Buffalo Stands Tall among other things...
For the last three days a couple of us have been touring three real estate investors from LA around town. Our recent cold-snap hit the day they arrived, and though the weather is of a truer nature than it has been, I thought that they were going to miss the cold, windy weather. The bizarre thing is that they had been experiencing crazy-cold weather patterns out west, and we're happy to say, "We had a chance to acclimate before we even set out for Buffalo."
Over the summer, one of these investors came into town with BRO contributor Lorne Opler (Toronto). After spending a day driving around the East Side he left to head back to LA. While he was there he spent some time researching the history of Buffalo and could not get the city off his mind. He talked to a few of his friends in real estate and two decided to join him on his most recent trip east. Even with the colder weather (something they are still getting used to), the three have experienced a whirlwind crash course on the city, and even today they are moments away from exploring the West Side with community activist Harvey Garrett. Following are a few relatively obscure things of note that they have relayed to me:
First off, they are amazed at the ability that Buffalonians have to stay out so late. Each night that we have gone out the group has experienced packed restaurants where people are just beginning their evening festivities. "This is the time that people in LA go home," they tell me at around 11pm. Last night we were turned away from three restaurants (The Stillwater, Europa, and Amaryllis) due to extended waits for tables. Amaryllis finally accommodated us by grouping three small cocktail tables into the corner of the bar area. They have been very impressed by the food here and are planning on trying out a pizza later today (they have heard of La Nova all the way from LA). They were also told by friends to visit Pano's while in town.
Another thing that I have found interesting is that they are amazed at how tall Buffalonians are. That was a new one for me. Everywhere we went the three would comment on how tall everyone they met was. That, and they could not get over how young the restaurant owners were either. "That guy owns this place?" they would ask. "How old is he? How does such a young person own a place like this?" I guess that was another thing that I took for granted living here - another point-of-interest that I never thought too much about. I remembered that Matt (owner of Amaryllis) once told me a story about an instance when he was waiting on a table and a customer demanded to talk to the owner. He ran back to the kitchen and put on a tie and tossed on his jacket before returning. When he arrived back at the table the customer asked Matt about the wine selection (thinking that the young waiter would not be able to help him). The guy’s wife kept on nudging him because she had caught on that it was Matt who had returned.
Listening to visitors from out of town describing the things that they see (that usually go unnoticed) is pretty cool. Of course the three were amazed at the city's incredible architecture, the low housing costs, the poor condition of the housing stock on the East Side, and the opportunities to be had for developers and realtors. They were impressed that they could actually look across Lake Erie and see the Canadian shores. But it was the housing stock that has kept their interest the entire time... and we'll hopefully have some good news on the front a bit later.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for somthing to happen but it does sound positive.
hey tell your friends in LA that Buffalo needs a pre-post production facility for all forms of media (Film & TV)
hey tell your friends in CA that Buffalo 20% of all Canadian trade with the US comes thru Buffalo and that we would welcome logistics and trade related companies to come to Buffalo
hey tell your friends in SF and Silicon Valley nearly all telecommunications and internet with Ontario and Ottawa as well as much of Canada comes thru Buffalo making Buffalo a prime location for ecommerce & ebusiness companys, search engine companies, etc.
anything that helps other cities around the US and around the world discover Buffalo is needed....now we need Buffalo and Buffalonians to rise up to the bar we are introducing ourselves
yeah the best part about being from Buffalo is showing it off :) I have such a blast bring people around who only have an outsiders perspective to see if I can challenge it. I don't sugar coat things but I do make sure they know it is more than just a dying city.
Good job, word of mouth is more important than ANY multi-million dollar ad campaign that we waste our money.
Great! Now we just need more people and jobs..
FINALLY! POSITIVE POSTS ABOUT OUR CITY! T-RIFIC!
Dear guests from LA: Bring your dollars AND your families and friends. We have cheap houses for all of you. We promise.
"Dear guests from LA: Bring your dollars AND your families and friends. We have cheap houses for all of you. We promise."
...as long as you intend to take care of your properties...
Dear guests from LA...
As a transplant from Los Angeles myself, I think you will enjoy a city with a soul. That being said, I really miss the LA fast food. These Buffalonians don't know about the culinary delight that is In-n-Out, Baja Fresh, Kookooroo, Oki-Dog, El Pollo Loco, Weinerschinzel,Zankou Chicken etc...
