The AFIRE Podcast

Melissa Román Burch is New York City Economic Development Corporation’s chief operating officer—and one of the speakers at the AFIRE Annual Member Meeting in New York City this September. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202408cast/ She says the five boroughs are home to more than a million buildings and unprecedented employment growth, with more private sector jobs than ever before. But the city’s h...

Mosaic Real Estate Investors CEO Ethan Penner, the latest guest on the AFIRE Podcast, doesn’t believe the office sector has hit bottom. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202407cast/ Yet, at the beginning of 2024, Penner and his business partner Chad Carpenter announced a new US office-focused real estate finance company, Reven Office REIT, that intended to raise $1 billion to provide office owners and...

Commercial real estate in 2024 is dominated by uncertainty. Midway through 2024, nobody is buying at prices people are willing to sell for, and banks lack any incentive to bridge the gap between asking prices and active offers. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202406cast/ …not to forget the looming question that AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson keeps coming back to: “How much will climate change cost us?” “L...

With all of the other troubles currently affecting commercial real estate, should ESG still be a priority? https://www.afire.org/podcast/202405cast/ Compliance with established environmental, social, and governance (ESG) became a critical measure of real estate performance over the past decade. But with the current slate of challenges faced by CRE—everything from high costs to building and infrast...

Affordable housing may be the most important issue facing the commercial real estate industry today. Statistics show a shortage of more than seven million homes in the US alone. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202404cast/ More than half a million people are experiencing homelessness, and high interest rates and a growing population are making housing more expensive for more people. So—how do we solv...

Many leaders believe this is the key to becoming fully immune to all future risks—but evading risk forever is just unrealistic. Risk plays a big part in commercial real estate. To thrive, it’s crucial to adopt a proactive approach to manage risks effectively. So how can commercial real estate investors thrive in a time of such incredible volatility, change and blindness? How do we thrive amid cons...

Technology can be enormously disruptive to commercial real estate. Remote work is responsible for the global devaluation of office properties. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the way we live and work. So what will be the effect of AI on institutional investment strategies? https://www.afire.org/podcast/202402cast/ To get at some answers, AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson talked to one of h...

Cognitive dissonance abounds in commercial real estate. On the one hand, the Fed is citing strong employment figures and predicting a soft landing. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202401cast/ And yet, the commercial real estate industry is navigating serious issues in the office sector. Will office distress trigger bank failures? Will those bank failures affect the broader economy? When will interes...

On the tail end of the hottest year on human record, it’s clear that climate change is already here—and not slowing down. In the years ahead, the effects of climate change will pose real hardships for billions of people around the world. The challenge of climate change is clear, especially for real estate, as explained in the first of this special two-part series. Now, in this second and final ent...

The year 2023 has been the hottest year in recent record—and it will likely be the coldest year for the rest of our lives. In the face of these record-breaking numbers and climate events, 2023 also proved to be a year that real estate investors lead the charge in confronting the constantly evolving challenges of climate change—including insurance rate hikes, migration and population changes, and t...

Despite the overwrought headlines and apocalyptic economic forecasts, office buildings still matter. At the same time, the use of office is changing and an increasing need for sustainability requires all office owners and developers to alter their approach. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202311cast/ According to Anthony Malkin of Empire State Realty Trust, the altered approach won’t be easy or busi...

Every headline suggest that our cities are in serious trouble. How will that impact real estate investors, what can be done about it, and what is the future of our cities? https://www.afire.org/podcast/202310cast/ In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Ed Glaeser—the Fred & Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and Chair of the Department of Economics at Harvard University—wrote of the future of...

A range of fundamental change is forcing real estate investors to closely examine how, where, and why they are investing. The change is not complete and investors have to learn how to adapt even as they don’t have a clear formula for how it might be done. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202309cast/ On this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, Mandi Wedin, Founder and CEO of Feroce Real Estate Advisors, dra...

Hans Nordby, the Head of Analytics and Research for Lionstone Investments, explains how demographic changes are transforming the construction, location, and value of commercial real estate across the board. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202308cast/ The challenges of inflation, interest rates, and back to the office can be overwhelming, but changing demographic forces may be the biggest story of ou...

Matt Pomeroy, Director of Valuation, Reporting, and Analytics for Chatham Financial, discusses the challenge of determining accurate valuations when the market is essentially frozen in place. Without comparable trades, how can investors know what they have? https://www.afire.org/podcast/202307cast/ Fast rising interest rates and fast shrinking demand for office space is a significant challenge for...

Scott Rechler, CEO of RXR Realty and Board Member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, discusses how 20% of extant office buildings may now be obsolete in the post-COVID era and how investors can transition to a new “regime” of real estate investing. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202306cast/ Real estate is going through a significant transition beyond the usual ups and downs of the economic cy...

Bill Ferguson, President and Carrie Nowicki, COO of the Ferguson Charitable Foundation Centers for Leadership Excellence, discuss how real estate can bring an entire generation of racially and ethnically diverse students into the industry. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202305cast/ The Centers for Leadership Excellence (CLE), sponsored by the Ferguson Charitable Foundation, has developed partnershi...

Parag Khanna, Founder & CEO of Climate Alpha and international bestselling author of seven books, including Move and Connectography, discusses how climate change, migration, and sophisticated data science can and should change investment strategy. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202304cast/ Beyond the immediate crisis of inflation, interest rate increases, and even bank failures, are far more impact...

Ethan Penner, CEO of Mosaic Real Estate Investors, reflects on the current landscape of real estate dislocation and how investors need to change their understanding of risks and opportunities. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202303cast/ How should I invest now—in this market? Will distress create meaningful discounts? If I buy now, am I catching a falling knife? Is the conservative deal of the past...

Michael Mandel, Co-Founder and CEO of CompStak, a marketplace for CRE data, discusses how the use of data is (and is not) changing the practice of global investing. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202302cast/ When it comes to big data, alternative data sets, data science, and analytics—how do we know if real estate investors approaching new data resources in the right way? How is data changing the g...

Jim Costello, Chief Economist for MSCI Real Estate, discusses the state of real estate investing in 2023 and the challenges of a very different economic climate. https://www.afire.org/podcast/ep202301/ Optimism seems to be rising in real estate firms despite the considerable economic and geopolitical headwinds investors face in 2023, but is that justified? Even if the Federal Reserve lets up in th...

While the real estate industry has long understood the need for data, it still struggles with connecting information to decision making. New strides in data science could change that. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202222cast/ According to Brian Biggs, Vice President of Research for Grosvenor Americas, advances in data availability and data science techniques are bringing new transparency to histor...

AFIRE CEO and podcast host Gunnar Branson recently sat down with Jacques Gordon of LaSalle Investment Management at a partner event for Informa’s Global Property Market Forum for a candid conversation about the future of global real estate investment. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202221cast/ As Global Strategist for LaSalle, Gordon has a long tenure of leadership and strategy for global instituti...

Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist for Capital Economics, joins the AFIRE Podcast with Gunnar Branson to talk about how global economics are “resetting” CRE markets. https://www.afire.org/podcast/202220cast/ The most recent quarter of 2022 has been a constant process of downgraded expectations for commercial real estate investors and managers. War in Europe, persistent inflation, and supply chai...

(Featuring Michael Cooper, President, Dream Unlimited) https://www.afire.org/podcast/202219cast/ The practice and expectations of investing across all industries is undergoing major upheaval and the key to stability will mean looking beyond profit for profit’s sake. While most think of disruption as an effect of technological change, this one is a product of environmental and social concerns. In t...