Although Marc Kulick and Joe Loeffler, partners in privately-held real estate investment firm Vesta Capital, grew up knowing each other through Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, it was years into their careers before the idea of forming a professional partnership came about.
Ironically, the partnership was formed after Loeffler turned down a project Kulick had pitched to him that his previous company was working on.
“I told him, ‘I'm not going to back your deal, but I like you a lot, so I'm interested in working with you,’” Loeffler said. “And he thought about it for about a month, and he decided that he wanted to take the risk.”
The two stayed in touch over the next month. Kulick, who’d been working for a small Australian real estate firm based in Austin, decided it was time to go out on his own. He put in his notice in early 2017. He and Loeffler closed on their first Vesta deal that June.
The company now owns 35 assets that total more than 9,500 units. Their properties range in size from 132 units to 600 units.
“It's better than I would have expected,” Loeffler said of Vesta’s success, “but I think it's a shadow of what it will be.”
Loeffler said the business brings a special kind of pleasure with it, knowing that people live their lives and experience so many things in their properties.
“They find their girlfriends or boyfriends, they get married. They have their fights, they have their moments of reflection and rest. They go on to raise their children,” he said. “It's incredible to me that people will spend not just decades in these apartments, but their whole lives. There's a certain pride that happens in my property.”
Although they ended up in the same place, Loeffler’s and Kulick’s paths into real estate were very different. Loeffler grew up in the business; in high school, he worked for Block Real Estate Services as part of an internship program and learned more about property and construction management, but after college his career veered more toward the financial side. His path included working in Hungary advocating for European Monetary Policy and working with arbitrage negotiation in Belgium.
Kulick kind of stumbled into real estate in college; one of his first jobs was as a leasing agent for Naismith Hall, a private dorm at the University of Kansas. He ended up leasing for several companies during college and then got a job as a leasing agent in Oklahoma City after he graduated.
“The best way to put it is that I never intended to make a career in leasing, but I never got out of the industry,” he said. “I’m blessed that I have this unique ability to tell people that — totally accidently — I had 10 years of experience in property management before I started the firm.”
Different approaches, same philosophy
Like their backgrounds, Loeffler’s and Kulick’s approach to giving back to the Jewish community is different — although they both firmly believe in and are passionate about Jewish philanthropy.
“I think that the resiliency of our community, in part, comes from the financial security we have that we can take care of ourselves, because nobody else is going to take care of the Jewish community,” Loeffler said. “We can take care of other people too, but to be a really strong community, we have to take care of ourselves first.”
Loeffler is a philanthropist who also gives his time to various boards and committees. He’s involved with many organizations, including Jewish Federations of North America’s Young Leadership Cabinet, the Orthodox Union and World ORT, a Jewish global education network. He’s also involved with Chabad on the Plaza and Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, currently serving on its board of directors. He recently sponsored the community Purim celebration at Children’s Mercy Park.
“My love is the Kansas City Jewish community," Loeffler said. "... I'm on Team Kansas City Jewish, and if there are tools that help grow that, that's where I'm at."
Kulick says Loeffler is “probably more globally focused” when it comes to supporting the Jewish community — as in supporting a variety of Jewish organizations — while he himself is a passionate supporter of Chabad (even though he’s not Orthodox, which many people think when they hear about his strong connection to Chabad).
His family has known Rabbi Mendy Weinberg since 1994, and although Kulick was bar mitzvahed at Congregation Beth Shalom, it was Rabbi Weinberg who was his bar mitzvah tutor. In college, Kulick was involved with KU Chabad when Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel was just starting.
Before Vesta really took off, Kulick made a pledge to himself that he’d give back to Chabad if the company made money — now, with every deal that closes, he makes donations to the Chabad branches here in Kansas City and Lawrence, as well as to several rabbis he’s close with in Oklahoma City, where he currently resides.
“I think, at its core, Chabad has such a beautiful vision of Judaism and what it means to be a Jew that that’s where I find the most attraction,” he said.
Kulick says Loeffler's extensive involvement with so many Jewish organizations is something to aspire to, but for now, he’s content to maintain his “hyperfocus” in how he supports the Jewish community. He stresses that there’s more to come — for him, philanthropy is something that should evolve, not remain stagnant. In the future, he hopes to start a scholarship fund for Jewish families who want to send their children to The Barstow School, where he graduated from high school.
Everybody has their own way of giving back to the community, he said, and although his and Loeffler's approaches are different, both are needed.
“We have very different lives,” Kulick said, “but we learn a lot from each other and really gain something from each other.”
By Lacey Storer, Assistant Editor
