Ep48 Pioneering Zero Carbon Development in Des Moines with Cutler Development
The Investing in Iowa ShowNovember 14, 202427:36

Ep48 Pioneering Zero Carbon Development in Des Moines with Cutler Development

How do you combine sustainability, affordability, and urban infill into a thriving business? Scott and Molly Cutler reveal the secrets behind Cutler Development’s community-focused real estate projects in Des Moines. Listen in as they discuss transforming underused spaces, tackling mixed-income housing, and pushing the boundaries of green building with passion and purpose.

 

 

What you’ll learn from this episode

  • The value of complementary partnerships when investing 

  • Why integrating affordability vital in housing development projects 

  • Sustainable construction techniques to reduce environmental impact.

  • How leveraging tax incentives and opportunity zones benefits your projects

  • Upcoming projects and the exciting transformation of Des Moines’ key neighborhoods

 

 

Resources mentioned in this episode 

 

 

About Scott and Molly Cutler

Scott has over 15 years of industry experience with commercial development, including specific experience with historic renovation, affordable housing, and environmental design. He is a native of West Des Moines and lives in the area with his wife, Molly.

Molly joined Cutler Development after almost a decade as a chemical engineer in the petrochemical industry. She and Scott enjoy working together on projects and continue to push the boundaries of environmental design on both new construction and renovation projects.

Scott and Molly live in the Greater Des Moines area and enjoy biking, volunteering, and traveling in their free time.

 

Connect with Scott and Molly

 

Connect with us

For more insights and updates, follow us on social media and visit our website: https://theinvestinginiowashow.com/.

[00:00:00] Anyone that you talk with who started a business and a business in development can tell you stories about their first deal and how it's not always a straight line and our stories would be no different.

[00:00:12] From cornfields to high-rises, office to industrial, houses to hotels, and every other asset class in real estate, we cover the people, the projects, and the profit.

[00:00:22] Welcome to the Investing in Iowa Show.

[00:00:25] This show is for go-doers, action-takers, and business owners.

[00:00:29] It's for people like you who are sick of Uncle Sam taking a huge bite of your apple.

[00:00:34] If you're looking to get ahead of what's taking place in Iowa, learn who is doing what and how you can get in on the action.

[00:00:41] You're in the right place.

[00:00:43] Hosted by Neil Timmins, an Iowa native who has been involved in over $300 million in real estate right here in Iowa.

[00:00:51] Recording in studio from West Des Moines.

[00:00:54] Here's your host, Neil Timmins.

[00:00:57] I've got Scott and Molly Cutler here on the show.

[00:00:59] Guys, welcome to the show.

[00:01:01] Thanks for having us.

[00:01:02] Yeah, we're excited to be here.

[00:01:03] I'm excited to have you here.

[00:01:04] Say, for the audience's sake, who are you?

[00:01:06] Where are you from?

[00:01:06] What do you do?

[00:01:07] Yes, we're Scott and Molly Cutler.

[00:01:10] We live in the Des Moines area.

[00:01:12] We're with Cutler Development.

[00:01:14] The business is just the two of us.

[00:01:16] We work out of our house.

[00:01:26] We work out of our house.

[00:01:26] We work out of our house.

[00:01:27] We work out of our house.

[00:01:27] My background primarily is in construction and then development.

[00:01:32] Work in construction, actually laboring a little bit through college and a little bit after.

[00:01:38] And then I have degrees in engineering and finance.

[00:01:42] And then worked for two developers.

[00:01:45] And it's been eight years ago now.

[00:01:47] Started Cutler Development.

[00:01:49] Molly has a background in engineering.

[00:01:52] So Scott was about five years into the business, I think it was.

[00:01:56] And that's when I joined on full-time.

[00:01:58] We'd been dating for a little while.

[00:02:00] And I was working full-time down in Houston.

[00:02:04] As Scott mentioned, I have an engineering background as well.

[00:02:06] I spent about a decade down there in chemical engineering, working for ExxonMobil.

[00:02:10] We connected and our conversations at the dinner table went from,

[00:02:15] what are you up to today?

[00:02:16] Or what did you do today?

[00:02:17] That sounds interesting to, wow, that sounds really interesting.

[00:02:20] Would it be fun to work together?

