In this episode of Scalpel and Sword, Dr. Lee Sharma chats with Jonathan Spitz, about demystifying private real estate investing for busy physicians. Learn why long-term clarity creates power, how to spot red flags in managers, and why alignment like putting 20% of their own capital in every deal, makes Lightstone a game-changer for tax-efficient growth and passive income.
This episode is sponsored by Lightstone DIRECT. Lightstone DIRECT invites you to partner with a $12B AUM real estate institution as you grow your portfolio. Access the same single-asset multifamily and industrial deals Lightstone pursues with its own capital – Lightstone co-invests a minimum of 20% in each deal alongside individual investors like you. You’re an institution. Time to invest like one.
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What if your retirement plan didn’t rely on stock market volatility, but on institutional-grade real estate with skin in the game?
In this empowering episode, Dr. Lee Sharma sits down with Jonathan Spitz to break down private real estate investing for physicians, from fresh-out-of-residency tax strategies to legacy-building passive income. Jonathan shares his core principle (“long-term clarity creates long-term power”), why physicians often start with curiosity but no plan, and how to ask the right questions: direct vs. passive ownership? Manager track record? Leverage levels? He reveals red flags like excessive debt or inexperienced teams, explains Lightstone’s vertically integrated model (40 years, $12B AUM, in-house everything), and proves that with high-conviction deals where they commit 20% of their own capital first, physicians can build wealth without the daily grind.
If you’ve ever thought “I want more, but where do I start?” This is your roadmap to investing like a family office, safely, transparently, and aligned.
Three Actionable Takeaways :
About the Show:
Behind every procedure, every patient encounter, lies an untold story of conflict and negotiation. Scalpel and Sword, hosted by Dr. Lee Sharma—physician, mediator, and guide—invites listeners into the unseen battles and breakthroughs of modern medicine. With real conversations, human stories, and practical tools, this podcast empowers physicians to reclaim their voices, sharpen their skills, and wield their healing power with both precision and purpose.
About the Guest:
Jonathan Spitz is Head of Capital Formation at Lightstone Direct, where he helps investors access institutional-grade commercial real estate. With over a decade in private real estate, he’s advised physicians, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals on long-term strategies, risk management, and wealth building. His guiding principle: Long-term clarity creates long-term power. Jonathan focuses on simplifying real estate for busy professionals, emphasizing alignment, education, and passive income for legacies beyond medicine.
Connect with Jonathan Spitz:
· Website: https://lightstonedirect.com
· Email: jspitz@lightstonedirect.com
About the Host:
Dr. Lee Sharma is a gynecologist based in Auburn, AL, with over 30 years of clinical experience. She holds a Master’s in Conflict Resolution and is passionate about helping colleagues navigate workplace challenges and thrive through open conversations and practical tools.
[00:00:00] Hello, my peaceful warriors. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst. And I am really pumped for this podcast today because this is something that is so out of my wheelhouse and anything I find out of my wheelhouse, I am just really excited to get into and learn and open my mind and really expand my opportunities.
And so today. We have our sponsor. Jonathan Spitz is the head of capital formation at Lighthouse Direct, where he helps investors access institutional grade commercial real estate through a transparent tech forward platform with more than a decade in private real estate. Jonathan has advised financial professionals, family offices, and high net worth investors on long-term strategy risk.
Disciplined wealth building, and I really wanna get into that. Before joining Lightstone, he served as Assistant Vice president at Origin Investments, supporting national [00:01:00] scale investor growth and education. Jonathan's work centers on one core principle. Long-term clarity Creates long-term power, and physicians who lead boldly in their financial lives are positioned to build legacy that extends far beyond their clinical work.
Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Lee. I really appreciate it. Oh, I'm so glad you're here.
