Today Matt interviews David Schless, the President of the American Seniors Housing Association, to discuss the impact of COVID on seniors housing and his thoughts on the future of this business post-pandemic. The first hot spot for COVID in the US was at a nursing home in Washington State; the seniors housing industry has been at the forefront in responding to the crisis for its vulnerable residents and its workers on the front lines. David discusses the tremendous response of the industry and the future of the seniors housing business, for which the demographic trends continue to suggest significant growth and opportunity.

David has served as ASHA’s President since its creation by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) in 1991. With over 30 years of industry experience, David has an extensive understanding of seniors housing research, policy and regulatory issues, and an intimate knowledge of the seniors housing business. He is currently involved with the Alzheimer’s Association Brain Ball Committee, the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living at Washington State University and serves on the editorial board of the Seniors Housing & Care Journal. David has been honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by both the University of Connecticut and the University of North Texas for his work on behalf of seniors.

David holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Center for Aging and Human Development at the University of Connecticut, and a Master of Science degree from the Department of Applied Gerontology/Center for Studies in Aging at the University of North Texas.

In our Leading Voices in Real Estate season five premiere, Matt is rejoined by Tammy Jones, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Basis Investment Group, a real estate investment manager primarily focused on debt and structured equity strategies. Tammy was a participant on the Black Voices in Real Estate episode released in June, where she shared her experience as a Black woman in the real estate industry and the opportunities for change in racial equity in our business. Now four months later, this episode continues with a discussion on whether the Black Lives Matter moment offers a temporary or permanent path towards inclusion in our business. Tammy also shares her experience building a career as a Black woman in the business and starting Basis Investment Group as one of the few certified Minority and Woman-Owned Businesses in real estate investment management. Tammy tells us her career journey, from becoming the first female in her family to attend college to founding her own business.

Now at 80+ episodes of Leading Voices in Real Estate and in the fall of this year-to-remember, we are embarking on a new Season Five of the podcast. Through the entire Leading Voices series, we have had the opportunity to share the career journeys and countless stories from people, across the wide range of the real estate industry, who have built great companies and made a difference in our built environment. In this time of COVID, social and political change especially around social equity, and new realities quickening around climate change, the impacts on, and responsibilities from, the real estate business are enormous. We will continue, through our conversations in this season of Leading Voices to both tell the career and leadership journeys and lessons that have always been a part of Leading Voices alongside discussions around these real topics deeply affecting our industry. Thanks to our long time listeners for joining us in these conversations.

In honor of John Stewart’s memory, we are rebroadcasting his Leading Voices interview from December 2018. John passed away last week after a two-year battle with cancer. He was the founder of The John Stewart Company, a developer of low and mixed-income housing and the country’s 6th largest manager of affordable housing. John was a personal friend of Matt’s and an inspiration throughout his career. He views John as one of the Bay Area’s leading voices who was a tireless advocate across the range of social justice issues, particularly around low-income housing and the challenges of our current politics. John was a generous mentor to many with an inimitable voice and perspective; we are pleased to share this episode again. John will be sorely missed and deeply remembered.

From original release:

John Stewart is the Founder and Chair of the John Stewart Company, a San Francisco-based owner, developer, and manager of affordable and mixed-income housing, founded in 1978 with three employees.

From Aerospace to Affordable Housing

John grew up in California, graduating from Stanford in 1956 with a liberal arts degree and a focus on history and finance. When he was recruited by U.S. Steel, he moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles but found that the large corporate culture wasn’t a good fit for his entrepreneurial mindset. He switched to TRW as a young management trainee and moved in 1964 to Houston to join TRW’s new offices at the Johnson Space Center.

“In careers, once in a while there’s sort of a choice point… we saw the astronauts and NASA up close and personal, but I was also interested in finding out about life in a Southern city.”

John showed up as an out-of-towner at the Houston Council on Human Relations to see how he could help and get involved. He joined its low-income housing committee and soon became Chair. His activism quickly caught the Mayor’s attention, who requested that TRW fund a paid leave and lend John to the city for a year to chair the City’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing. TRW agreed.

Founding John Stewart Company

John became so interested in housing that when his year was up, that he headed back to Los Angeles with TRW and encouraged them to apply for HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) Operation Breakthrough for manufactured housing.

TRW was selected, and built nearly a thousand modular affordable housing units in Sacramento and New Mexico; however, manufactured housing was not profitable and John decided to make an offer to acquire 500 units of section 236 multi-family housing from TRW, and the John Stewart Company was born.

“One of the few things I did right was plan for capital losses. Every start-up book I read said the dominant reason for failure in small businesses is undercapitalization, so I assumed two years of losses and that’s what it was.”

John shares how he capitalized on other’s mistakes by buying and investing in properties that were about to go into assignment or foreclosure. In the process he built trust with HUD. When President Ronald Reagan implemented the low-income tax-credit program in 1984, he began using these credits as an alternative method of financing.

“I’ve found that if you are just doing management, particularly low income, with a lot of challenging residents, you don’t last long… it helps to have another line of work, and that would be the development side, the acquisition, the rehab.”

In the last 15 years, the company has gone beyond acquisition to also develop new construction projects. John shares that he especially likes working with non-profit corporations in joint ventures because they complement one another.

And while he admits that he has had deals that go sideways – there is always a risk – everyone he works with wants to build products that are architecturally attractive and “pencil out.” This is what makes working in this industry fulfilling.

After 25 years John sold his company to Southern California Edison. In another choice point, after 5 years he bought it back mainly due to differing views on the company mission. Now, John is proud to have partners that he works with who have been with him for years and who he trusts completely.

Tackling Homelessness

While others may argue it’s a waste of money, John emphasizes the importance of creating good-looking, market quality housing for low-income people.

“My argument is that form and function are connected. You build a schlock product, people will treat it like a schlock product. You build something elegant, they treat it well, with respect, and your turnover is less.”

John has found this approach has also helped change the perspective of neighborhoods who are initially opposed to development. When they encounter this dynamic, they bring doubtful prospective tenants and neighbors inside other John Stewart Company Developments to give them a palpable sense of what the new residence will be. Once the tenants and surrounding residents talk to the management, see the quality of the space, the screenings of residents, and the security, it has a very positive effect.