[00:02:22] And so over the time of dating, progressed into that.

[00:02:25] And in 2021, joined Scott at Cutler Development.

[00:02:28] And it's been a blast.

[00:02:29] We each say it's the best part of working together.

[00:02:32] And they're working at the businesses working together.

[00:02:34] That's incredible because not everybody can say that.

[00:02:36] What's unique about your relationship that makes that work?

[00:02:39] Good question.

[00:02:40] We have, we're different in ways, but in ways that complement each other.

[00:02:45] God is much more, how would you answer that?

[00:02:47] No, it's all right.

[00:02:50] You may not be working together by the time I get done asking questions.

[00:02:53] Yeah, we're going to.

[00:02:55] No, I'm just kidding.

[00:02:57] No, we just, we have a lot of fun together.

[00:02:59] We find joy in the projects and working in our neighborhoods in which we live and frequent

[00:03:06] for work and play.

[00:03:09] It's been great getting to know all of the kind of development ecosystem that's here

[00:03:14] in the greater Des Moines metro and established relationships with all the folks that we work

[00:03:19] with on kind of a day in, day out, project to project basis.

[00:03:22] Molly, what I hear you saying is you're ying and yang.

[00:03:24] Where one has strengths, the others has weaknesses.

[00:03:26] You balance each other out.

[00:03:28] Perfect.

[00:03:29] Yeah, that's it.

[00:03:31] Okay.

[00:03:32] That's fair.

[00:03:33] Scott, what were your takeaway?

[00:03:34] You worked for two different developers.

[00:03:37] What were the big pieces that you took away that instilled the confidence in yourself to

[00:03:42] go off and execute on your own?

[00:03:43] You're nice to ask the question.

[00:03:45] I learned a lot from those two jobs and also saw how volatile real estate and real estate

[00:03:51] development can be.

[00:03:52] I started working for the Opus Group in 2012.

[00:03:55] Well, they're a nationwide developer.

[00:03:58] I was living in Denver at the time, right after the market was starting to come back

[00:04:03] after the mortgage crisis.

[00:04:05] And yeah, it was a challenging market back then.

[00:04:08] And I would say that I learned more really from, I worked for a couple of years guiding outdoor

[00:04:13] trips and traveling a lot.

[00:04:16] And I would say some of those experiences maybe gave me some of the soft skills that I'd say

[00:04:21] maybe I'd credit more than the hard skills I learned working for other developers.

[00:04:25] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:04:27] Expand upon it a little.

[00:04:28] The soft skills being your ability to interact with a variety of people from multitude of

[00:04:32] backgrounds.

[00:04:33] The parallel then the implementation on the development side is you got city council,

[00:04:37] you're a wrangler of cats, right?

[00:04:39] You got so many people involved in a development process from soup to nuts to get something

[00:04:44] over the finish line.

[00:04:45] That's what I hear you saying.

[00:04:46] Is that fair?

[00:04:47] I'd say having a background in engineering and a background in finance, it certainly helped

[00:04:53] provide the technical skillset to develop projects.

[00:04:57] Working for the developers, I learned a lot about how buildings are built, what the processes

[00:05:03] laid, all the whole spectrum of start to finish, city council processes, financing, all those

[00:05:11] things.

[00:05:11] Brandon, your original question was, what gave you the confidence to start a business?

[00:05:15] To me, it worked really fun, challenging sometimes, but exciting jobs after college in my early

[00:05:23] twenties, where it gave me the confidence to know I could go off my own and do something

[00:05:27] a little bit different.

[00:05:28] And I couldn't support myself without like a W-2 income for a couple of years because

[00:05:34] I'd done it before.

[00:05:35] And when we first started the business, we were living in some of the buildings before we

[00:05:40] developed them.

[00:05:41] It was tight, right?

[00:05:42] The first house that I lived in was a flip and I flipped it while I lived in it.

[00:05:46] And that was what we were doing back then.

[00:05:49] But some of my experiences working as an outdoor guide helped me feel more comfortable in that

[00:05:55] kind of entrepreneurial upstart, thinking outside the box role.

[00:06:00] Yeah.

[00:06:00] No, that makes sense.