So I wanna jump into this because when you talk about how your work centers on this core principle, long-term clarity creates long-term power. How did that become a guiding principle for you, especially as somebody who's advising on investing? Long-term clarity creates long-term power. I mean, I think really what that means is just trying to take the information that we have.
like when you're investing, you're never going to be able to see like no one can predict the future, right? But what we can [00:02:00] do, especially in real estate investing or any investing, is you do have. A lot of different data sources at your disposal that you can use when you are analyzing an investment or analyzing a market.
and I think what we mean by that is really just doing your due diligence to help findwhere the best opportunities are. That's awesome. So a common theme that I think has been through several of these podcasts. You know, I had Kyle Clawson who works with physician contracts.
I've had several physician coaches who have come on Michael Hirsch, who have talked about this idea of. Really approaching your life and really trying to create the best life that you can. Whether that's working with a contract, with an employer, or just becoming a better physician, more aware in your daily life.
And one of the themes that I hear is that a lot of physicians come to these professionals asking for help. It's like, I want help. I want to build wealth. I want to build opportunity. I want to build something long-term, not just for myself when I retire, but may be for my [00:03:00] children after me. And so they'll seek out professionals like you.
But when you sit down and talk to them, they really don't know what they're looking for. They say, I just want better. I want more. I have a general idea, but there's this lack of really, truly detailed imagery or intent behind that. Is that something you see a lot in physicians that come looking for your services?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, I've been working with physicians for about six years and I think what's so unique about working with physicians is. In my experience, so many doctors and physicians while you were in pursuing undergrad or during residency or starting to kick off your career in medicine So many people Are laser focused solely on that career because it is incredibly, intense. a few of my neighbors are physicians. I mean, they're, In the trenches all day, every day. And they don't have necessarily the time to go learn about investing what I love about physicians though is there's always [00:04:00] this genuine curiosity, which is what I love.
and what we do at Light Zone is really trying to simplify. What real estate investing is, what you can expect from it. And again, a lot of that we put the onus on us. To really uncover those needs. What is it that you're looking for as a physician?
Are you looking for income, or are you looking for growth? What we often find is it's very different. Everybody's situation's different. You might be fresh outta residency. Or you might be nearing the end of your career. And what you look for in investment across, that's like the opposite end of the spectrum.
Might be very different. Someone early in residency really might be looking for tax efficiency and long-term growth, versus someone that's nearing retirement that's really looking for tax efficient income as they think about what life looks like afterthey're done in medicine as they look to generate more passive income.
and then there's everything in between. So part of our job when we get on an introductory call with a physician. [00:05:00] Is asking those questions. What are you looking for? What is your risk tolerance? when do you need this money? Because when people are investing specifically in private real estate, there is not the same level of liquidity as there is if you're investing in the public markets.
And that's something that we make sure that people understand coming out of the. Look, if you're making an investment in private real estate, you need to be prepared there may not be a return of principle for three, four, or five years depending on what it is. Now, it doesn't mean that you don't earn a return along the way, but what it does mean is if you need that money for some reason, right?
and year two You're not gonna be able to access that. And it's a very different type of investment than going through traditional. Public markets and it's not for everyone. Right? And that's something that I think is really critical too when we're, really understanding of physician of, or we're working with physicians.
And that oftentimes that might be where the conversation ultimately lands is, look this may not be the right investment for you at this point in your investing journey. But when we have a [00:06:00] consultation or we sit down with somebody, is again, really understanding.
what we do? What are the risks? What are the opportunities? What are the types of returns you might be able to expect? And to really just to manage their expectations accordingly. And so we do that with physicians, but again, me just goes to our broader investor base as well.
Wow. There's so much cool stuff you said in there that I wanna get into. One of the first things you said I wanna talk about, because I think this is something that A, not as many young physicians here as they need to. And the first thing is that this idea that investing doesn't have to start, and especially real estate investing like you're talking about, doesn't have to wait until you're established in a practice.
you don't have to wait until you're a partner. These are questions you can start asking very early in your career. And in fact, it's actually. A good thing to ask these questions early in your career, and one of the things that you also mentioned that I love is that when you're sitting down with doctors for consultation, sometimes the answer might be, we may not be the right fit for you as an investing partner right now.[00:07:00]
When you're actually drilling down on what doctors are looking for, especially things like liquidity. When do you need this money that this may not be your avenue, and it's really pretty awesome. And I think that goes a long way in building trust, right? If you're able to sit down with a doctor and say, you know what?