Challenge

If you’re in the affordable housing business with a purely financial bent, then this isn’t your cup of tea. But if you’re comfortable with moderate, reasonable returns, and can accept the risk, this is for you. At the end of the day, you’ve created an attractive physical product that’s a difference-maker in society.

In honor of Gerald Hines’ legacy, we are rebroadcasting his interview from the spring of 2018. Mr. Hines passed away last week at the age of 95, having inspired generations of leaders in the real estate industry. He founded Hines in 1957 as a developer of office properties and has built some of the most iconic city landscapes in Houston, London, San Francisco, and other major cities around the globe. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market but for partnering with the world’s best architects. Mr. Hines’ leadership within the company and the greater real estate community will be sorely missed.

Gerald Hines | Industry Legend, Developer, and Visionary

Gerald Hines founded his business in 1957 as a developer of office properties. His namesake company now has a presence in 201 cities and 24 countries, and manages over $110 billion in property. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market, but for partnering with the world’s best architects.

The Beginning:

Born in Gary, IN in 1925, Hines was the child of parents who came on a boat from Nova Scotia. Growing up, he ran cross country and track and is proud to share that his team won the city championships. He entered college at Purdue early, completing 3 semesters of studies before joining the Army at 18.

While in the service, he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, and his travels introduced him to the inspiring architecture in Seattle and Tacoma.

After the Army, Hines returned to school to complete his Mechanical Engineering degree and spent some time selling engineering equipment.

He made the leap to development when his neighbor needed a building for 5,000 square feet and Hines said, “let me build it.” This catapulted his career and he began working with larger companies and properties.

Growth:

“We just evolved… the brokers seemed to get the fact that we had a very high hit rate and so that attracted the better brokers to us with their projects, and quality and good value sustained our entry into that.”

The timing was perfect, as Texas was expanding and companies were moving there, so there was a lot of new construction. Hines’ reputation for quality and straight shooting helped them grow.

Hines recalls his first big project for Shell, building their new headquarters in Texas. He worked with architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill on it, and for the pitch, they used a fancy German lock set to denote the quality of the project they were going to create – and they won. He went on to work with architects like Phillip Johnson on Pennzoil, and create iconic buildings like New York City’s Lipstick building, The Galleria in Houston, and the Marche St. Germain in France.

Business Culture:

Hines emphasizes the importance of a strong business culture, rooted in integrity.

“I think our (team) all realize what integrity means and we stand by our word. We treat people fairly and that’s very important to all of us.”

Episode Links

The Hines Website

Raising the Bar: The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines

In this episode, Matt discusses the retail sector with Ken Bernstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acadia Realty Trust. Ken talks about the fundamental reworking of the sector due to what he terms the “Retail Armageddon,” a trend that was taking place well before Covid. They also discuss the long-term trends of retail and the additional impacts Covid may have on the retail sector. Acadia Realty Trust specializes in the acquisition, redevelopment, and management of retail properties with an ownership interest in over 100 properties totaling approximately $4 billion in value.

Ken co-founded Acadia in 1998. Acadia is also the manager of a series of discretionary institutional acquisition funds. Acadia is currently investing on behalf its Fund V, which is capitalized to acquire $1.5 billion dollars of retail properties.

Along with his responsibilities at Acadia, Ken is a past Trustee of the Board of Trustees of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and served as the 2017/2018 Chairman. Ken served as Chief Operating Officer of RD Capital until its merger with Mark Centers Trust in 1998, creating Acadia Realty Trust. Prior to that, Ken was an associate with the New York law firm of Battle Fowler, LLP.

Ken received his BA from the University of Vermont and his JD from Boston University School of Law. In addition to being a member of the World President’s Organization (YPO-WPO), where he was the founding chairman of the Real Estate Network, he currently sits on the Board of Advisors. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Golub Capital (NASDAQ:GBDC).

Conor Dougherty is an Economics and Housing Reporter at The New York Times who recently published Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America. His book explores the housing affordability crisis by weaving stories from the front lines of real estate development, investment, struggling families, government officials, and both NIMBYs and YIMBYs in California. This interview provides the perspective of an outside observer of the real estate industry thinking about the roots of the lack of adequate supply and development, the dynamics of real estate investment, and potential solutions to create more housing. Conor articulates the complexity of the problem, understanding the combination of deep emotions and interests that bring wildly different perspectives around real estate.

He has been reporting on business and economics for two decades and previously worked at The Wall Street Journal and San Diego Union-Tribune. Dougherty lives in Oakland with his wife and two children.

Andy Cohen is the Co-CEO of Gensler, the leading global design firm, which includes 6,300+ people networked across 50 offices and serving clients in 120+ countries. He joins Matt for another interview in our series of conversations on leadership in the real estate space amidst the Covid crisis. With his global perspective, Andy shares his thoughts on what the office landscape may look like both in our current constrained return to work and post-vaccine, the future and potential reinvention of cities post-pandemic, and how a senior leader has responded within his company to Covid and issues surrounding equity in the workplace.

This episode is the first of Leading Voices in Real Estate that returns to a company as Matt interviewed Art Gensler, Founder of Gensler, in November 2018.

This is a special episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate featuring conversations with six Black real estate leaders, each of whom speaks with Matt about their personal experiences and their thoughts on how our industry can address inequalities and systemic racism in our companies, our work in the built environment, and in the real estate sector broadly.

Tammy K. Jones, Co-Founder & CEO | Basis Investment Group

Since 2009, Tammy has served as both Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Basis Investment Group, a multi-strategy commercial real estate investment platform she founded with JEMB Realty Corporation that acquires and originates a variety of senior and subordinated loans, preferred equity and joint venture equity positions on behalf of its investors. Under her leadership, Basis has succeeded in closing nearly $2.7 billion in commercial real estate debt and structured equity-related investments across the United States. Tammy has more than 24 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry, investing and lending on CRE assets her entire career on behalf of large pension funds and institutional investors including Equitable Real Estate, GMACCM, and CWCapital.

Daryl Carter, Chairman & CEO | Avanath Capital Management

Daryl is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Avanath Capital Management, a California-based investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates apartment properties, with an emphasis on affordable and workforce communities. He directs the overall strategy and operations of the Company. Since its formation in 2008, Avanath has acquired $2.5 billion of properties in 13 states in the U.S., comprising 10,000 apartment units.

