and then everybody likes investing there, you’re getting those early adopter returns. You’re being rewarded for that. And I think the proximity of this particular project to UC Berkeley can only help strengthen that deal. I wanted to shift gears a little bit, Bob, and talk to you about, you know, one thing that makes your firm a little bit different is that you guys are fully vertically integrated, all of your operations from A to Z. How does that give you a leg up, and can you go into detail about what that means exactly?

Bob: Well, thanks. I love this part of our business, because I think that we have such a leg up on anybody else who might be saying, “Hey, I’ve got a business plan, I’ve got a budget, but I’m gonna hand it off to somebody else to execute.” You know, there’s no one more passionate about how you operate your building than you, right? So, when I see, when we see at our building, like, we walk in the front door and we started a building inspection, right, and we see some problem, that gets adjusted right then and there, right? We don’t have to write a letter to the property management company two days later, when we get back to our office, who then takes a weekend, thinks about it, sends a letter to their property supervisor, who then works on that throughout the week, gets a letter to the property manager, and three weeks later, somebody’s picking up that issue or fixing that issue. We don’t have that. We try to get the best people working for us. We think we have a really good team. We are very hands-on. Everybody in our organization picks up trash. You know, one of the first things we do when we’re walking with a manager to interview them is, they walk past a piece of trash, we stop the interview, and we’re like, “Hey, if you’re not willing to pick up trash, and you don’t see that as an issue, then you shouldn’t be working here.”

So, hands-on, to us, also means that we can make quick adjustments. If we don’t see a unit leasing at a certain rate, and we’re thinking, “Hmm, that’s why. Why is that sitting there for a while?” we can make adjustments. We can do, try something for a day or two, and then try something else. We give our managers the ability to think on their feet and make changes, and react and make deals as they need to to get our building filled up. You know, we have to have full buildings. One of the things about student housing that I really love is the fact that, you know, we really don’t have to work within these confines of rent controls as much, because we have our building vacating every year. Again, our building vacates every year, probably 80% of it. So we’re always renewing our rates. We’re always updating our rates.

Now, that goes both ways, but usually, over a period of time, it benefits us to, you know, be able to change our rates on an annual basis, and have them updated. But by being hands-on, I think we also get the chance to work proactively with short-term measures that we think might be effective. And if it doesn’t become effective, then we can immediately change, and shift gears to something else, right? And we can tell our guys, “Hey, try this, that. Try staying open an extra hour. Try staying open on Saturday once a month until 8:00,” or something. You know? Especially in student housing, because in student housing, you’re really leasing to the parents. The kids, for the most part, probably are moving out of a room that they shared with their 14-year-old brother and their, or sister, and they’re just happy to get out, right?

So, the parents showing up, and flying in, and looking at the school, and saying, “Hey, I was looking at some student housing, but everything’s only open from 10:00 to 2:00,” that doesn’t work. That doesn’t work at all. So, we’re happy to stay open during leasing time till 10:00 at night. Are you kidding me? Our managers get paid, obviously, wages, but they also get paid on performance. Has our building filled up? You know, what’s going on? Hey, do pizza late at night, and have people come by for tours. What does it take for you, Mr. Manager, to think you can fill up your building? And I’ll give you the levity to get that done, as long as it were within reason, you know. Bungee jumping off the roof is not allowed. But, you know, I think that that gives us a leg up on being able to really, really dial in our operations, and listen to our tenants, very carefully, and then do what they need, that they think is gonna benefit, and what’s gonna benefit them as a tenant, what’s gonna make them wanna stay longer? What’s gonna make them give us a referral, and really listen to them and what they’re telling us, and getting feedback, and then immediately changing our operation, not filtering it through five different people to finally get to me, and then we make a decision and it gets implemented a month later. I don’t have that kind of patience, you know. Because, again, our money is invested along with our investors’ money. And that’s important, near and dear to all of us.

Jimmy: So, it’s better if you could just be directly hands-on. I would imagine student housing in particular, you probably have, it’s very seasonal, you’re probably very busy at the end of summer, the start of each semester, where you’re re-leasing or new leasing to new residents. So, that’s student housing. And that’s your current OZ deal, in Berkeley, or in Oakland, just adjacent to UC Berkeley’s campus. What…you mentioned at the beginning that you have experience across a wide variety of different property types, different real estate sectors. Can you go over some of those other sectors that you have experienced building in, and which ones do you like the most these days, at this moment in time?