[00:06:01] Talking a little about Valley Junction, you've completely changed the landscape of Valley

[00:06:06] Junction.

[00:06:06] I have been involved in a multitude of projects.

[00:06:08] Tell me about the very first one.

[00:06:10] Yeah.

[00:06:10] And actually, your brother was the agent that sold us in that building.

[00:06:15] Is that right?

[00:06:16] I didn't know that until right now.

[00:06:17] Okay.

[00:06:18] And they've been fantastic to work with.

[00:06:20] I think we've worked with them far more than any other agent.

[00:06:23] I think we've done six deals with those guys.

[00:06:26] And that was the first deal that the business that I ever did on my own after starting Cutler

[00:06:33] Development.

[00:06:34] And it's a great historic two-story building in Valley Junction.

[00:06:39] I grew up close to Valley Junction and have always loved that location.

[00:06:44] And really, our work in Valley Junction has provided foundation for the work we continue to do and

[00:06:52] seeing the value of mixed-use, dense, urban, walkable neighborhoods.

[00:06:59] And I think that was our draw to Valley Junction to begin with.

[00:07:03] And it's something we still seek out, whether we're in Valley Junction or not.

[00:07:07] That first deal, anyone that you talked with who started in business and development can tell you

[00:07:14] stories about their first deal and how it's not always a straight line.

[00:07:18] And our stories would be no different.

[00:07:21] We made it through.

[00:07:21] It was a lot of fun.

[00:07:23] It was really challenging.

[00:07:25] We didn't know.

[00:07:26] And it was small enough at the time, we were going in at night and painting to save on construction

[00:07:33] costs or doing carpet rework to save on costs.

[00:07:37] And I think we actually tried to do that deal without an architect to save on costs, which

[00:07:42] is just outrageous to think about.

[00:07:44] And we've done now, I think, nine deals since then and learned a lot along the way.

[00:07:50] But it's been a lot of fun.

[00:07:52] But yeah, the first one was maybe fun, but in a more challenging way.

[00:07:57] You never forget that first one.

[00:08:00] What do you typically do with these?

[00:08:02] So you develop them.

[00:08:03] Do you keep in a portfolio?

[00:08:05] Do you sell these things?

[00:08:06] What typically happens?

[00:08:08] So our approach has been to develop and hold.

[00:08:11] That coincides a lot with sort of the philosophy we take on the projects, that being concentrating

[00:08:19] for considerable time in a single neighborhood and developing multiple projects.

[00:08:24] You guys have talked about starting in Valley Junction.

[00:08:26] We're working on Ingersoll now.

[00:08:28] It coincides, that kind of develop and hold philosophy coincides as well with the mixed

[00:08:34] income approach that we take on the projects.

[00:08:36] Scott mentioned that as part of our mission statement.

[00:08:38] And so what we mean by that is that I would say 90% plus of the portfolio would be considered

[00:08:47] workforce housing.

[00:08:48] So it's available to those earning between 30 and 80% of area median income.

[00:08:54] And we have that range in every building.

[00:08:57] And we really believe in that philosophy and we can get into why and everything either on

[00:09:03] the podcast or another time.

[00:09:05] Oftentimes what that means is we're setting those rent restrictions for 15 or 20 years.

[00:09:10] It's really important to us that the building continues to honor those commitments for that amount of time.

[00:09:16] And so we take that approach to ensure that.

[00:09:18] By doing that, I suspect that you get some sort of incentives, credits, whatever it may be

[00:09:22] on the front end to help that capital stack.

[00:09:25] Yep, you're absolutely right.

[00:09:27] When you're developing at those income thresholds, you have to have subsidy to make the deal work.

[00:09:32] It just doesn't pencil it out.

[00:09:33] And so you mentioned tax credits.

[00:09:35] There's the state, the Iowa Economic Development Authority puts out the workforce tax credits,

[00:09:41] for instance, every year.

[00:09:42] And so we've used that on some of the projects as an example.

[00:09:45] Hey, Iowa investors, this is Ava Bauckamp, chief of staff at Legacy Impact Investors.

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[00:10:09] a tenant email or responding to a maintenance call.

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[00:10:25] Got it.

[00:10:26] It sounds like the idea being you want to concentrate very heavily in the neighborhood, get the project

[00:10:31] to pencil on the way in, and you're in it for the long term.