Tyrone Roderick Williams, Deputy Executive Director | Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency

Tyrone is the Deputy Executive Director at the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. His development activities have been at the forefront of affordable housing and comprehensive neighborhood transformation efforts in Boston, Houston, Atlanta and Sacramento. His experience includes leading developments in the for-profit, nonprofit, philanthropic and government sectors. He is an industry leader in affordable housing finance, community development, organizational management, and cross-sector collaborations. He directs the affordable housing, community development and project financing activities for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, Sacramento Housing Authority, Sacramento County Housing authority, the City of Sacramento and Sacramento County.

Robin Hughes, President & CEO | Abode Communities

Robin Hughes is President and Chief Executive Officer of Abode Communities, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit architect, developer, manager and operator of service-enhanced affordable housing. She has been actively involved in affordable housing and community development for over 30 years and in her 23 years as leader of Abode Communities, Hughes has transformed the organization into an Affordable Housing Finance Top 50 Developer nationwide and the premier provider of environmentally sustainable affordable housing in California.

Bill Whitlow, Partner | Terra Search Partners

Bill pairs his twenty-five-year tenure in commercial real estate with the past twelve years he’s worked as Partner at Terra Search Partners, a national executive search firm focused exclusively on the real estate industry. He provides both Terra and his clients with deep industry insights and context across a broad spectrum of senior and executive-level real estate functions including senior-level finance and capital markets, organizational structure and strategy, asset and property management, acquisitions, development and leasing roles.

Cedric Bobo, Co-Founder & CEO | Project Destined

Cedric Bobo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Project Destined, a social impact vehicle that trains urban youth and military veterans to be owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Prior to founding Project Destined, Cedric spent over 20 years as an investor and investment banker including over 10 years at the The Carlyle Group where he committed over $2 Billion of equity capital. In 2015, Cedric was named to the“10 Top Powerful Black People on Wall Street You Should Know.”

Articles

Beyond “Best Efforts”: Why Commercial Real Estate Needs to Catch Up on Diversity (Featured in UrbanLand by Kirk Sikes, Evan Mitchell, and Sommer Heyman)

Catalyst’s Action Plan (By Jordan Moss, Founder of Catalyst Housing Group)

Podcast

Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is Hopeful (Featured in Vox by Ezra Klein)

Organizations

The Real Estate Executive Council

The Toigo Foundation

Videos

Communities in Crisis and a Call to Action: A Conversation with Doug Bibby and Daryl Carter (National Multifamily Housing Council)

I Am Not Your Negro (2016 Documentary Directed By Raoul Peck)

Book

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (By Richard Rothstein)

Leading Voices in Real Estate has tried to present conversations with leaders in the real estate world from a diverse set of backgrounds, with different perspectives, and from all sectors of the industry. We will be working to bring more leaders of color into the conversation and will be thinking, with all of our guests, how our industry can better address inequities internally within our companies and in the work that we do.

Mary Ludgin is one of the best big-picture, strategic minds in the commercial real estate investment business. She is the Head of Global Research at Heitman, a global real estate investment management firm with $45.5 billion in assets under management. The initial interview focused mostly on the effects of COVID on the built environment, with a fascinating discussion on ripples of the COVID crisis post-vaccine, both from a national and global perspective. Recorded a week prior to the George Floyd killing and the resulting national outcry, Matt had a follow-up conversation with Mary on June 3rd to discuss issues relating to social and racial equity in our country, the current unrest, and opportunities for the real estate industry to do better.

Mary is Heitman’s Senior Managing Director, Head of Global Research and an equity owner of the firm. She is a member of the firm’s Board of Managers, Global Management Committee, North American Private Equity Valuation Committee, and Private Equity and Debt Investment Committees. She is the author of numerous articles and research studies relating to real estate markets, portfolio management and strategy. Prior to joining Heitman, she was an urban planner for the City of Chicago and she worked in retail site location.

Mary received an AB from Vassar College and an MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She is a Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and sits on its Global Board of Directors. Mary also chairs ULI’s Chicago District Council. Among other professional affiliations, she served two terms on the board of the Pension Real Estate Association and was its president. Mary is also a former president of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. She was named a fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute in 2000, is a docent for the Chicago Architecture Foundation and is a member of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago.

Leading Voices in Real Estate has tried to present conversations with leaders in the real estate world from a diverse set of backgrounds, with different perspectives, and from all sectors of the industry. We will be working to bring more leaders of color into the conversation and will be thinking, with all of our guests, how our industry can better address inequities internally within our companies and in the work that we do.

Amy Rose, President and CEO of Rose Associates, joins Matt for this week’s Leading Voices in Real Estate interview. Rose Associates is one of the largest, most storied apartment owners and managers in New York City with over $15 billion of assets under management and over 17,000 units owned or operated. Amy is a third-generation leader of this company originally founded by her grandfather and great uncle and is Rose Associate’s first female CEO. Most of the podcast is a deep dive into how her firm is dealing on a day-to-day basis with the COVID-19 crisis in the highly impacted New York market. Her insight provides commentary on the importance of civic leadership during Covid, the responsibility of owners and developers to their tenants and community, and the resilience of New York City to bounce back from this crisis. Additionally, the episode concludes with Amy sharing her unique real estate story, including the history of the family company and the importance of female leadership in the industry.

Amy is responsible for managing the company, formulating and executing long-term strategies, sourcing new business, capital and investments, and driving the company’s focus on acquiring and adapting high quality assets. Under her direction, the firm has completed over $2.24 billion in acquisition and development projects in the last five years. Additionally, she oversees the Rose property management and operations platform which delivers a full range of services designed to increase revenue and enhance asset value for over 14,000 units in the New York marketplace. During her tenure, Rose Associates became one of the region’s top property management firms with a primary focus on rental properties.

Amy is a frequent speaker in premier professional conferences and participates as a guest lecturer at The NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Columbia Business School. She was recognized by Bisnow as one of the 2018 and 2019 New York Power Women and Real Estate Forum named her as one of the 2016 Women of Influence.

Amy holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan. She serves on the Board of Directors of Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. and The Real Estate Roundtable as well as the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee of The Real Estate Board of New York. She is an active member of Urban Land Institute, The Young Men’s/ Women’s Real Estate Association of New York, WX, New York Women Executives in Real Estate and The Young Presidents’ Organization. Amy serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of Literature, Science and Arts and the Ross Real Estate Advisory Board at the University of Michigan. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of The Jewish Museum.