Thank you...
And please fed-ex me a double double, animal style.
Dear LA People,
There's two kinds of investors from your neck of the woods that are interested in Buffalo. People who want to make an actual investment and those just looking for easy money. Hopefully, you are the former of the two. If so good luck. If not then go back to Hell-A.
Sincerely,
Buffalo
Tell them to buy the soon to close Latina's on Elmwood/Summer.
I travel a little bit but not as much as others, I and many other observers of life have the same perspective, Buffalo has the best or is the best in many categories . Within 50 miles almost every attraction is available, not boring at all. Best of all, ----AFFORDABLE---
This sounds like their first trip out of LA. I live here in LA and I'm sick of the fact that this region's messed up economic picture allows only the elite wealthy (and apparently OLD as well) to participate in property and business ownership. What a disgusting state of affairs in arguably the most "liberal" city in America. How is it that the most liberal cities seem to have some of the most repressive economic conditions. Oh yeah, because must of the liberal agenda is misguided and creates worse conditions for the poor. Call me a republican or call me a "disaffected democrat", whatever you want, but there needs to be a massive Economics 101 re-education camp for everyone out here. Truly I care about the poor and lower income groups. But so many liberals here are quick to get angry and assume the "obvious" (i.e. mis-informed, old-school, not thought-through) positions, that it makes me sick. I want to say, "you're killing your own economic chances, morons" but I guess that wouldn't be polite. Anyway, the lower age of ownership thing is a fact they would find all over the US if they would stoop to visit some of it. But like most coastal snobs they probably think of middle america as a 3rd world country full of rednecks. Not true. Plenty of nice, cosmopolitan, progressive people all over the place. Beh, what can you do?
Econ101...
Here is how it goes....it actually has more to do with social liberalism then economic.
1. City becomes progressive, embraces arts, culture, different opinions and alternative media.
2. City residents create businesses that are tailored to that idea.
3. Local politicians embrace the progressives and gain power.
4. Every decision that needs to be made is carefully considered as to what it will do to damage the progressive nature of the city. Often times, this includes great urban planning.
5. City gains a caché amongst the liberal progressive community around the country. Often times, area universities perpetuate this and the city starts to attract people from across the country.
6. City gets ranked as a great place to live because it is a smaller city without the hassles of a major metro. Has abundant culture, great ethnic restaurants, great school system etc...
7. People start moving across the country to move to this great place.
8. The downtown starts getting developed but since it really isn't that big of a city in landsize anyway, it quickly gets built up as much as it can.
9. Peoplee don't want to move to a small city to live in the country outside of it, they want to live downtown so they buy up all the downtown condo's and houses.
10. City quickly becomes really expensive forcing anybody who is not making a significant income to the outskirts.
11. Since the city has such good planning, there is really never any reason for any downtown residents or powerbrokers to go to the outskirts of town since everything is in within an easy 5 minute walk, bike or drive.
12. Problems in the outskirts get worse, but no one notices.
Examples: Please see Austin, TX, Madison, WI, Berkely, CA, Burlington, VT, Northampton/Amherst, MA.
transplant
good points
however actually the mindset that bothers me most is "NO MORE DEVELOPMENT - NO MATTER WHAT". People think they are progressive and liberal by thwarting "greedy developers" but what they are really doing is CRUSHING poor people by creating a situation in which demand far outstrips the supply. If development is encouraged and allowed to continue (but balanced with concerns about neighborhood appearance, traffic plans, etc), supply and demand can reach the proper equilibrium so EVERYONE (even lower income) can find housing that's affordable. But instead
1. people get upset about runaway development changing quality of life
2. activist neighborhood groups form coalitions to stop development
3. housing prices become insane and the poor get crushed and the rich see their net worth skyrocket.
voila - from a "liberal" anti-development position we get a situation that crushes the poor and makes the haves "have more".
what I'm suggesting is the anti-development rhetoric in a place like LA must be tempered and the case has to be made for more housing supply and a BALANCE of interests between developers, existing residents, and the flood of mostly poor who continue to come to a place like LA...
it always causes me distress to see very well-intentioned, liberal lower-income groups protesting against "greedy developers" who want to build "luxury highrises" or similar.. what they never understand is that this increases the housing supply, and will free up some housing further down on the price ladder, for others....
who cares there is enough land for high density urban growth for 25 to 50 years in Buffalo & WNY
Interesting article Queenseyes, please read my e-mail that I sent you referring to this article. Keep bringing good people to Buffalo, you are a good ambassador!