Bob: You know, we have done anything from ground-up industrial parks, in Orange County, to ground-up office industrial parks, to mixed-use buildings. We’ve done some in Sacramento. We’ve done some mixed-use buildings in areas that were in economic decline. We bought an old Sears building that, really, a block from the capital, and transformed into a mixed-use building, won some awards for that. That’s adaptive reuse projects. We have medical office, and office retail centers, shopping centers. We have our another retail center we’re firmly raising money for, not Opportunity Zone, in Virginia. But I like shopping centers still, because if you get the right mix, there’s certain places where you just need to go to the store to get things done, right? And so, if you get the right mix, and they all complement each other, and you give somebody a reason to go there, and to do the different things, a gym, with a dry cleaners, and a coffee place, and a childcare, and something else that’s, you know, fit, active lifestyle stuff that they can get to, we wanna go to those places. They’re nice experiences.

We do have a lot of multifamily value-add, where we’ve bought projects that we’ve, sometimes we’ve held some for as long as 30, 35 years, and we’re on the third renovation of those projects. I’m always saying, “Well, I think it looks great,” and someone says, “Well, we did that renovation about nine years ago.” I’m like, “Well, geez, I guess we better go change the color scheme, and add some new landscaping, or do something to freshen the building up.” I like, you know, I really do like mixed-use a lot, because I think there’s an opportunity there to build a little mini-environment. And once you get a really great tenant on the first floor, you know, then it kind of drives your rents upstairs. If you get a really high-end restaurant, that’s cooking with truffle oils and things like that, you know, like, I wanna live upstairs from that. I wanna smell that. That feels great. Living above some other kind of small, you know, sandwich shop isn’t quite the environment that I’m craving. It could be for some people, but it could be that we can create a lot of value in the building by attracting a really great retail tenant on the first floor.

So, that’s kind of fun to build that whole environment, and make that whole thing work, because you’ve got, you know, office sometimes, retail, and residential tenants, all in the same building, and the ability to kind of get them all to work together, and kind of work simultaneously, and benefit from each other is really kind of fun. We’re doing that a little bit in this project, because we have, like, a coffee shop on the ground floor. And we’re not quite sure yet if that’s gonna be student-run, or if we’re gonna bring an outside retailer in to do it, how we’re gonna handle that. But we’re working with, kind of, some local people to kind of help us generate some ideas about what works best, and what would be most efficient in that location.

So, yeah. All different types are fun, because you’re always doing three different jobs, you know. Like, sometimes you’re property manager, sometimes you’re design person, sometimes you’re doing the economics. And so, for me, my job is kick. I have more energy when I leave than when I come in the day, because I get to touch all those different parts, and figure it out, and then work with people who are super-talented in their area of expertise. I’m not. I can’t be, I can’t know how to do all that stuff, but I get to work with them, and help them, and encourage them and learn from them at the same vein. You know, I think part of the beauty of this business is always being a little bit curious, which creates sometimes some frustrations, but… And I think the ability, again, just to handle all those aspects, and make sure they get handled as well as possible, really increase our tenants’ experience, and better their experience, is really fun, so…

Jimmy: Excellent. Well, I would love to live above a coffee shop, with that aroma of fresh brewed coffee coming up to my apartment every morning, or a bakery would be great too. Fresh baked bread, fresh baked cookies. I wouldn’t mind doing that.

Bob: Especially if you can get them, as the property manager, to say, “Hey, the guy on 4B really wants, he’s smelling that coffee, and I think can you just run it upstairs, without having to call Grubhub or whatever?

Jimmy: Yeah, I like that.

Bob: Nothing against them, but, you know, you can just get the guy in the back, “Oh, yeah. I know him. I’ll bring his upstairs for him. I know what he wants. Okay, great.” And he’s got your credit card. Like, we do that. We have some valet services in our building, where you call us ahead of time. We have a lot of lobbyists that live in our buildings in Sacramento, and they’ll call ahead of time, saying, “Hey, I’m gonna be there tomorrow for four days.” We’ll go touch the air conditioner, make sure everything’s okay, make sure everything looks all right, and let them know that parking space is, you know, available for them, the air conditioner’s been set. By the way, the dry cleaning they dropped off has been hung up in the closet. We love that stuff. It’s easy to do, and the more that you do that, and you attune and you cater to your tenants, the less turnover you’re gonna have. So, that time spent catering to your tenants is not now spent hunting for that next tenant for your building, and trying to find what’s going on, and that turnover cost as well. Turnover cost, and especially in student housing, is fun. Because we do the turnover every year, and there’s always a certain amount of furniture that’s kind of broken mysteriously, something’s going on, but it’s kind of a chance to readdress things that we think we need to change interior-wise, and things that didn’t work quite right, that we can now fix, so…