This week’s episode features a real estate legend: Leonard Wood, the Founder and Former CEO of Wood Partners, one of the nation’s leading apartment builders. Since Leonard founded Wood Partners in 1998, the company has developed over 79,000 homes with a combined value of more than $14.1 billion. Additionally, he is the Founder of the Leonard Wood Center for Real Estate Studies as a part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School. In this episode, Leonard talks about leadership lessons learned and important values for the real estate industry. Leonard also addresses potential issues for the next generation of real estate leaders as the industry moves into a post COVID world of urban development.

In 2013, Leonard retired and merged GLJ Partners, a southern California apartment development company he founded in 2008, into Trammell Crow Residential. That same year, he joined the Advisory Board of Trammell Crow Residential where he continues to serve today. Before the inception of GLJ Partners, Leonard founded Wood Partners, LLC in 1998. Wood Partners was the largest multi-family builder in the U.S. in 2004, the 3rd largest in 2005, and the 6th largest in 2006 according to Builder Magazine. Leonard retired as CEO of Wood Partners in 2007, but continued to serve on the Board of Directors through the end of 2013.

Prior to founding Wood Partners, Leonard joined Trammell Crow Residential (“TCR”) as Partner in charge of North Florida in 1982. During Leonard’s tenure at TCR, he was responsible for the Southeast, Texas, Midwest, and Southwest Regions and started over 54,000 multi-family units representing an investment of more than $2.5 billion. In October of 1996, Homegate Hospitality, Inc. (“Homegate”) had its Initial Public Offering. Homegate combined TCR’s development capabilities with Wyndham Hotel Company’s management expertise to create an extended-stay hotel chain. Leonard was on the Board of Directors of Homegate. In December of 1997, Homegate merged with Prime Hospitality, a New York Stock Exchange lodging company. Subsequently, Prime sold to Marriott.

Leonard is a 1972 University of North Carolina M.B.A. graduate, with an undergraduate degree from N.C. State University in 1968. As an Audit Manager with Arthur Andersen & Co., Leonard had an extensive real estate clientele, including Brandermill and Fripp Island.

Leonard is a former Chairman and served on the Multifamily Leadership Board of NAHB. He also is a former Chairman and served on the Board of Directors of the National Multifamily Housing Council. Leonard is a past Governor, Trustee, and Chairman of the Multifamily Council of the Urban Land Institute. He is active in numerous charities with a particular focus on education. He has also been active with various wounded warrior programs. His youngest son, Kevin, served two tours in Iraq. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. In 2001, Leonard received the MBA Alumni Merit Award from the University of North Carolina. In 2007, Leonard founded the Wood Center for Real Estate Studies as a part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School and is the current Chairman of its Advisory Board. In 2018, he was awarded the Davie Award, the highest award a UNC alumni can receive. He formerly served on the Board of the Darlington School. He was also a Board member of Cole Credit Property Trust III, Inc. and Cole Corporate Income Trust, Inc. Leonard served on the Board of the Ocean Reef Club, the largest private club in the world. He is a Past President of Card Sound Golf Club in Key Largo, Florida.

As we enter the second month of the Covid-19 lockdown, Matt met with longtime industry colleague and friend Doug Bibby, President of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), the leading trade association for the apartment industry. In addition to discussing the implications of the national crisis on the multifamily housing, Matt and Doug unwrap the significant evolution of the apartment industry over the past two decades. The conversation with Doug provides prior context of the multifamily housing industry, shares resources and strategies that the industry is implementing during the crisis including NMHC’s Rent Tracker, and the industry’s continued agenda around affordable housing, fighting NIMBYism, rent control, and overall housing supply.

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) is a national organization of more than 1,400 member firms involved in the nearly $2 trillion multifamily housing industry. Under Doug’s leadership NMHC represents the industry on Capitol Hill and before the regulatory agencies, promotes research and the exchange of information, and advocates for rental housing across a broad spectrum of issues. Prior to joining NMHC, Doug spent 16 years as a senior officer of Fannie Mae, where he served on the company’s Management Committee throughout his tenure. He was part of the top management team that is credited with the remarkable turnaround at Fannie Mae in the book Good to Great.

Doug began his career with the worldwide communications firm J. Walter Thompson where he served a variety of clients both domestically and internationally over his 12-year career with the company. At the time of his departure from J. Walter Thompson, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the firm’s Washington, D.C. operations. He has been active in the non-profit community of Washington, D.C. for the past 30 years.

Doug graduated from Denison University with a B.A. degree and was honored with the university’s Alumni Citation Award in 2004. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

With so much uncertainty in the world due to Covid-19, Matt sat down (virtually) with Spencer Levy, Chairman, Americas Research & Senior Economic Advisor at CBRE, on March 24 to discuss the impact this crisis has across all sectors of commercial real estate. This is a special episode focused on Covid-19, versus our ongoing conversations which are geared towards leadership and the business of our guests. Spencer outlines the potential implications the pandemic has across various sectors including multifamily, retail, industrial, and office and digs into the impacts on a few specialty product types like co-working, seniors housing, data centers, and self-storage. The discussion provides commentary on the immediate response while touching on potential short-term and long-term effects this may have on real estate and the world economy, taking a globalized approach and looking at current government response.

In addition to the conversation about Covid-19, Spencer introduces CBRE’s Global Outlook 2030 report and acknowledges that while there will be immediate and short-term impacts on commercial real estate, addressed trends likely will continue into the decade. Some of these trends include the global adoption of U.S.-style institutional ownership and management of multifamily communities and widespread automation of commercial real estate valuation services.

Spencer Levy is the Chairman of Americas Research and Senior Economic Advisor for CBRE, the largest commercial real estate firm in the world. Spencer is the chief spokesman on real estate matters for CBRE in the Americas. He is regularly quoted in major business publications and frequently is a guest on business television, including Bloomberg, CNBC, PBS and Fox Business. He is widely considered one of the finest commentators in the entire Commercial Real Estate industry.