[00:10:33] The idea being 15 years from now, these things will go to market revel rents, potentially.

[00:10:38] And economically, things could look very different.

[00:10:41] And I think the long term, we don't anticipate once all of those rent restrictions burn off,

[00:10:48] we don't anticipate selling the building necessarily.

[00:10:50] And we've even considered re-upping those rental restrictions for another period of time.

[00:10:56] Did the fact that value junction falls in an opportunity zone, did that impact your guys'

[00:11:02] ability in financing or capital raising?

[00:11:04] It did.

[00:11:05] I would say we utilize the opportunity zone benefit on three projects.

[00:11:10] And I think we did derive some benefit from it.

[00:11:15] In my opinion, it's more efficient at projects of larger scale, where like opportunity zone,

[00:11:22] like funds that raise a bunch of equity can come in.

[00:11:26] And it isn't quite as efficient for us at our project scale.

[00:11:30] And we finance, our equity is pretty local.

[00:11:33] And we have used it.

[00:11:36] I wouldn't say it is a benefit.

[00:11:38] For us, it was more of an afterthought.

[00:11:40] Again, I think in order to really capitalize on that benefit, there needs to be more scale.

[00:11:44] We developed in Valley Junction because we wanted to be in Valley Junction.

[00:11:48] And the opportunity zone benefit was something that we could,

[00:11:51] just another thing we could layer on to make our projects more lengthy to pencil.

[00:11:55] Tell me about the work you guys have done and are doing on Ingersoll.

[00:11:59] We're really excited about the Ingersoll neighborhood, just as we are about Valley Junction.

[00:12:05] We're seeing the city putting in investment for new streetscaping for the elevated separate

[00:12:12] bike lanes, the enter boxes, the landscaping that goes with all of that, just the repaving

[00:12:18] and all the sewer kind of undergrounds that they've been doing.

[00:12:21] We're seeing a ton of investment in that corridor.

[00:12:24] And we see it reflected in the businesses thriving along there.

[00:12:29] And it was a natural next stop for us.

[00:12:31] The city council is pushing for more housing and density along that corridor.

[00:12:35] And so that mixed use concept that we tend to focus on really fits in and slots nicely.

[00:12:41] So we're just wrapping up construction.

[00:12:43] We should get certificate of occupancy this month on the star launch located at 2701 Ingersoll Avenue.

[00:12:50] That's the first project we've done there.

[00:12:53] And we're really excited about that project and some of the goals we had on that project.

[00:12:57] When we're looking at more along Ingersoll, we hope to do more along Ingersoll.

[00:13:01] It's very much getting rediscovered, if you will.

[00:13:06] And there's a lot of development going on, which is fantastic.

[00:13:09] We love it.

[00:13:10] And so we hope to join in.

[00:13:12] It's a vibrant street.

[00:13:13] It just has an energy about it, doesn't it?

[00:13:16] It does.

[00:13:18] Tell me a little more about the one you're wrapping up.

[00:13:20] What is it?

[00:13:21] What's our square footage?

[00:13:23] Tell us about the whole thing.

[00:13:24] The project's called the Star Lofts.

[00:13:26] It's located at the site of a former Star gas station.

[00:13:30] We each look about that project often.

[00:13:33] So in order to redevelop the site, we had to take down an existing building.

[00:13:37] And in our role, often there's pushback.

[00:13:40] I understand that people have emotional attachments to buildings and we have to bring a building down and do a project.

[00:13:45] There's some pushback.

[00:13:46] On that project, we received a fair amount of support from the neighborhood.

[00:13:50] The building was pretty distressed.

[00:13:52] The city had given a blighted determination.

[00:13:56] And there's a number of environmental concerns.

[00:13:59] And for us, we really like the story of transforming that site into a mixed-use project.

[00:14:06] And the building actually is tracking to reach full carbon neutrality.

[00:14:11] It's something that we've worked really hard at and in certain ways makes the building unique in Iowa and actually nationally.

[00:14:19] Yeah, so when we say carbon neutrality, we're talking about sort of two types of carbon.

[00:14:25] The carbon that it takes to actually construct the building, they call it embodied carbon.