We may not be your best investing partner right now, but at another point in your career when your goals change, we might become your best investing partner. Yeah, a hundred percent. and what we find too is. Some people really don't like the volatility of public markets and they seek out private investments for that reason.
Like, as an example, I'm one person that volatility in the market tends to lead to where I make very bad investment decisions. I'll panic sell stocks. When they're down 20 or 30%, I think they're gonna go to zero. Like emotions really unfortunately drive my own personal investment decision. Off the beaten path, so to speak.
Like I go against what I should be doing and there's [00:08:00] numerous times It's cost me a lot throughout my ING career, but as I've invested in private real estate myself. What I do love about it is I can't do that, so it sort of saves me from myself to a certain extent.
So it's definitely not an either or. It's usually always an and when we're talking to physicians or any investor for that, right? Some people like to be more in private. Some people like to be mostly in public equities. So again, like everybody has a different, and it's very much a personal.
Decision and it's not a one size fits all, that's for sure. Oh, definitely. And I definitely have some colleagues that have targeted more of the real estate investing, as that long-term plan. And I think one of the things that you said, like when I think about some of my friends, I have one in particular who's actually been on the podcast that she's very much into real estate investing, and it's exactly what you described, her risk tolerance for the markets is not there.
Buying real estate makes her feel like she's doing something very solid in terms of her long-term planning, and that's why [00:09:00] she's drawn to it. It's something that she's not watching the ticker every day freaking out. She actually feels like this is something that she can sort of keep in her back pocket for when she retires, and that means a lot to her.
What kind of questions should doctors be asking themselves? So let's say they're thinking about investing. Let's say maybe they're in the middle part of their career, they've never done a lot of investing, but they're looking at, you know, do I call lightstone? What direction do I take? What sort of questions should we be asking ourselves before we start down this process?
Yeah, so I think the first question is if you want to own real estate, do you wanna own it directly or passively? 'cause some people like to own rental properties in their neighborhood. They love, like that thing that they can touch. They wanna own and manage the asset themselves. Me personally, I'm a control freak, so I own a condo in Tampa that I rent out, but I also invest in passively.
But I think what we've experienced, especially with physicians, especially because of how busy many physicians are, many tend to gravitate and [00:10:00] let's Pass the ownership. Generally what that means is you're investing with a firm like Lightstone and again, like you are not doing the day-to-day management, you are outsourcing the management to a firm like Light Zone.
And in case of our firm, we've been around for 40 years. You manage 12 billion in NASA center management. We own 25,000 Wow carbon units, 12 million square feet of industrial space. We've been doing this a really long time, but look. Every physician, every investor should do just as much due diligence on the manager they're investing with as they should on the individual asset or the fund they are investing in.
And I can't emphasize this enough. So the questions that you wanna ask when you're going into that because I think it's a common question I get like, where do I even start? 'cause there are so many managers out there. And kind of a quick way to sort of.
Thin to hurt, if you will, is again, when you're talking to a manager, how long have you been doing this? What is your track record? How much of your own money do you invest in deals? Have you ever lost money? When did you [00:11:00] lose money? Is the strategy that is the deal that you are offering to investors is this type of strategy that you've executed before?
These are all very, important questions and trying and getting to understand one, how aligned that manager is with you. And what I mean by alignment is how much skin they have in the game. obviously real estate's been a very challenging place to invest over the last several years.
and we can talk about that, right? And largely that was due to significant spike in interest rates that started in 2022. But there were several other factors, not to take us down that rabbit hole just yet. But what we saw is that certain managers were really struggling during this time period because another question you want to ask is how much debt are you putting on a property?