By leveraging his 23 years of experience in commercial real estate, including the past 11 at CBRE, Spencer has redefined the role of research leader. Spencer combines his experience as a lawyer, investment banker and capital markets leader to create presentations that go deep and touch on all aspects of commercial real estate. Combined with his unique and engaging presenting style, this makes him one of the most respected commentators and advisors in the business. Spencer regularly speaks at major events of the country’s leading commercial real estate organizations, including CORENET, NAIOP, ULI, ICSC, NAREIM and CREW. He also has guest lectured at major universities, including his alma maters Harvard and Cornell, in addition to Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, Georgetown, Pitt, Auburn and many others. Spencer is a recipient of multiple industry awards, including the CORENET Luminary Award for Excellence in Public Speaking, the CBRE Trammell Crow Master Builder Award, the CBRE Gary J. Bebon Teamwork Award, the CBRE Capital Markets “MVP”, and was named a State of Maryland Influencer in Real Estate.

While a New Yorker for most of his life, Spencer currently hails from Baltimore and is a proud husband of 19 years and father of three children. Spencer sits on the boards of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and Harvard Alumni Real Estate.

We hope that you enjoy this episode and find the conversation to be helpful as you are navigating the crisis in your personal lives as well as in your business endeavors.

This week, Matt interviews Maria Hawthorne, President and CEO of PS Business Parks, where has been for over three decades. She started at the ground floor in a temporary position at Public Storage, the company’s parent, and moved up the ranks at PS Business Parks from running the East Coast, to Chief Administrative Officer, then President, and now to her current role as CEO in 2016. PS Business Parks is a REIT that acquires, develops, owns, and operates commercial properties, primarily multi-tenant industrial, flex, and office space. The company owns over 27.5 million rentable square feet concentrated in six states and has recently started the redevelopment of some of its office parks into mixed-use properties, primarily multifamily. Throughout her career, Maria had to carefully create a track record and build relationships to experience her growth within the company.

Maria carefully built a positive track record starting with her temp role at Public Storage to cultivating relationships and growth within her company.

Maria is vulnerable and honest. She shared about a reset time at the company when the CEO sent her to the Center for Creative Leadership where she took a deep dive on what it would take to move herself up and into leadership.

Maria found success through a long career at one company.

Recorded in front of an audience at a ULI Young Leaders event in Los Angeles, Matt sat down with Ricardo Pagan, Founder and CEO of Claridge Properties, a 100% minority-owned real estate investment and development firm.

Born in the Dominican Republic, Ricardo emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine and is now a self-made entrepreneur in real estate under the age of 40. His path to success is different than other leaders featured on this podcast.

Ricardo never attended a four-year college and started buying houses in his late teens and developing properties in his 20s. This eventually led to developing institutional deals, like the historic Westin Book Cadillac Detroit and 4-acre Brooklyn waterfront deal in Greenpoint. He is part of a partnership selected by the Los Angeles City Council to acquire and develop the coveted Angels Landing site, a $1.2 billion project that will eventually be the largest residential tower west of the Mississippi River.

Throughout his career, he has completed well over $1 Billion in acquisitions and development of assets in New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, and Phoenix encompassing well over 3,500 residential units and over 500,000 SF of office space.

This week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate features Alex Mehran Sr., the Chairman of the Board of Sunset Development Company and the immediate past Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Sunset Development was founded in 1951 by Alex’s father who had emigrated from Iran, and today it is in its third generation of leadership, run by Alex’s son. Under Alex’s leadership, the company acquired and developed Bishop Ranch, a 585-acre mixed-use community in the Bay Area with best-in-class offices, retail, and entertainment. The development includes over 9.5 million square feet in workspace for 30,000 employees with 600 tenants including IBM, AT&T, Chevron, and GE Digital. Matt and Alex discuss the constant evolution of suburban office park developments, the successes of a multi-generational family business, and Alex’s civic leadership roles.

Alex is a San Francisco Bay Area native. He graduated from Harvard College with honors and continued his higher education at Cambridge University in England where he earned a Law Degree, also with honors. After completing his formal education, Alex joined J. P. Morgan of New York where, for three years, he managed real estate companies and assets owned by the Bank. Shortly after, Alex joined Sunset Development in 1977.

Beyond his civic engagement with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Alex is the Chairman of the Contra Costa Economic Partnership, a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology and a member of the International Council of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Alex has two adult children. He and his wife, Carolyn, live in San Francisco.

Ben Harris, CEO of Link Industrial Properties, Blackstone’s industrial sector operating platform, joins us for this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. In this episode, we dive into the drivers of the robust industrial sector, especially how the overall secular changes in retail, logistics, and distribution are driving a re-make of the industrial real estate business. We also discuss Blackstone’s approach to Link and its businesses in other real estate sectors, both from the investment and operating angles, and the extraordinary growth of the Link platform from a start up to a 355-million square foot business in just over a year. And as always, we talk about Ben and his career path into this role.

With almost 40 years under his belt at Wells Fargo, Mark Myers is the bank’s Head of Commercial Real Estate. Under his leadership, Wells Fargo has been the #1 commercial real estate lender for the last 10 years. As a longtime leader in this space along with his upcoming retirement in February 2020, Mark shares his perspective on the vast changes in the real estate capital markets over this period and reflects on his career. He also expands on his outlook of the current markets and what he sees is a stable infrastructure moving forward for the business.

Our first episode in 2020 features Amy Price, Managing Partner and Co-Head of the U.S. business for BentallGreenOak. After the recent merger between Bentall Kennedy and Green Oak, which she helped orchestrate, the company has grown to become a $48B real estate investment manager with a global footprint. Amy is a senior leader in the real estate investment management business. We talk about overall trends and challenges in this sector and how she has navigated and built her career, first at Morgan Stanley and now at BGO.

Amy has responsibility for the operating and financial performance of BGO U.S. business and has direct oversight of transactions, asset management, and portfolio management. Amy focuses her time on the Core, Core Plus and Development parts of the business. Amy chairs the U.S. Investment Committee for BGO Diversified and Separate Account Clients, co-chairs the U.S. Management Committee, and is a member of the BGO Global Coordination Committee.

Prior to joining BentalGreenOak in 2012, Amy was a Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Investing for the Western United States at Morgan Stanley, where she was an Investment Committee member and built the real estate investment management business in San Francisco. Amy also spent time in Morgan Stanley’s New York and Hong Kong offices.

Amy is Board Chair of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers (NAREIM) and member of the Urban Land Institute Global Board of Directors in addition to being a Governing Trustee of ULI. She holds an MBA with Distinction from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from Colgate University.