[00:14:29] So it's the carbon it took to create the raw materials, the emissions from transporting them to the site, and then in constructing the building, the emissions from cranes and bulldozers and that thing.

[00:14:42] And so that's one bucket of carbon, and then operational carbon, the building will be net zero on that.

[00:14:48] So that's the ongoing.

[00:14:49] Once we're complete, occupied, and the building is humming along, have we reduced and then offset any remainder of the energy use of that building?

[00:14:59] And so the building's on track, like Scott said, to achieve both of those.

[00:15:04] The biggest way that we get there on embodied carbon is through the use of a material called mass timber.

[00:15:09] However, it's something that Scott brought into the business in a project in Valley Junction located at 304 5th Street as the first mass timber residential units in Iowa.

[00:15:21] And then we took the learnings from that project and brought it over to the Ingersoll Star Lost Project.

[00:15:26] So that'll reduce the embodied or the construction carbon from the fact that the mass timbers were placing steel and concrete.

[00:15:34] The wood itself has pulled carbon out of the atmosphere to grow, and then now it's going to be locked into those posts and beams and decking for 200 years, we hope.

[00:15:46] And then on the operational side, we achieved that through a mixture of really efficient HVAC system, lighting, density reductions inside, and then we'll offset any remainder through new on- and off-site solar panels.

[00:16:02] It takes a lot of work to plan to achieve that, I can imagine.

[00:16:06] Yes.

[00:16:07] Again, we're a small business, and we really try to pack a lot into our projects.

[00:16:11] We're a for-profit business, and this is how we pay our bills is through development.

[00:16:16] But we have a lot of altruistic initiatives, especially surrounding sustainability and affordability that are just passions of ours.

[00:16:24] It takes, it's a heavy lift, but we're getting better at it, and it's something we iterate on every concept, and it's something that we really like to do.

[00:16:33] What was the genesis of that, the sustainability for each of you, and then ultimately together?

[00:16:38] For me, I've always had an eye on it, and actually in joining ExxonMobil after college, my thought process there was, okay, I'll work it from the inside out.

[00:16:49] And I had an opportunity to learn so much from that company and had really intense and extensive hands-on experience in a lot of different areas.

[00:16:58] So very thankful for that experience and got a chance to dabble a little bit in their sustainability initiatives back in the day.

[00:17:05] But after joining Scott at Cutler Development, it's been so exciting to take that passion.

[00:17:11] And now we're in charge, and we decide if we're going to go after those sustainability goals on a project, and so working to make that happen.

[00:17:19] How about you, Stan?

[00:17:21] Gosh, I'm trying to think of where to start.

[00:17:22] As I mentioned, I used to work as an outdoor guide, and environmentalism is just something that I come by just as part of who I've always been and want to be.

[00:17:33] And within the context of business, we really started with renovation projects, which I think have a strong sustainability story just by nature.

[00:17:45] And when we transitioned more to a new construction, especially, by that time, we'd done a couple project iterations.

[00:17:53] So we were learning, and we were already trying to find ways to push sustainability goals.

[00:17:57] With a new construction project, you can have a blank canvas and more degrees of freedom from a design standpoint.

[00:18:05] Mass timber was a pretty big step for us on our first project.

[00:18:11] But we learned a lot and really enjoyed the sustainability components that it brings.

[00:18:17] But also, there's a number of benefits, we think, from a development standpoint.

[00:18:22] And so I've just been iterative from there.

[00:18:24] On the Star Labs project, we utilized mass timber, but decided to further quantify and reduce the carbon emissions.

[00:18:32] As Malin mentioned, both the embodied need into operational carbon to achieve carbon neutrality.

[00:18:37] On our next project, we have more similar and additional goals.

[00:18:41] Each time we try to take what we've learned and push things further.

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[00:19:18] The Star Labs, how many units of residential are there and then what's on that main level?

[00:19:23] Yeah, so we'll have on the upper floors two and three, a total of 20 residential units.

[00:19:28] It's a mixture of studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms.

[00:19:31] And then on the first floor, we've got just shy of 7,000 square feet leasable space.

[00:19:37] We tend to wait until the tenants have gone public before we announce, so we won't share here.