Like when people invest in real estate, generally people are buying it and capitalizing a property, a project, using some type of financing. Where A lot of people get into trouble in real estate they use too much leverage. So if you're buying a million dollar property. [00:12:00] Someone goes out and gets a $900,000 loan, that's way too much leverage, right?
so understanding how much leverage someone is using, and that's what we saw in 2022 through even the early part of this year, is managers really going upside down because they didn't have any money in the deal. These too much leverage. And so there weren't the incentives there to help them ride through this downturn, and that led to really just.
poor returns for investors. And so for us, what we do is we wanna make sure that we are aligned with our investors and that we put a significant amount of our money into deals, in fact, we will put a minimum of 20% of our own capital in every single deal.
Like we're doing a deal in, Greenville, South Carolina, so not too far from you. Mm-hmm. And, that's a $50 million deal. you know, there's a $25 million loan, and we're putting $5 million of our own capital in that deal no matter how much money we raise.
So again, that's what we mean by alignment. And then again, the experience we've been around for 40 years. But what really happened in this most recent [00:13:00] downturn, starting at 2022, is you found out a lot of these managers. Had really only been investing after the great financial crisis. So they hadn't really experienced market volatility or what happens when interest rates go up 4%, like, and what that can do to valuations so you saw a lot of more inexperienced managers kinda burned during this period.
So that's why we're relying on experience. And then like what is unique about that? Right. And for us, like, again, we invest across multiple asset classes. We have a vertically integrated firm, and what that means is we have in-house property management, we have in-house asset management acquisitions.
We want to control every part of the deal. and again, so like, these are the types of questions and things you want to uncover as you interview managers about what types of deals. And then the last part is, do you have access to that manager? Like or do you have to get it through a registered investment advisor?
So if things go wrong, you have no one at the firm to actually talk to. And part of what we preach at Lightstone is you have direct access to our firm and our people. [00:14:00] That's really my team's job. We run the capital formations team. We wanna make sure that every investor has a direct point of contact at the firm that you could talk to when the market moves, because that's critical.
I've been in the real estate business over a decade. Market's gonna move around, especially if you make an investment, it's for your time period. Market's gonna move around over that period. So what you want is, you have my number on speed dial. You have my email address. You could say, Hey look, I just saw this on CNBC today.
Can you just like, help me understand again, like you're physician, You go learn about what happens when interest rates go up 400 basis points or win. You know, there's a 40 year I end supply on apartment supply and what that does to the underlying fundamentals of an asset class.
That's why you call us, and we have that conversation with you. That is so amazing. And what I love about what you just said, like as you're talking to physicians about this, it's like what should physicians do? What kind of questions do they ask? Everything that you said that physicians should be asking you and really [00:15:00] expecting from Lighthouse and expecting from any firm that they're working with in terms of real estate investing is exactly what a patient should ask a surgeon before a procedure.
Every single thing you just said. How many times have you done this? What's your experience level? What's your complication rate? All of those things are basically what you just articulated. And so if as a physician, if I think about this as, okay, I'm talking to this real estate investment firm and I wanna know, I don't have no idea where to start.
And I think about it as these are professionals. Who have longevity in their field. What would I expect somebody to ask of me as a professional? They want me to do a procedure for them? And everything you just said right down to the access point, the idea that they have communication with you.
They can reach you if they need you. This is how you can get in touch with me 24 hours a day. Everything you just said is a perfect parallel for what we are trying to deliver as surgeons and physicians, and I love that the way you articulate that as soon as you were talking, that really resonated with me.[00:16:00]
The other thing that I really love that you said about Lighthouse is that everything is vertically integrated, that you're not outsourcing this stuff. if I call and ask a question about a specific. Idea or specific property, you're not having to call somebody in another state to get this. This is all in one place, and as a result, there is a level of assurance for me as an investor that I know that, you're not calling somebody else to get this, or this is somebody who's in house that you know, that you trust.
And so if I'm talking to you about my investments, the person that you have in-house to answer that question is somebody you also have a relationship with. That's powerful. it is, and candidly not how things have been done on the private real estate side. And you know, it's funny you said that I've never thought about interviewing my physician before, but now that you say that, I feel like I need to take the approach that we do here and apply that, medicine as well.
