Leading Voices in Real Estate

Jesse Stein, Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb, brings us up to date on Airbnb generally and focuses on Airbnb’s partnerships with institutional owners of apartments to facilitate the option for their residents to “Airbnb” their units. On May 20, I had the opportunity to sit down with Jesse at my kitchen table in Sonoma County...

Hamid Moghadam, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Prologis, shares his career wisdom and the business strategy behind the world’s largest REIT. Recorded on May 13 at the Prologis headquarters on Pier One in San Francisco, this conversation with Hamid Moghadam has been on my bucket list since the inception of this podcast.

Sharon Wilson Géno, President of NMHC, and Matt discuss the public policy and public perception challenges around the apartment industry’s role in addressing our nation’s housing shortage. The systemic housing shortage has become one of the top social and political issues impacting our country today.

Alice Carr, CEO of Blackstone’s affordable housing operating company, April Housing, shares her “why,” Blackstone’s commitment to preserving this housing long term, and the benefits of scale in this sector. April Housing is Blackstone’s affordable housing operating platform, sitting alongside other Blackstone operating businesses like LINC, Livcor, EQ Office, and others.

At a Fireside Chat at the Annual ULI Arizona Trends Day, Francis Najafi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pivotal Group, shares with Matt his approach to investing through cycles and why strategy is important, but culture and core values are what build a legendary business platform. Pivotal Group is a private equity and real estate investment firm, known for its innovative role in complex in...

Doug Weill, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Hodes Weill, provides insights on the current capital markets and pathways for managers to access institutional capital for real estate. Hodes Weill is one of the real estate industry’s leading capital advisory firms, expanding from its base as a placement agent into broader capital advisory and infrastructure.

Steve Kimmelman, Founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of Redwood Living, shares how “doing one thing really well” brought his unique product vision for build to rent housing to life. Redwood Living is a build to rent owner/operator/developer based in Cleveland, Ohio, hallmarked by its 100+ unit, low density project on essentially the same general acreage as a 300 unit traditional garden style apart...

Gary Beasley, CEO and Co-Founder of both Waypoint Homes, the first single family rental housing company to go public, and now Roofstock, discusses business strategy, building one of the first single family rental companies to achieve scale, and how SFR is a part of the strategy around the housing shortage in our country. Gary is one of the true innovators in the single family rental business, one...

Brad Inman, founder and prior CEO of Inman, talks about trends, headlines, and the ecosystem of the single family home resale business. Brad is a journalist, thought leader, and unstoppable entrepreneur.

Michael Covarrubias, Chairman and Co-CEO of TMG Partners and Cyrus Sanandaji, Founder and CEO of Presidio Bay Ventures share what is really happening to real estate in downtown San Francisco and drill down into the underlying political backdrop. Michael and Cyrus, two of the most active Bay Area real estate developers and investors, have been leaders in the effort to help restore the city in this...

Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics and co-host of the podcast Inside Economics, shares his insider take on the economy and real estate market looking forward into 2024. I closed out last year with an episode featuring Mike Van Konynenburg from Eastdil Secured and Chris Hartung, who forecast the difficult year for real estate investing we had in 2023.

Daniel Radek, President of First Washington Realty, discusses resilience in the retail apocalypse, co-leadership, and culture. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, First Washington Realty is a national necessity retail owner and operator known for its neighborhood shopping centers located in densely populated communities.

Debbie Harmon, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Artemis, and Anar Chudgar, Co-President of Artemis, talk about finding opportunity in today’s market and the “force multiplier” effect of their investing through emerging managers. Artemis Real Estate Partners is a $10 B AUM real estate investment manager focused on middle market real estate investments across the equity and debt risk spe...

In September 2023, ZRG hosted a half-day symposium for real estate HR leaders in New York City, consisting of two panels. This is the second of those panels, featuring Amanda Fajak, President of ZRG culture consulting group, Walking the Talk, and Larry Krema, Managing Director in the Real Estate Practice of ZRG. They discuss how to create an actionable strategy for company culture.

Rick Caruso, founder and Executive Chairman of Caruso, owner of three of the top ten retail centers in the US, discusses the evolution of how he created breakthrough properties like The Grove, some of secrets of its success, as well as his civic and philanthropic activities in Los Angeles, including his recent run for Mayor. Rick’s innovative leadership and development thinking has led to the crea...

Stephanie Biernbaum, Chief People Officer of Hines, and Doug Holte, CEO of EXP by Hines, discuss change, innovation and striving to be a "beloved brand". In 2018, I had the privilege of sitting down with Gerald Hines to hear how he built one of the most respected, legendary names in the real estate business. This follow up conversation with Stephanie and Doug about their leadership in their respec...

Scott Rechler, Chairman and CEO of RXR, delves into office space, the current downturn in the market, and value and importance of civic leadership for our industry. This episode with Scott builds upon my last conversation with Colin Connolly of Cousins Properties on the state of the office sector, while going beyond the topic at hand and into the broader realm of the commercial real estate markets...

Colin Connolly, President and CEO of Cousins Properties, details their outperformance in Sun Belt trophy lifestyle offices and the broader office market. Cousins, a fully-integrated REIT, is solely focused on “trophy lifestyle office” properties in the Sun Belt region and has outperformed Class A office properties in its markets.

Caroline Johns, Pembroke’s Director of Sustainability, details their long-term perspective on sustainability investments and resilient real estate assets. Caroline is the second interview in this year’s third annual series on real estate and carbon.

Brad Dockser is the CEO and Co-Founder of GreenGen, a global firm dedicated to helping real estate owners and investors move towards a zero–carbon future. In this week’s interview with Brad, we kick off our third annual month-of-August focus on climate change and the built environment.

Cathy Marcus, Global Chief Operating Officer and Head of U.S. Equity at PGIM Real Estate, discusses the power of playing the long game in real estate. A recurring theme throughout the Leading Voices in Real Estate podcast is just how essential a long-term vision is.

Matt Pestronk, Co-Founder and President of Post Brothers, details how he and his brother Mike became leaders in Philadelphia multifamily and are now taking their expertise in adaptive reuse of office buildings and ground up development to Washington, DC and other markets. When they founded their Philadelphia-based company just before the great financial crisis of 2007-2008, they had no idea what k...

Constance Freedman, Founder and Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures, talks innovation in technology solutions and its impact on the real estate market. Moderne Ventures is a Chicago-based venture fund focused on technology firms that are disrupting the real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, hospitality, and home services industries.

Mitchell Silver, now Principal of Urban Planning at McAdams, explores the lasting impact of work-from-home and the recovery of our urban fabric post-pandemic. In this week’s rebroadcast, I brought Mitchell back to revisit our original podcast episode together from two years ago.

In honor of Sam Zell, real estate legend and trailblazer, we revisit our 2016 conversation about how he built his real estate empire. As the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Poland in 1939 as Hitler invaded, Sam’s life path is marked by resilience, controversy, and an insatiable drive to succeed.