[00:19:43] But those spaces we divided into four tenant bays and are starting to lease up.

[00:19:48] We purposely designed the building to have two small restaurants, one on each end cap.

[00:19:54] When we constructed the building, we factored into the budget things like a grease trap and shafts up through the residences to poke out the roof for those two restaurants.

[00:20:05] So we'll likely have that.

[00:20:06] And then in the interior two bays, we've got two retail options coming in.

[00:20:13] What's in the pipeline for you guys next?

[00:20:15] Has it been announced?

[00:20:17] What's your next project is?

[00:20:18] Yeah, I'd say as with any developer, we're always looking at a number of projects.

[00:20:23] One project that we recently received a significant amount of funding for, we're calling the Goldfinch Lofts.

[00:20:31] It's named after, of course, the state bird of Iowa here.

[00:20:35] And it's essentially be the next iteration of the Star Lost project.

[00:20:39] It'll likely be a little bit bigger, about 30 apartment units, plus or minus retail on the first floor.

[00:20:46] Similar mass timber carbon neutral design that we'll try to locate in a dense walkable kind of mixed use neighborhood.

[00:20:54] Yeah, fantastic.

[00:20:56] I'm curious, how do you guys manage the properties?

[00:20:59] A great question.

[00:20:59] And up till now, so the Valley Junction portfolio, we manage in-house.

[00:21:04] The Star Lofts project will be managed by Anuim Housing and their Altera properties group there.

[00:21:12] And then it's very likely that'll be the same arrangement with Anuim for the Goldfinch Lofts.

[00:21:17] Got it.

[00:21:18] What are you guys most excited about for 2025?

[00:21:20] We're really excited, I think, to continue pushing sustainable and environmental design concepts.

[00:21:29] So as Molly mentioned, this mass timber track of projects.

[00:21:34] And Goldfinch would be our third mass timber project.

[00:21:37] It'll be our second that is carbon neutral certified.

[00:21:40] We're considering layering Passive House onto that one.

[00:21:45] We haven't committed to that.

[00:21:46] We don't need to for any reason other than just that we think it's cool and we think that there is an environmental sustainability benefit there that we'd really like to showcase.

[00:21:55] And I think for us too, it's really, I think we get excited about really about trying to advocate for some of these things that we believe in and help other projects where we can and learn from other projects where we can.

[00:22:11] And so, yeah.

[00:22:12] Why Iowa?

[00:22:13] You could do this anywhere.

[00:22:14] What keeps you here?

[00:22:15] I'd say we love the Des Moines area.

[00:22:18] It's great.

[00:22:19] It's mid-sized.

[00:22:20] We always feel like it's big enough.

[00:22:21] There's plenty to do.

[00:22:23] And we have big city amenities, but it's small enough that people are nice and it's safe and there isn't a lot of traffic and that sort of thing.

[00:22:31] We get all four seasons.

[00:22:32] We live in Des Moines near Waterworks Park and Greenwood Park.

[00:22:37] And so great access to trails.

[00:22:39] The only other thing I'd add, so I grew up on the East Coast outside DC and then spent almost a decade in Houston before we finally settled here.

[00:22:48] And I would say there's a real can-do attitude amongst Midwesterners that I think is unique based on my experiences living in those two other cities.

[00:22:56] And it makes projects like the ones we do really fun.

[00:23:00] We are pushing the boundaries on a lot of things and we're working with architects and general contractors and even the subcontractors under the general contractor who are saying,

[00:23:13] okay, that's different, but let's figure it out.

[00:23:16] And then let's make it better for the next one and the next one and the next one.

[00:23:20] And so I think that's been a lot of fun and something that keeps us here and keeps us questioning and striving to do better with each project.

[00:23:28] You guys ready for the final three questions?

[00:23:31] We're ready.

[00:23:32] Let's do it.

[00:23:32] I'm going to toss them out.

[00:23:33] You guys answer them however you see fit.

[00:23:35] If you had one piece of advice for your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

[00:23:41] I would say from a development standpoint, I think it's a really hard skill set to learn academically or even working for someone else.

[00:23:50] There's so many soft skills.

[00:23:52] It's so much decision-making.

[00:23:55] It's risk management.