David Brickman was appointed CEO of Freddie Mac in July 2019. He has been with the company for over two decades, previously serving as a longtime leader of its multifamily division. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Freddie’s sister GSE, have both been in government conservatorship for eleven years and there finally seems to be a feasible pathway back to private status. In this interview, David dives deep about his leadership of Freddie’s multifamily group and his rise within the organization based on his innovations, particularly in the area of securitization and housing affordability.

A unique aspect of this episode is that most Leading Voices in Real Estate guests are founders or early generation leaders of companies. Due to the nature of the GSEs, there has been a lineage of chief executives before David. Freddie Mac makes housing possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since the creation by Congress in 1970, they’ve made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. As aforementioned, in 2008 the U.S. government placed the GSEs into conservatorship, which included additional oversight for the CEO, the role David now assumes.

David’s interest in real estate began at an early age, growing up in Lower Manhattan in the 1970s. During this time, he saw the empty lots start to turn into housing, offices, and retail, and he would take the subway up to the Bronx each day for high school, where he would see different urban landscapes and substantial changes happening to the city.

Following his undergraduate degree, David ran a not for profit community development corporation in New York when he was only 22. He left New York to earn a master’s degree in public policy, and subsequently moved to D.C. where he worked as a consultant and pursued a Ph.D. in economics and real estate at MIT. David was approached by a colleague at Freddie Mac to join the organization full time in 1999.

His first official role at Freddie Mac was senior vice president and vice president in charge of the Multifamily Capital Markets business area. In these positions, he oversaw all functions relating to Freddie Mac’s multifamily and CMBS investment and capital markets activities. He is the key architect behind several of Freddie Mac’s innovative multifamily financing products, including the Capital Markets Execution and K-Deal program, Reference Bill ARM, fixed-to-float suite of products, and Performance-Based PC, for which he holds a U.S. patent.

He then was the head of Freddie Mac Multifamily, where he presided over a remarkable period of growth – raising annual production from $16 billion in 2010 to almost $80 billion in 2018 and increasing the organization from 300 staff members in four offices to approximately 1000 employees in a dozen locations across the country. He also firmly established the company’s flagship K-Deal Securitization program as one of the leading securitized products in the structured finance markets. Brickman also drove significant innovation and an expansion in Freddie Mac’s products and offerings – particularly those that serve the growing need for affordable and workforce housing.

Most recently, David served as President of Freddie Mac and was responsible for all three of Freddie Mac’s business lines – Single-Family, Multifamily and Capital Markets – as well as the information technology and operations areas that support these business lines. When former CEO Don Layton was retiring, he approached David about pursuing the role, who saw it as fortuitous timing as he was ready for the next challenge.

David completed all doctoral coursework for his Ph.D. in economics and real estate at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has held appointments as a professorial lecturer of finance at The George Washington University and as an adjunct professor of finance at Johns Hopkins University.

As we wrap up Thanksgiving and head into the 2019 holiday season, we wanted to re-release an episode about hope, empowerment, and giving back with Cedric Bobo, Co-Founder of Project Destined. Project Destined is a social impact nonprofit that trains inner-city youth and military families to be active partners in sourcing and financing real estate investments. Students then receive a percentage of the profits from those investments in the form of scholarship funds.

Cedric, who grew up in an underserved community in Memphis, became obsessed with business at a young age, inspired by his mother who worked for FedEx. He then received a degree in engineering, attended Harvard Business School, and spent the first part of his career in private equity, culminating in becoming an executive at Carlyle Group. Cedric has an entrepreneurial spirit, and he wanted to combine his two passions of investment and social impact, which drove him to create Project Destined in 2016. Today the program is in 7 cities and has high-profile support from real estate companies like Blackstone, Brookfield, Cortland and Walker & Dunlop and celebrities like A-Rod, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariano Rivera.

In addition to this episode with Cedric, Leading Voices has interviewed many leaders in the real estate business making a difference in our communities, including Jane Graf from Mercy Housing, Jonathan Rose from Jonathan Rose Companies, Daryl Carter from Avanath, Bobby Turner from Turner Impact Capital, Ron Terwilliger from Trammell Crow Residential, John Stewart from the John Stewart Companies, and others. Visit leadingvoicespodcast.com to hear these episodes and more.

Disruptors in real estate, particularly in the PropTech sector, are topics that Matt has tackled on several Leading Voices in Real Estate episodes, including with guests like Clara Brenner, the co-heads of Lyric, Jamie Hodari, and Chip Conley. He expands on this conversation with Brad Greiwe, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Wall, the largest venture capital fund focused on the global real estate industry and property technology. Still in his 30s, Brad already has substantial career achievements (including co-founding Invitation Homes) and has created a VC fund that is differentiated from others. For instance, half of Fifth Wall’s billion-dollar VC funds come from investors inside of the industry. Additionally, the company consults with real estate clients on how to get ahead of the curve in terms of technology and innovation to drive a more sustainable performance. Brad’s entrepreneurial spirit and gravitas demonstrate how he is establishing leadership for the next generation and is at the forefront of the convergence of technology and the built environment.

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Brad’s grew up in a real estate family, with his dad working for a multifamily developer. He was recruited to play football at Harvard, and while Brad wasn’t quite NFL caliber, he capitalized on sports to propel his education. While at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, and many of his friends went towards that side of the tech industry, Brad decided after graduation to move in a different direction initially.

Brad started his career in investment banking at UBS in the real estate, lodging, and leisure group, where he tallied over $33 billion of M&A advisory work and $1 billion of debt and equity financing, including the sale of Hilton Hotels to The Blackstone Group for $26 billion—the largest hotel privatization in history. He then worked in real estate private equity at Tishman Speyer and Starwood Capital, where he executed over $30 billion of acquisitions, debt financing, and development projects.

Prior to starting Fifth Wall, Brad co-founded Invitation Homes (NYSE: INVH), a multi-billion dollar owner and operator of single-family rental properties originally backed by The Blackstone Group. As CTO, he positioned Invitation Homes as the dominant technology-forward brand in the single-family rental category, developing a proprietary technology stack to support the valuation, acquisition, rehabilitation, leasing, and professional management of over 80,000 homes in 17 major markets, serving 120,000 residents across the U.S.

Leading Voices in Real Estate has tackled the full spectrum of the real estate industry: multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, and now cannabis? That’s right. This week, Matt speaks with Paul Smithers, CEO of Innovative Industrial Properties, the first and only NYSE REIT serving the cannabis space. It’s hard to imagine that this type of business would exist even a decade ago, but with the changing landscape of real estate investment groups and the legalization of marijuana across the U.S., Innovative Industrial Properties tapped into an industry with huge growth potential.