Jimmy: Yeah, I think it’s a great strategy. It’s always better, more cost effective, and easier to re-up or re-engage an existing customer than to go out and find a new tenant, for sure. Bob, this has been great. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you today about your real estate strategy, your Opportunity Zone insights. I wanted to just spend the next couple minutes just zooming out now. I’d like to get your viewpoint on the broader real estate market. What do you think are the biggest trends in the broader economy, and in particular, that impact on the real estate market, that you think investors should be aware of, and keep an eye out on over the coming couple of years here?

Bob: Well, gosh, you know, this is a question I get asked a lot, and I think that, you know, from my experience, right, having been involved in this business for, you know, 40 years, in a hands-on basis, some of the best, this is one of the best times to invest. When these times of uncertainty have happened in the past, we’ve made some significant investments. You know, people, we were buying apartments in Orange County, California in early ’90s, first couple of years of the ’90s, and people were like, “Are you insane? California’s done. You know, this economic environment is uncertain to… Why are you investing money now? Are you crazy?” And we were getting good yields at the time, kind of the same feeling that I get right now. In times of uncertainty, that’s a time to invest, right? Like, you know, it’s an example of, for example, like, you know, when the job is already finished, and people have already succeeded, going back and trying to replicate what they did, when that was done six months earlier or two years earlier, is not the way to do it. It’s like going to a marathon runner and watching them, how fast they ran the marathon, and seeing them win, and saying, “Okay, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna run eight-minute miles,” or five-minute miles, or whatever it is, and you start.

Well, by the time you start, watching what succeeded for them, they’re already at the clubhouse. They’re done. They’re getting the rewards of their labor. You’re gonna show up and be like, “I finished,” and everyone’s gonna go, “Yeah, well, you jumped in way too late.” So your results are not gonna be the same results they got. So, again, your results are not gonna be the same results they got. They’re gonna be diminished somewhat. Now, if you’re okay with that, you’re okay with that. But we’re not okay with that. We wanna get, we wanna be best-in-class. We wanna be getting the best yields, we wanna be a little experimental. We wanna be ahead of the curve. So, that’s why, A, investing in Opportunity Zones, economically, 10 out of 10, right? A project where there’s value-add, where there’s some issues that have caused some unsettlement in the business plan of the previous owner, that you can jump in and help fix and get going and work on, that’s beneficial, right? We’re already getting appraised value here, and we’re buying it here. That works. But also, being ahead of the curve. Like, you know, when things are uncertain, that’s when there is opportunity, and that’s when you hear, start hearing of deals, not only on the market, but off the market that come to you. Jimmy, you know, like, that’s some of the things that I get to hear because I’ve been in the business a long time. Like, “Hey, I’ve got a deal over here that’s gonna work out really well.” I see tons of opportunity right now. We can’t take all the opportunity that we see, but we’re gonna take the ones that we know that are meant for us, right. And so, again, uncertainty breeds opportunity.

Jimmy: In times of uncertainty, that’s the best time to invest, I believe is what you just said. I think that’s very wise. Bob Clippinger, really appreciate your time today, and joining us. Thanks so much for sharing your insights. Before we go, where can my audience go to learn more about you and Clippinger Investment Properties if we have any Opportunity Zone investors or advisors or families who are watching or listening, and wanna learn more, what’s the best place for them to go to find out more about you?

Bob: Well, you can get the information on our website. It’s www. C-I-P hyphen I-N-C .com. But you can also just message us directly from that. You can send me an email, [email protected]. We don’t put a lot of that information on our website. We like to talk with people about it first, and then give the information to them directly. But, yeah. That’s probably the best spot and place to learn. You can call us as you like. Our number is 949-363-7676, but always available to talk to anybody that wants to chat about Opportunity Zones, deals in general, opportunities in the market, and the market in general.

Jimmy: Terrific. And for my audience, I will of course, as always, have show notes available for today’s episode on our website, at opportunitydb.com/podcast. And there, I’ll have links to all of the resources that Bob and I discussed on today’s episode. And please be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube, or your favorite podcast listening platform, to always get the latest episodes. Bob, thanks again for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Bob: Jimmy, thank you very much for the opportunity to chat with you. You’ve been always great, and appreciate your time.

Jimmy: Thank you.