[00:23:56] It's things that when you look at it, it's just looking at a spreadsheet, but then actually having to perform on it are two really different things.

[00:24:03] And not discounting the value that comes with some of those hard skills.

[00:24:09] I think those are extremely important.

[00:24:10] I think if I was to give my 20-year-old self advice, I would advise to start small, but start earlier.

[00:24:21] Really, the lessons learned since we started the business, to me, are more significant and outweigh the lessons learned before starting the business.

[00:24:29] Two books that changed your life.

[00:24:31] Kuz and Posner's Leadership Principles.

[00:24:35] And what about Freya?

[00:24:37] I like The Alchemist.

[00:24:39] Sure.

[00:24:40] If you were cast away on an island for one year, you could only get three pieces of data about your business each and every month.

[00:24:49] What three things must every month to know how your business is running?

[00:24:52] That's a great question.

[00:24:53] My first question, is there surfing on the island?

[00:24:57] Absolutely.

[00:24:58] It's a paradise of surfing.

[00:25:00] Are the tenants happy?

[00:25:01] Are the units full?

[00:25:03] How's property management kind of going?

[00:25:06] That's a good one.

[00:25:07] From a development perspective, it would just be impossible.

[00:25:11] There are too many things.

[00:25:12] I think for us, we've managed everything that we've done.

[00:25:16] We're transitioning out of managing some of the multifamily.

[00:25:19] But it's really important to us neighborhood developers.

[00:25:21] We live in the neighborhoods we develop.

[00:25:23] And we go to the restaurants that are in some of our buildings and know our tenants, both apartment tenants and commercial tenants.

[00:25:30] I think that's a great point.

[00:25:32] To me, it'd be property management, making sure the properties are okay, the tenants are happy, all that sort of thing.

[00:25:38] I'm trying to think of two more.

[00:25:39] On the zero carbon buildings, did we produce as much energy as we consumed?

[00:25:44] So we made that certification.

[00:25:46] And then what's next?

[00:25:48] What other properties are available or coming available?

[00:25:50] We would call your brother, Bart, and his business partner, Jordan, and say, all right, what's the data on the street?

[00:25:58] That's what keeps it going in the development world, right?

[00:26:00] You get excited about buttoning this one up that you got buttoned up coming very soon.

[00:26:05] And then it's on to the next one.

[00:26:06] Doesn't that get your blood going?

[00:26:08] Oh, yeah.

[00:26:09] It does.

[00:26:10] Yeah.

[00:26:10] But we're using it on the next one before we buttoned up both.

[00:26:14] But yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[00:26:15] We love doing it and love doing it together.

[00:26:17] It's been a fantastic conversation.

[00:26:19] I appreciate you two taking the time for people.

[00:26:21] They want to find you.

[00:26:23] They want to follow you.

[00:26:23] They want to connect with you.

[00:26:24] Where can they go?

[00:26:25] What can somebody or what should somebody do?

[00:26:27] Sure.

[00:26:28] We're both on LinkedIn as well as the business Cutler Development.

[00:26:31] We post there periodically.

[00:26:33] And then our emails are scott at cutlerdevelopment.com and molly at cutlerdevelopment.com.

[00:26:39] We'll drop the links in the below in the show notes for everybody.

[00:26:42] I appreciate you guys being here.

[00:26:44] Thanks so much for having us, Neil.

[00:26:45] We appreciate it.

[00:26:46] Yep.

[00:26:46] Thanks, Neil.

[00:26:47] Appreciate it.

[00:26:47] Thanks for listening.

[00:26:48] If you're enjoying the show, may I ask a favor of you?

[00:26:51] Naturally, subscribe so you never miss an episode.

[00:26:54] But would you rate and leave an honest written review on Apple Podcasts?

[00:26:58] It does a lot for us here at the show, and I appreciate reading your thoughts.

[00:27:02] Great guests make for a great show.

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[00:27:13] Visit InvestingInIowa to fill out an application or recommend a guest.

[00:27:17] And if you want to connect with me one-on-one, go LegacyImpactInvestors.com.

[00:27:24] Click on the Invest With Us button in the top right corner.

[00:27:26] And there, you can pick a time for the two of us to get on the calendar and connect.

[00:27:30] Until next time, keep investing in Iowa.

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