Adventures in CRE Audio Series

Commercial real estate professionals come from all backgrounds and all walks of life. Some start with the family business as a kid. Others study real estate in college and begin their career in the industry. But a large share of commercial real estate professionals start their careers in other fields, only to transition into real estate at some point in their career. In this week's episode of the...

Many A.CRE readers are young professionals and college students trying to navigate the job market in a recession. Finding a job in commercial real estate amidst the craziness of the COVID-19 pandemic can be challenging, especially for those with little to no experience in the industry. In this episode, we speak with Matthew Farrell, someone with direct experience finding his first job in CRE in th...

A lot of incredible real estate professionals have gone through the A.CRE Accelerator and we think sharing their stories will add value to your career. In this episode of the A.CRE Accelerators in Action series, Sam talks with Craig Cadwallader about what he has learned throughout his extensive career in real estate. In this episode, Craig shares his career path from an undergraduate degree in Com...

Commercial real estate is the business of building, leasing, managing and selling space . And the demand for and how that space is used is largely a function of human psychology and behavior. With the human-psyche turned on its head due to COVID-19, how we use and interact with space is going to change forever. And that change will greatly impact the economics of commercial real estate, including...

A lot of incredible real estate professionals have gone through the A.CRE Accelerator and we think sharing their career stories will add value to your career. In this episode of the A.CRE Accelerators in Action, Sam talks with Terry Kipp, a Senior Investments Associate at a family-owned real estate investment company. Terry's career story is one of deliberate networking and the opportunity to have...

In this special episode, Michael, Spencer, and Sam discuss there experience going through the Great Recession of 2008. As part of that discussion, they share insights and lessons learned from that time. They then offer advice, especially to those who are dealing with difficult financial or career circumstances and asking the question, what do I do now? Listen as the guys share personal aspects of...

In this special episode, Michael and Spencer discuss the changing work environmental in commercial real estate. More specifically, with the entire CRE workforce currently performing their duties remotely on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, a paradigm shift in how work is done in CRE is underway. Listen as Michael and Spencer imagine a world where more CRE professionals work remotely, where office...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. When the A.CRE Real Estate Financial Modeling Accelerator started we had a hypothesis about how to help people learn financial modeling in the shortest amount of time possible. It has been a success and come a long way since then. Today, o...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today is part two of our interview with Alex Zikakas. During our conversation we dive into Alex's brain and discover what he looks for when making a deal. It's really important that you are the person people trust. We also dive into what's...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are joined by an awesome guest, Alex Zikakas. Alex is the president and founder of capstone advisors, launched in 1996. Capstone is a diversified asset development and asset management company that has served as advisor and asset...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we have a great guest, Vicky Lee. Today we are talking about Vicky's career path and what she does on a day to day basis. Vicky is the vice president of development for Focus in Chicago. Vicky has over 10 years of real estate develop...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are joined by Jeff Wittenberg. Spencer and Jeff have known each other for a while. Jeff has a good idea of what employers are looking for as well as insight for candidates to have maximum career success. Jeff is the managing direc...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we have a special guest Ben Stevens. Today we are actually continuing a previous conversation. We are picking up where we left off from the last episode with Ben. Towards the end of Ben's time working on his MBA, he began writing a b...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are joined by Ben Stevens to talk about the birth of a LIHTC building. Ben Stevens is a project manager for a real estate development firm in Chicago. He holds an MBA in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are talking about A.CRE's new Real Estate Legal selection with Ron Rohde. We jump into the legal elements and how they coincide with the financial or deal level analysis. We also talk about the PSA and how it is an incredibly flui...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. We are also joined by our guest today Ron Rohde. Ron Rohde is a seasoned commercial real estate attorney practicing in Florida and Texas. He has over 10 years of experience with commercial transactions, leasing and investment. Ron is curre...

Welcome to the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am here once again with the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are talking about return metrics, pitfalls and potential. During this episode, we also discuss common misconceptions and how to take these return metrics and look at them together. We start off by discussing various metrics that a...

Welcome to Season Two of the A.CRE Audio Series! On this episode, I am joined by the creators of the Adventures in CRE website, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco. Today we are talking about thoughts and feedback from season one and diving into what to expect in season two. We are so thankful for all of our listeners and your support of season one. While season one had a lot of great content and i...

Welcome back to the A.CRE Audio Series. In this episode, we chat once again with the creators Adventures in CRE, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco, about the A.CRE Accelerator Program . The Accelerator is their premium training program designed to help people gain an in depth understanding and master institutional quality real estate financial modeling. During our conversation, we'll be diving de...

Welcome back to the A.CRE Audio Series! In this episode, Spencer Burton, Michael Belasco, and host, Sam Carlson are joined by Chris Collins, the Principal and Cofounder of Urban Pacific Development. Click here to learn more about Chris Collins and Urban Pacific. Over the course of Chris' 25 year career in commercial real estate, he has contributed to the acquisition, design, development, leasing,...

Welcome back to the A.CRE Audio Series! In this episode, Michael Belasco, Spencer Burton, and host, Sam Carlson, are joined by JP De Bruin, a Senior Investment Broker for a fast-growing brokerage in South Africa. Click here to learn more about JP De Bruin. This is an exciting episode, as we'll learn more about JP and get a revealing glimpse into what it takes to be a successful international real...

In this episode, host Sam Carlson, along with the creators of Adventures in CRE, Spencer Burton and Michael Belasco, speak with Lynn Gray, the Founder and CEO of Campus Scout, an innovative provider of strategic campus and recent graduate recruiting services and career coaching for young professionals. Click here to learn more about Lynn Gray. During this episode, we discuss Lynn's storied history...

In this episode, Michael Belasco, Spencer Burton, and host, Sam Carlson have a conversation with Alex Barake, a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at a top tier international real estate firm. Alex provides our readers with insider insight into how one can best position themselves to land their ideal role within commercial real estate. Click here to learn more about Alex. In this episode, we hear f...

In this episode, Michael Belasco, Spencer Burton, and host, Sam Carlson continue their conversation with Jim Spaeth, the Executive Director of the Lenard W. Woods Center for Real Estate Studies at University of North Carolina. Click here to learn more about Jim Spaeth. In part one of our conversation with Jim, we dove into discussion about advancing your real estate career with an MBA from applica...

In this episode, Michael Belasco, Spencer Burton, and host, Sam Carlson are joined by Jim Spaeth, the Executive Director of the Lenard W. Woods Center for Real Estate Studies at University of North Carolina. The four discuss an MBA in Real Estate, who its for, if its worth it, and how to get into a top MBA in Real Estate program. Click here to learn more about Jim. Throughout the episode, Jim prov...