Orange County Real Estate Investor | About Us

Red Oak Investments seeks to redevelop urban property in ways that contribute to vibrant and sustainable neighborhoods. We create sensitive projects in partnership with our city planners. We deploy capital responsibly and profitably for our investment partners.

Our Mission

To serve God in the marketplace by being a good, profitable, and lasting real estate developer.

Guiding Principles

To build excellent projects.
To look after our people, their families, and their careers.
To implement the best ideas in urban planning.
To treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves.
To improve the neighborhoods and cities where we build.
To maintain the highest ethical standards in our business.
To think long term.

Principals

Select One:

Joseph M. Flanagan

Joseph M. Flanagan

Joe Flanagan co-founded Red Oak Investments in September 2005 with Alex Wong. Together they have entitled more than 1,000 multi-family units in Southern California and currently have over 500 units in development.

Prior to co-founding Red Oak, Joe spent 9 years in a multitude of roles at Shea Properties. Before Shea Properties, Joe worked for a specialist firm on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Flanagan is married to his wife Maura and proud of their six children. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and a current member of the Board of Regents.

Andrew B. Nelson

Andrew B. Nelson

Andrew B. Nelson is a principal with Red Oak Investments, an urban real estate development company focused on infill neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Orange County. The firm creates value by redeveloping and converting obsolete commercial property into multi-family and mixed use projects. The firm has special expertise in project entitlements requiring general plan updates, zone changes, and adaptations to sensitive historic adjacencies.

Andrew first joined Red Oak in 2006 to direct entitlement and development efforts on three Southern California apartment sites, one of which was Orange County’s first ever entitlement of a mixed-use development exceeding 100+ du/acre (385 du, 10,000 sf retail, $100M value).

In addition to his work at Red Oak, Andrew also managed the orderly liquidation of bank-owned properties for Lehman Brothers Bank, asset managed roughly one third of a $12B Class A multifamily portfolio for Irvine Company Apartment Communities, and directed a wide range of acquisitions, financing and development activities for Wasatch Advantage Group, a private regional affordable housing developer. Andrew also worked for several years in affordable housing equity investment with Highridge Costa Housing Partners (formerly Simpson Housing Solutions) in Los Angeles.

Andrew holds an MBA in Real Estate Finance from the University of Southern California and completed undergraduate work in English, Business and French at the University of Utah. He is an active member of ULI, and he and his wife of 13 years (Janie) live in Irvine with their four children.

Alex Wong

Alex is a co-founder of Red Oak Investments, an urban redevelopment company operating in California. Red Oak purchases commercial property for redevelopment as multi-family and mixed-use projects. Red Oak does complex land entitlement in high barrier markets, and is invested in the rehab and operation of foreclosed homes.

Prior to Red Oak, Alex was Trammell Crow Residential’s Managing Director responsible for one-third of Southern California. His projects represent 1,300 market-rate apartments and condos in Greater Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego County.

Prior to Trammell Crow, Alex directed the development staff at Community Corporation of Santa Monica. He held primary responsibility for the acquisition, entitlement, and finance of low-income buildings in affluent neighborhoods.

Alex earned a Bachelor Degree in Economics from Harvard. He plays jazz piano and tennis, occasionally preaches in church, and has two daughters with Michelle, his wife of 30 years. He is a Christian that aspires to serve God both at work and at home.

Board of Advisors

Select One:

Stephen J. Duffy

Managing Director, Moss Adams Capital

Mr. Duffy is a Managing Director and the leader of the real estate consulting and investment banking business in Moss Adams Capital. He has over 27 years of real estate consulting and capital markets experience. Mr. Duffy has been a partner at both Kenneth Leventhal & Company and Ernst & Young LLP. In addition, he has operating executive experience as a chief operating officer, principal and managing principal in the multi-family industry and the institutional real estate private equity sector. Mr. Duffy has worked with a wide variety of the leading private and public real estate operating companies across product types, the capital stack (equity investors and lenders), and domestic and international markets. He has significant experience in restructuring, capital markets and strategic planning and he has been involved in numerous capital transactions as well as mergers and acquisitions within the industry over a number of real estate cycles. He has spoken on these topics in a variety of industry forums over his career. Mr. Duffy is a full member of the Urban Land Institute. He has a B.S. in Economics as well as an MBA from Fordham University.

Kevin Andrade

Astrophysics Doctoral Candidate, UC Irvine

Kevin was a member of the senior management for Trammell Crow Residential and its spinoff, Mill Creek Residential Trust. During his 18 years with those companies, he led the development of approximately $1.5 billion of multi-family product in California, Washington and Oregon. He was also a member of the TCR Management Board and the Mill Creek Residential Investment Committee. He retired from Mill Creek Residential in 2013. Prior to TCR and MCR, he developed real estate in Central California for his own account. Kevin received his MBA from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. He holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and was a Hughes Fellow. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Fresno State University in 1985, Summa Cum Laude. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in astrophysics at University of California, Irvine. He is an advisory board member of Red Oak Investments, a private multifamily development firm based in Irvine, California. He also volunteers for Families Forward, a non-profit organization providing transitional housing and homelessness prevention services.

John Shea

Chairman, J.F. Shea Company

John has been running the J.F. Shea Company with his cousins Edmund and Peter since 1958. Together, the three Sheas have nurtured the J.F. Shea Company from a heavy construction company into a diversified real estate conglomerate. Shea Properties, the income property side of the company, has developed and currently owns 7,000 apartments and 5 million square feet of commercial real estate. Shea Homes, the homebuilding side of the company, is the largest privately-owned homebuilder in the United States. Outside of his considerable business accomplishments, John Shea’s life has been committed to two things: family—they are proud parents of eight children and grandparents to 23 children, and helping those less fortunate.

Brinton Young

Entrepreneur

Most recently, Brinton served as Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning at Earthlink Networks from April 2001 to September 2005. In that role he had responsibility for identifying and evaluating major investment opportunities in technology or business development, as well as large acquisitions. From 1996 to 2001, he held various vice-presidential positions at Earthlink in marketing, operations, and strategic planning. From 1989 to 1996, he was President of Young and Associates, a firm specializing in strategic planning for technology-based ventures and high-growth companies. From 1984 to 1989 he was a Partner at Fletcher and Company, where he provided similar consulting services. Prior to that, Brinton was a consultant for three years at the Boston Consulting Group, a large firm providing consulting in corporate strategy for Fortune 500 firms. Brinton holds a JD from Harvard Law School ’79, an MBA from Harvard Business School ’79 , and a BS in Physics from Yale ’74. Brinton is currently retired and building a go-kart for his son.