Justin Pelsinger helped build LIC-based Charney Companies brick by brick.
After studying Philosophy at Penn State and getting his Masters in Real Estate Finance from NYU, Pelsinger jumped into the NYC real estate game headfirst, securing the first unpaid internship he could find and turning it into a full-time position.
The COO partnered with Sam Charney before the developer even had an office. Pelsinger, a Long Island native who lives with his wife and two children just blocks from Charney’s HQ, personally leased and property managed the company’s first multifamily acquisition, put together the financials for each one of Charney’s 11 projects to date, and oversaw the company’s growth from just himself and Sam to over two dozen employees.
The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Did you always want to work in real estate?
I originally wanted to go to law school. I was interested in real estate, but my family is full of lawyers, so I thought that was the path I was supposed to go down.
What changed your mind?
My older brother was in law school and sat me down and asked, “Do you like to write a lot? Do you like to read a lot?” I said, “No, I’m not really into those things.” And he looked at me and said, “You don’t want to go to law school.” So I decided to go to NYU for what I call my conversion degree to get into NYC real estate.
What was your first job in the real estate industry?
I worked at a title insurance company where I learned how deeds were transferred, how ownership was done, how mortgages were recorded, things like that.
When did you first realize that you wanted to be on the development side?
When I was at NYU, I was looking for internships, and the first one that I could get just happened to be at a development firm. Since I hadn’t studied construction, this was my first exposure to what development was. I liked how a developer makes all the decisions, but isn’t wedged into one particular thing. Some days he’s in the office, some days he’s in the field, some days he’s in a design meeting, some days he’s talking to a finance guy. He never gets bored.
How did you meet Sam Charney?
It was 2015 and I was looking for something a bit more entrepreneurial, and a mutual friend introduced us. We met at a bar in Midtown East and hit it off. After we’d been drinking for a bit, he asked if I knew about financial models, and I said yes, it was something I had studied. So he showed me a financial model on his phone and asked, “Can you make this?” The model seemed familiar so I asked him to go over to the third tab, which he did. I said, “Not only can I make this financial model, that’s my model that I made five years ago.” Sam looked at me and said, “I found the Wizard of Oz.” Everything about it was just so serendipitous.
How would you describe your partnership with Sam?
We have very different personalities. He’s louder, he’s more likely to take a risk. I’m a little bit more thoughtful, definitely more conservative. Our partnership works because we have a lot of commonalities, but there’s enough divergence in how we think that we can approach deals slightly differently.
What’s it like being Sam’s COO?
When we decided to start our own property management and brokerage business as part of Charney Companies, Sam said something along the lines of, “We’ll figure it out.” This is a classic line that COOs and CFOs hear from a founder, and what it generally means is you will figure it out. You know that whatever is being said by the founder in that meeting is going to be done by you.
Do you enjoy that part of the role?
I prefer to be the person who’s behind the scenes. Founders inevitably feel really lonely. It’s their name that’s out there. If you work with Charney, you’ll be working directly with me, and you’ll get to know who I am. My personality is such that I work really well one-on-one with people. Being in the limelight is not something that helps me execute on deals.
What were the early days like at Charney Companies?
I did our entire first project in Excel, no Quickbooks. I cut all the checks, I was answering the phones. We took turns taking out the trash. I had to get the postage, send out the mail. It was really a startup. Neither Sam nor I are from real estate families so it was just us. Our first office, which is just down the block from here, is a weed shop today.
How did being hands-on during that phase of the company’s growth help you in your role as COO today?
When you grow to a point where you’re managing people, it’s helpful for you to have an appreciation for what they’re going through. It ultimately makes you a better manager if you’ve done their job for them. Candidly, a lot of people on the finance and business side don’t have the background in creative thinking that would give them a more holistic view of the world.
What’s the biggest mistake you see in real estate finance today?
I see a lot of people not appreciating that time is risk. It’s something that everybody is taught in Finance 101, but people ultimately can’t help themselves with chasing the bottom number on the term sheet. They’re negotiating for the last five basis points when they should be focused on getting the deal executed.
What’s your approach to negotiating a deal?
I learned pretty quickly that not everybody has the personality where they can just cut to the chase. Some people need to kind of have the back and forth negotiation, and some people don’t. So when I’m speaking to construction lenders, I know where I need to be, but I’m trying to use my social skills to be able to negotiate a deal that works within the parameters of what the economics have to be. I can’t give away things. I need to be able to get the numbers that we need. But my approach is that I don’t need to be an ass while doing it.
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