So that's certainly a takeaway for me. But no, you're absolutely right. And candidly, like if you look at, you know, private real estate, this is not. A new industry. It's been around a long time, but [00:17:00] oftentimesthe way a lot of investors have gotten into these investments has been through brokers or been through advisors, and there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, I think, again, to each his own right?
But again, I think what's becoming more mainstream is again, firms like ly zone that wanna build direct relationships with their investors because it is a long-term partnership. It is like a mini marriage, so to speak. Right? and sometimes it can last a long time.
And so you wanna make sure that you can talk to these people and that you understand who the people are at the firm. You understand who the head of asset management is. 'cause you've heard 'em on a webinar. You've talked to him personally. Like again, that's the type of access we wanna provide
To our investors, and we think that's really gonna be the next evolution of this business you know, building, these types of long-term relationships and partnerships. That's so amazing. you mentioned residents, and I wanna come back to this because I think sometimes physicians who are early in their careers, they're building a practice or they're, building, relationships with their new, other doctors.
I mean, it's a very stressful [00:18:00] time. You're learning curve is basically vertical when you walk out of residency in your first two years in private practice, sometimes I feel like for a lot of these doctors, they've. May think they don't have time to invest. I don't have time to do this. This is not something, I mean, my head's going a billion different directions.
When people first start talking to you at Lighthouse, what kind of time commitment should they be looking at as they're first sitting down to have these conversations with you? And again, that's one of those things that I've noticed , especially with physicians, is very much a preference because what we try to do on our team is to try to compress that learning curve.
'cause look, it is a lot. You get like an investor deck and an offering memorandum that's 20 pages and it's got a pro forma in there. It's got information about the market, the business plan, the fees, and you gotta understand how these things work. And so what we do is we really want to compress that learning curve so that you're not, and then there's a private placement memorandum, which is essentially the governing document [00:19:00] of these investments.
And they're wrong, right? Mm-hmm. It's like, think of a terms of service, right? Like there, they can be 50, 60 pages. Some people wanna read every. Part of that, and they want to see our track record and they wanna understand the org charts of the business and like, so all of that is available that's gonna be a time consuming process.
no doubt. But I also understand you're taking your harder earned money and you're investing it. Some people wanna dive into those details and wanna understand how it works and like, we wanna make sure that we can provide all the information that you need to make an informed decision.
But some people. don't have time for that. And again, don't even know where to start looking. Right. so a big part of our business that we're gonna be making sure that we're providing is education in a lot of different mediums. some people prefer things like podcasts, like what we're doing right now.
and we're gonna make sure that we provide. Sessions that are all about manager due diligence. So what questions you should be asking, what are some red flags to look for? And then,some people though that I talk to, like we have [00:20:00] an hour long conversation. We go through the deck, we go through the fees, and
that's enough for them to make an investment decision. And they can look at our track record and they say, okay, you know what I'm comfortable with starting with something small. And then if you do what you say you're gonna do, maybe we'll do more business down the line. I think it very much is a personal decision as far as how much time you want to allocate to this.
What we want to provide at Light Zone is one. The ability for prospective investors to come, have these types of conversations with us directly. And sometimes it takes two calls, sometimes it takes three calls. there's no limit here to, oh, can you talk to us? that's the beauty of this whole thing.
Then we also wanna create on-demand resources where maybe you're driving on your car ride home and you wanna listen to a podcast like this and you can do so at your leisure. And again, do so audibly, maybe go for a walk. That's how I personally like to ingest information a lot especially stuff like this that can be dense, alright, to be on the move.
So it very much depends. But we wanna provide for people like to learn in all sorts of different ways [00:21:00] and we wanna meet them where they're at. In that regard, and in their investor journey. That's huge. I think, 'cause as I'm sitting here thinking about how do we get physicians into investing, how do we get them to actually embrace this idea of real estate investing?