Insane housing prices? In one or two square miles of Buffalo, maybe, but we still have the lowest housing prices in the nation. BRO has trumpeted that fact here more than once. Your 60K house on Forest Ave. would fetch 600K in other markets.
Transplant ,
your Econ 101 pretty much describes Portland OR path to prosperity.
"Your 60K house on Forest Ave. would fetch 600K in other markets."
News: an adandoned house was demolished on Forest, this week .... several more to go. $60k would be a dream for most on that street. Once the Psych Center buildings collapse, watch values in that neighborhood crash.
I'm one of the LA investors that Newell and company ushered around earlier this week. I could not have had a better introduction to the city and the various possibilities. Thanks for your wonderful hospitality (Damn Buffalonians are tall, lol)
I'm just back to LA this afternoon and honestly my head is still swimming. I've read the above posts and find them mostly well articulated. Some of them I believe to be spot on. 'Transplant' in particular seems to understand the process of rebirth and renewal.
Here's what I think so far:
I think Buffalo has amazing architecture, history, arts, dining, location and proximity to a lot of exciting localities.
I think Buffalo has some truely visionary people working their piece of the puzzle for the betterment of the city.
I think Buffalo - with good marketing - could attract the best and the brightest in the professions and the arts.
I think, however, there are some puzzle pieces missing. I didn't get a sense that the city/county governments (and I could be wrong, I still have a lot of research left to do) realize the things that make Buffalo special in the new economy is not the traditional industries of manufacturing and big corporations, but arts and entertainment/history and architecture. People tend to move to places where the quality of life is the best for the amount of money spent. I don't know that I've been anywhere with as great of potential as Buffalo in this regard. For me it was painful to see beautiful old houses boarded up and slated for demolition.
I think I sensed a bit of xenophobia of "outsiders" coming into the city. A renter next door to an abandoned house I was wandering around said it best, "Investors from other places buy these houses, rent them out to anybody who'll take them, keep the money and don't put anythng back into them." I got the impression that slum lording is running rampant as is squatting, and various forms of lawlessness that come from lack of hope.
I think outsider investors got a bit of a bad name from the above practice and some "activists" have closed their eyes to the potentials of Buffalo and the possibilities that outside interests could bring with them. Just as not every investor does well by the community, not every owner occupant does well by their own properties.
I think change is brewing for Buffalo and those of you who were early adaptors buying and restoring houses, building businesses, and singing the praises of Buffalo are going to reap the rewards of those changes.
I think that often residential neighborhoods change before the commercial businesses around them change. Businesses follow money and then money follows businesses. Smart entrepreneurs see opportunity where there is change and move in to capitalize upon it.
So, I think the first step for many residential areas in Buffalo is to clean up, restore, fix up, and remarket to a more affluent clientele. I suspect the first wave of such people will be artists and gay folk followed by hipsters and an assortment of yuppies. They first waves may bring their own jobs that will flourish and create job opportunities for others. I think corporate headquarters smelling the same changes, offered appropriate incentives, finding inexpensive land and seeing opportunity for low cost housing for their workers will follow that.
I think that Los Angeles and other cities that experienced large gains in real estate value over the past few years will create a market of people disinvesting to go to other places that have the potential to do the same thing and investors unwilling to buy at current prices with the associated high risk and small rewards. I think that younger creative and professional people who are flexible with geography and priced out of more expensive markets are looking for good places to go. Buffalo can benefit from all of these.
I think the people above have money and/or drive, passion and energy to give Buffalo the boost it needs as long as certain forces within Buffalo do not get in the way or provide disincentives for them to do so.
Like I said above, I still have a lot to learn about Buffalo, but I see opportunity on almost every corner...
Btw, my m.o. with investing is to restore (bring back luster, charm and beauty), build community, and market hard.
Black Rock eh?