Apr 22, 2020
Mike Hananel, CEO of Strategic Growth Real Estate and Cecil Cummins Discuss the current situation, along with the short-term and long-term implications of COVID-19.
As the CEO of Strategic Growth Real Estate, Inc., the Commercial Real Estate Brokerage, Investment, and Property Management firm he founded in Los Angeles in 2012, Michael Hananel brings nearly thirty years of entrepreneurial experience in business operations and real estate management to the table. A third-generation real estate investor and second-generation real estate broker, Michael has a lifetime of experience in the real estate industry, including the founding, in 2006, of WNY Metro Horizon in Buffalo, NY, a company he grew to over 600 apartment units under management before he sold the company for $36.0 Million in early 2015.
As a devoted student of the economy, money and monetary policy, in 2005 Michael foresaw the housing crash and anticipated a massive downturn in the housing market in Los Angeles and nationwide. He began selling all of his apartment building investments in Los Angeles and encouraged his clients (whom he managed apartment buildings for) to do the same. He then began researching markets all around the United States to see if there would be a safer market to roll those funds into (for tax deferral purposes) that would withstand a nationwide housing downturn.
Buffalo, NY fit his investment criteria perfectly so he opened an office there and began making investments there and bringing many of his LA clients into the Buffalo market with him. In 2005, when he began investing in Buffalo, it was ranked by Moody's as the 72nd best real estate market of the 100 largest cities in America. When he sold in 2015 Kiplinger's Finance Magazine ranked Buffalo as the #1 real estate market in the country (of the 100 largest cities in America) during the Great Recession from 2007 to 2014. Michael's clients who invested with him in Buffalo made an average overall return of 312% (34% average annual return) during the Great Recession.