Founded in 2016, Innovative Industrial Properties (IIP) is the pioneering real estate investment trust for the medical-use cannabis industry. Like a traditional real estate investment trust (REIT), a corporation that combines the capital of many investors to acquire income-producing real estate, IIP invests in facilities that are a combination of industrial buildings plus greenhouses for (mostly) medical-use cannabis. IIP has invested in properties in over 12 states and will likely continue to grow as medical-use cannabis is legal in 33 states, plus the District of Columbia. On average, IIP is seeing returns between 11 and 14%.

Paul and his Co-Founder, Alan Gold, hatched up the idea for the company in his backyard. Alan had co-founded two bio-tech REITs, Alexandria and BioMed, and after selling Biomed, was looking for a new venture. So, they acquired the real estate behind a marijuana grow center and, from there, created the idea behind the REIT.

Paul brought over three decades of leadership experience in legal, commercial and real estate spaces, to leading the development of key growth strategies designed to achieve strong returns on investment at IIP. Prior to IIP, Paul held positions as co-founder and chief legal officer of Iso Nano International, LLC, a designer and manufacturer of advanced materials for use in the aerospace, consumer goods, electronics, and safety industries. Preceding Iso Nano International, LLC, Paul was the managing partner of Smithers & Player, Attorneys at Law.

Listen in to hear how Paul is riding high off of this unique business venture!

It’s no surprise that coworking spaces are shaking up the business world. Many companies are abandoning their traditional offices, selling assets like desks and rolling chairs, and downsizing square footage to move into modern outsourced workplaces, like Industrious and WeWork. With this growing trend, competition is increasing, though no two models are identical and profits can be hard to achieve. This week’s timely discussion with Jamie Hodari, CEO and Co-Founder of Industrious, touches on just that and drills into what sets a company like Industrious apart from others.

The three major takeaways from this conversation are just that:

In terms of user experience, coworking spaces are extremely differentiated.

Not all of these coworking businesses need to have a “unicorn model” that completely disrupts the office industry.

As reflected in most Leading Voices in Real Estate episodes: A great leader can elevate an entrepreneurial idea to a successful business.

Industrious is a company that follows this model to a T. The company is the largest premium flexible workspace provider in the U.S. with over 84 locations in more than 45 cities. Founded in 2013, Industrious has raised over $222 million and expects to be profitable in Q1 2020. They work in partnership with landlords, unlike the tenant of landlord models, and have secured over 20 landlord partners including Hines, EQ Office, Macerich, Jamestown LP, and most recently Equinox at Hudson Yards. Lastly, Jamie has guided the company to this growth through thoughtful decisions, by evaluating his competition, creating Industrious as a best-in-class coworking space, and partnering with established companies who are looking to revolutionize as well.

To some, Jamie has had an atypical journey to the CEO of an entrepreneurial business. He grew up in suburban Detroit, Michigan, next door to Justin Stewart, who’s remained a close friend and co-founding business partner of Industrious. He started his career as a journalist at the Times of India. He also previously ran the education non-profit Generation Rwanda, analyzed investments at the hedge fund Birch Run Capital, and was a project finance lawyer at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. Prior to Industrious, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of Kepler, a rapidly growing experimental university that Scientific American called a “daring global experiment” to bring “top-tier instruction to the neediest parts of the planet.” He’s an Ivy League triple threat, holding a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.P.P. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Columbia University.

The late 1980s saw massive changes in the real estate industry. The passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and then the S&L crisis that followed transitioned the industry into a modern, institutional business. During this time, Dr. Peter Linneman had just started reworking the real estate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Dr. Linneman was an outsider economist who saw the obvious future in information, transparency, and capital flows. This week’s conversation dives into Dr. Linneman’s experience, from his perch at Wharton where he learned from and then counseled the then giants in the industry on this transformation as well as trained the future generation of leaders in the business.

Dr. Linneman’s story begins in Lima, OH, which at the time was a booming industrial city. He supported himself starting at a young age to attend private high school and went on to obtain his masters and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. During his studies, he was trained by prominent economists including Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, George Stigler, Ted Schultz and Jim Heckman. As an economist by trade, he started his career in general economics and industrial organization, which at the time was mostly manufacturing. Soon after, he pivoted to commercial real estate.

The Dean the University of Pennsylvania approached Dr. Linneman and asked him to evaluate the real estate curriculum in their business program. Following his research, he developed and designed Wharton’s renowned real estate program and subsequently served as the founding chairman of the department and the Director of Wharton’s Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center for 13 years. Quite literally, Dr. Linneman wrote the textbook for collegiate real estate programs.

Beyond his time in academia, Dr. Linneman has had a tenured career as a Founding Principal of Linneman Associates, a leading real estate advisory firm; CEO of American Land Fund; and CEO of KL Realty. He’s also advised leading corporations and served on over 20 public and private boards, including serving as Chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, where he led the successful restructuring and sale of Rockefeller Center in the mid-1990s.

While Dr. Linneman is now retired from Wharton’s faculty, he and his wife Kathy support a program, Save A Mind, Give A Choice, which commits to educating young children of extreme poverty in rural Kenya. Dr. Linneman contributions to the academic study of the field has been instrumental in training the leaders of the real estate industry today and subsequent educational programs in real estate fields.

After our summer hiatus, Leading Voices in Real Estate returns for its fourth season. To kick it off, host Matt Slepin shares the current trends of listeners and the direction for the new season. He also reflects on some of his favorite moments from the series that include:

The episode with Lisa Picard, CEO of EQ Office, and how she demonstrates that there are no limits for women on how far they can take their careers.

A two-part episode with Ron Terwilliger, former CEO of Trammell Crow Residential, where he walks through the entirety of his influential career and his lasting impact on the real estate industry. A big portion of the conversation is on affordability, a common topic of this podcast that we see in other episodes like Bobby Turner, Daryl Carter, and Jonathan Rose.

In the final interview of season three with Larry Webb, founder and CEO of The New Home Company, he concluded with the statement “homebuilding is a noble enterprise” and Matt and Larry shared a discussion on what that means for the real estate industry

Also, with the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization.

With the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization. Learn more about his career trajectory as you head to and from one of the largest meetings in the real estate industry. Here’s a little bit more about Ed:

Ed Walter, was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.