And especially working with Lighthouse, one of the things I kind of thinking about are what are the general obstacles that we have to getting into this realm? What keeps us as doctors from approaching it? And I think that's a big one. I think. We as physicians, of course, you know, and I think this is getting better, but in general, like my generation, I graduated in 93.
We had no business training. We had no business education whatsoever. So everything that I have learned, I have had to learn on the fly. I've had to, you know, like you said, listen to podcasts or watch CNBC or anything that I've had to do to collect that. Thankfully, my husband has a great head of business.
Office manager is amazing, so I've learned a lot from them, but I would definitely be that person if I was sitting down with you at Lighthouse, it's like, okay, give me a couple of videos to watch. Give me some stuff to read, and then let's sit [00:22:00] down and talk for an hour, because I would definitely need help assimilating that information.
So I'm really glad that you. Kind of phrase this in a sense, is this journey is gonna look different. The way you take in this information is gonna be different. No two doctors are gonna walk in with the same experience level and you're catering to all of these people to meet them where they are, no matter what kind of business education that they've had.
And sometimes that's none. Yeah. 100% Very common. very common. So, Lightstone on at one point of correction. I know you said Lighthouse. Lightstone is the name of our company. But yeah, no, all good. But that's really it. Again, especially now, because we have people that really run the spectrum of real estate investing experience and like, honestly, there are a lot of physicians.
That are quite experienced on this end. Right. and that Have built, significant portfolios of rental properties or significant portfolios of investing across multiple managers. And like, yes, we help you consider us, but you should diversify your manager exposure as well.
And so there's a lot of people [00:23:00] that do that. Andwe just want. help wherever we can. I'm a firm believer that you really do have to give to receive. And so part of what that means is like, how can we give out as much information and much education and time more importantly, so that people feel comfortable.
Like the last thing you want is for someone to feel rush in this type of decision, and then they fund their investment. And then you can hear that they're unsure and, yeah, second thoughts because maybe they didn't, they fully understand it. And so the education comes after the fact and you have to really bring them back.
so we wanna really prevent that. And part of that is again, goes back to the beginning, but to your point, like people, sometimes they just don't know the right questions to ask. And so we try to help, create that catalyst early on in the conversation to really understand where someone wants to be with their investing.
Yeah. So like I'm hearing you're talking about your approach at Lightstone and that you're merely making space for people to ask these questions. And definitely as you're talking, I hear that as a green flag, that you know you're not [00:24:00] pressuring investors, you're giving them space. You're actually hearing where their experience level is.
'cause I'm sure that's part of what you're doing as you're interacting with investors, with physicians, you're getting a feel for their experience level and their knowledge level. So let's say you have a physician and you're trying to give them some advice, and definitely, I think Lightstone has a lot of green flags, but you also mentioned red flags.
What kind of red flags should doctors look for if they are looking for real estate investments? They're actually looking at different places. They're shopping, they're listening to this podcast, they're interested in talking to Lightstone, but what kind of red flag should we be looking for as we're going through this process?
Yeah, I mean, we talked about one of 'em earlier and I would say leverage is a big one, right? How much debt is being put on a property because, you know, I tell you, I've had conversations with prospective investors and they'll send me decks of other managers and they're like, why ?
You're showing a 15% IRR. Or 15% annualized return over this investment and [00:25:00] this other manager's showing the 25. why can't you do that? And so I'll look at the deck and I'll say, well, look, these are very aggressive underwriting assumptions, but the biggest one being that, they're borrowing it 85% of the toll project costs.
And what debt does is it can magnify returns in both directions, right? So when you take on a lot of debt. you become very vulnerable to volatility in the market. And that can work out in your favor. Sometimes like Are levered. You can get really strong returns, but you can also get completely wiped out.
Yeah. And something that we focus on is, a big part of our thesis. 'cause really lights start at its core. We really are a family office. we are really starting to bring outside investor capital in. For the very first time. But if you look at our $12 billion in assets, 90% of that is our own capital base.
