Karbank Blog

Shortly after my father started Karbank Real Estate Company in 1950, he was asked by a client to manage some apartments in a less than desirable part of town.  On Thanksgiving Day that year, he received a phone call from the police saying that there had been an explosion in one of the apartments.  Hat in hand, he explained apologetically to my mother and the other guests at the Thanksgiving dinner that he had to leave to respond to an emergency.

It turned out that a deadbeat tenant at the apartment had skipped-out on his lease in the middle of the night and took the stove with him.  Not bothering to turn off the gas, the tenant plugged the gas line with a potato.  The inevitable explosion, which fortunately injured no one, resulted in my father enduring endless ribbing from family and friends about new recipes for potato-based dishes (flaming potato soufflé, flash roasted potatoes, potatoes baked Alaskan, instant French fries, etc.).  It also convinced my father to get out and stay out of managing residential real estate.

Steven Karbank

A client of our company was looking for a piece of land on which to build a building.  After a windshield tour of various sites, the client decided to walk one of the sites a few days later.  While doing so he was terrified when he came across some bones that appeared to be human.  Deeply concerned, he photographed the bones and emailed copies of the photos to the police.  The police investigated and determined that the bones were---[insert scary organ chords from a Vincent Price horror movie]---probably from a small deer or a coyote.  Nevertheless, in any real estate deal, it’s better to do more due diligence than less. 

Our company was in the process of finalizing a long-term lease extension with a bank on one of our properties.  The deal required us to make a few hundred thousand dollars of tenant improvements to the premises.
  

During that time, it so happened that the plastic coin jar into which I put my spare change fell on the floor one evening.  I picked up the coins and put them into another container.  The next day, I took the coins to the coin counting machine at the bank.  While there, I ran into the banker with whom I’d been working on the real estate deal.  He seemed a bit amused that I was loading the coins into the counting machine.  We talked for a few minutes about the real estate deal.

When I returned to the office, I emailed him:  “Yes, I now have $290 cash to use for the TIs [tenant improvements]…!  I’m checking all my pockets and hope to come up soon with the other $199,710!”

Steven Karbank