And so first thing we always think is preservation of wealth. Preservation of wealth, right? like Warren Buffet's, number one, rule of investing. Don't lose money. Rule number [00:26:00] two, number one, right? and so we very much believe that at Lightstone, and point of that means don't take on too much leverage.
Second is really just looking at the track record. And again, like we have blemishes on a track record. you don't invest for 40 years across multiple market cycles like the GFC. You haven't been punched in the face a few times it happens. But is this a recurring trend?
Were you handing properties back to the bank during periods that the market was doing quite well, because that's maybe a red flag. how were you operationally structured? What's the experience of your team like, for instance, our head of investments has been at the firm for 15 years.
Our head of multifamily investments at the firm for 10 years. so they've been investing in the space and at the firm for very long periods of time. And so what you see is we look at our track record, you see it's the same people that were generating those returns 10, 15 years ago. Are the same people employed by the firm today versus if you look at a firm and you say.
This firm's been around for two years [00:27:00] and this guy's, maybe he just went out on his own. And that's not to say that they're bad managers, but it's just something you have to consider when you're making an investment decision. Right. So I think those are red flags. And then again, what becomes a little more challenging for especially a physician if you're not experiencing this space, is to know what aggressive underwriting assumptions are.
if you've never looked at 'em like you don't know, it's tough for you to, I've been in the real estate business for over a decade, so I can spot it. Mm-hmm. Pretty easily. But that's where it becomes a little more challenging. And that's why again, doing diligence on the manager is a very critical part of that investment decision framework.
That's huge. And that's such great information, especially like the way you describe Lightstone as a family, that this is a family. and again I'm gonna draw this parallel back to doctor's offices, because I feel like, you know, as we are talking about real estate investing and we're sort of drawing these parallels between the medical arena and real estate investing.
It's gonna start to come alive. 'cause [00:28:00] that's where it comes alive for me. So like anytime patients come to your office and they see the same employees over and over and over, you've had the same nurse for 10 years. You've had the same receptionist for 15 years. That gives a sense of security to the person walking in your door.
It's like, okay, I am not seeing a new face every single time. What's going on in this office that I'm seeing this rapid turnover and. As physicians who run offices, that's important to us because that office is the face of our operation, right? Because that's the first person the patient sees is not necessarily you.
It's gonna be the people working in your front office. And it's the same thing you're talking about at Lightstone, as I'm talking to you as a potential investor. And I ask, How long have you been doing this? And you've been doing this for over a decade.
You have one of your managers been here for 15 years. That's gonna give me a lot of security. That's gonna make me feel really good talking to you and trusting you with my money because I look at you and go, okay, this is a company that not only has longevity, and I kind of wanna come back to this too, 'cause you mentioned this, that there has been some times, as happens to all of us, that you got [00:29:00] punched in the face by a situation that everywhere, in every professional realm, right?
I love the fact that you verbalized that. I love the fact that you said it. I would actually be really worried if it's like, we've never had a downturn, 'cause then you start wondering how honest that is. You know, if you talk to a physician who says they've never had a complication, they're lying straight up 100%.
You lie, ain't no way. Because this is the nature of what we do. The nature of what we do in the worlds we work in are unpredictable. It's all a question of how we approach it. And then I think if you have the ability to control for every single thing you can control for, you're working with trustworthy people, you understand the risk.
You're actually investing with people, like you said, who have skin in the game. Those things are all making you a smarter investor. Just like as patients approach an office that has that kind of stability. Hopefully what you'll draw on as a patient's, like, okay, well I've checked out this office and they seem like they're pretty good when I look at all of these metrics.
So I think it's really cool, like the way that you talk about Lightstone and the [00:30:00] experience you guys have, I think it's amazing. Like it makes me really interested in investing with you as we're talking because of what. Your company does because of what you do. I think it's really cool. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Yeah, and look, and it's something we're really excited about. Again, while we've been around for 40 years, we're now just coming to the market and launching, our offerings directly to investors. And what's really so unique about us relative to what most investors can access across the market is.
Generally so something I didn't really touch on is when people invest, or the decisions they can make is, do you want to invest in an individual deal or do you want to invest in like a fund structure, Right. At Leadstone, what we do is that because we put so much of our own capital in these deals we are only providing deals that have high conviction.
As an example, we just closed on a multi-tenant industrial park in Greenville, South [00:31:00] Carolina. We've already closed on it without raising a dime. And what that means is afterwards investors can come into the deal thereafter it same price that we paid. But if we don't raise any money, we're still doing the deal.
Typically the way it works is manager finds the deal, manager raises all the capital. Usually they raise 95% of the equity. To 98% of the equity and they put one to 5% of their own money in the deal, and then they close on that transaction. Us, we take down the deal ourselves using our own balance sheet, and then we go try to raise money and backfill some of that equity.
But we will always maintain a minimum of 20% of our own money and the deal. So it's a very different proposition because we don't know if we're gonna raise all that money we owe. We may not. And so we're comfortable even if we have 50, 60% of our money in the deal, and not just tells you it's a different level of conviction when no [00:32:00] one else in the market right now is taking that type of balance sheet risk and saying, okay, I'm gonna put $20 million of my own money in this deal and I hope I can raise 10 of it.
But if not, like,no other manager can do that. And so it's just a very different type of. Business that we're running at Lightstone. So again, we're really excited to open up our doors, and bring people into, the family at Lightstone. And again, like my job at the firm is literally.
In a word, capital formation is a fancy term for just saying we want to create a unique investor experience, right? I've been doing this specifically investor relations and working with the clients, like physicians and many others for over six years. And we are gonna build that experience at Lightstone and that again, people wanna be in and people feel comfortable in it, that you can sleep at night knowing that your money is safe with us.
And that's our goal. I love. Jonathan, you guys are doing amazing work and I love how like you use the phrase skin in the game, but you're not just [00:33:00] using it as a phrase. You guys really do. I mean, you really are actually putting your money where your mouth is and I think as an investor, I think as a doctor, I think as anybody who's listening to this podcast who has contemplated jumping into real estate investing, I think you have really encouraged them to take that next step and reach out, which is.
So in credible, I think this is not just about your current investing state. This is a, legacy proposition. This is something that becomes, not even just retirement. This is something that you're going to have ongoing for your kids. And anytime you're talking about that to a position, to a parent or person, I think it speaks really loudly, but it also speaks really well of Whitestone and it's really exciting to learn about everything you're offering to doctors.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Lee, this was fun. I really appreciate the conversation and, yeah, hopefully we'll get to talk again soon. Oh my gosh. You have an open door anytime you wanna come back on the pod, anytime you wanna come back. And teach us some more about real estate [00:34:00] investing.
You have an open door to come back. Scalpel and Sword is always here for you. And to reach out to Lightstone Direct, For anybody who's listening to the podcast that's wanting to invest, what's the best way they can get in touch with you? The best place to find us is lightstone direct.com right now.
So again, because this is center new, we're actually built, you can go to lightstone group.com if you wanna Learn more about our firm, lightstone direct.com. you can fill out our interest form. We'll get in contact with you. they'll also allow you to stay connected with us.
We're actually releasing some really good educational white papers that, again, talk about why we're doing this, the benefits of industrial real estate. What separates us from maybe some other crowdfunding platforms out there. and a lot of other educational content coming down the pipeline.
you can also reach out to me directly. My email is j Spitz, J-S-P-I-T-Z, at like stone direct.com. Again, would love to get, if someone's just getting started on their real estate investing journey and just wants to chat, I'm happy to do that as well. any value that I can add in that regard, [00:35:00] would love to.
Fabulous, and we will put the website and your email in the show notes so our listeners can reach out to you. Thank you so much for being here. I learned a ton, so I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Lee. It was great. This was fun. Oh, for me too. For all of our listeners at the Scalpel and Sword, thank you so much for joining us and until next time, be at Peace.