This is Matt Slepin and welcome to Leading Voices in Real Estate. I just read the sad news that architect Phil Freelon, a guest on the show back in June 2017, just passed away. This is a rerelease of that interview.

In the interview, we spoke about his life, his work, his family and his battle with ALS, which he approached as another mountain to climb. Phil is best known for designing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He was also the mastermind behind Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights and San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.

This was a particularly moving conversation. Phil did not shy away from talking about his disease and how he was using the limited time that he knew he had left to plan for his legacy, both within the architecture industry for aspiring Black architects and also with his family. Phil was a soulful man, which I think comes across in the interview.

With his passing, we are re-releasing the original interview, which I hope you will enjoy.

Larry is the founder and CEO of The New Home Company, a West Coast focused public homebuilder founded in 2009 in the depths of the financial crisis.

Prior to forming The New Home Company, Larry was the CEO of John Laing Homes, where he was instrumental in growing that business from a small, two market company to the second largest private homebuilder in the US; he sold the firm in 2006 in the largest private residential transaction in US history.

Larry talks about lessons learned in the homebuilding business and his thoughtful, intentional, lessons-learned approach to the business in the forming of The New Home Company.

Larry talks passionately about his leadership journey from high school teacher and coach to building and running teams and companies in the homebuilding business and the meaning of his company’s mantra that “buildings homes is a noble thing to do with your life”. We discuss the audacity of using the word “noble” just as have other Leading Voices guests spoken about the articulation of mission in their firms.

Bobby Turner, the Principal and CEO of Turner Impact Capital, and previously the leader of Canyon’s real estate investment platform, is a passionate force for good in the real estate industry.

His career began as a money maker and pure wealth creator in the private equity world, particularly in real estate at Canyon. Gradually, he eased into impact investing through an early partnership with Magic Johnson. This led to a revelation that inspired him to focus exclusively on impact investing, the art of balancing impact and profits, and the creation of Turner Impact Capital.

Since 2014, Turner Impact Capital has become one of the country’s largest social impact investment funds, with $3 billion of investment potential in three areas:

Workforce housing where they have acquired 7800 units.

Charter schools with his partner Andre Agassi, which has built 103 public charter schools.

Healthcare facilities investments where they have developed or acquired 15 community healthcare centers.

Bobby is a compelling, brilliant man who strongly makes the case for pursuing social good through the lens of business.

Turner Impact Capital Celebrates Five Years of “Profits With a Purpose”

Gene Golub is the Founder and Chairman of Golub and Company, a family-owned, international real estate developer and owner based in Chicago.

Now in his eighties, Gene discusses the discipline and passion it took to build this commercial real estate business from the ground up in the ‘60s, and how his family values and culture have shaped its impressive trajectory. Gene highlights the projects and partnerships that influenced the company’s growth, from its early beginnings in his hometown of Chicago to Eastern Europe and beyond.

Today, Gene guides the company directionally but has passed the baton onto the second and third generations of family members. The family’s strong trust in one generation to the next is a defining factor in the rich Golub and Company legacy.

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, host Matt Slepin engages in a sort of joint interview with Chris Rising, CEO of Rising Realty Partners, an LA-based vertically integrated real estate firm, and host of The Real Market Podcast. Chris and Matt talk about the lessons they’ve learned while hosting their podcasts and their experiences interviewing leaders in commercial real estate. They also swap questions with each other about their business journeys. While Matt talks about his work in executive search at Terra Search Partners, Chris discusses his family built company, Rising Realty Partners, which he co-founded with his father—real estate legend, and past client of Matt’s—Nelson Rising. Rising Realty Partners is largely an office property company, and is deeply focused on bringing technology, sustainability, and diversity into the real estate industry.

Learn more about Chris Rising and Rising Realty Partners:

Rising Realty Partners

The Real Market Podcast

Today’s interview is with Bill Bayless who is the co-founder and CEO of the only publicly traded student housing company, American Campus Communities (ACC). Bill co-founded the company in 1993, literally just down the hall from Michael Dell who founded Dell Computers—that’s right, two of Austin’s biggest companies founded just a few dorm rooms apart from each other.

This company is one of the true pioneers in the student housing business. ACC’s initial mission revolves around a deep and long term commitment to excellence and service—be it to employees, customers, investors—focusing on more than just a transactional goal.

To learn more about Bill and American Campus Communities visit:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-bayless-1235b62a/

https://www.americancampus.com/

Also mentioned in this episode:

Keith Oden – Creating the Ultimate Company Culture (podcast)

Today’s interview is with Ed Walter, who was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed has had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.

Find out more about Ed Walter:

Renowned Real Estate Industry Leader W. Edward Walter Is ULI’s New Global CEO

Q+A with ULI’s New Global CEO, Ed Walter

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt Slepin interviews Gilda Perez-Alvarado. Gilda was recently, in September 2018, named the CEO for JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group, Americas. In the interview, Gilda shares her career story — from growing up in Costa Rica, to hotel school at Cornell, then working across the globe on hotel transactions, and now her leadership in the business. She shares her wisdom both about the ever-changing hotel business and its ever-deepening engagement with its guests as well as the global nature and appeal of investing in the sector.

This is the first part of back-to-back episodes on the hospitality business. Our conversation with Gilda will be followed up with a conversation with Ed Walter, formerly head of Host Hotels and Resorts, and now the Global CEO of the Urban Land Institute.

Find out more about Gilda Perez-Alvarado:

Gilda on LinkedIn

Gilda & JLL

Gilda & Cornell

Cedric Bobo is the Co-Founder of Project Destined, a 501c3 that educates both inner city kids and military veterans in financial literacy and community development by their investing, shark tank style, in real real estate deals in their communities. Project Destined brings in the kids and the vets alongside major real estate investment firms like Brookfield in the Bronx and Cortland Partners in Atlanta, with sponsorship and participation from the NBA and celebs like A-Rod, J Lo, and Mariano Rivera. The mission of Project Destined is to transform minority youth into owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Cedric tells his career story — from growing up in Memphis, to Harvard Business School, to investment banking and private equity at DLJ and The Carlyle Group, to founding Project Destined.

In this special edition showcasing a panel discussion from the 2019 National Multifamily Housing Council Meeting, we explore the centerpiece topic of recruiting and managing talent in today’s industry with four leaders in the apartment business: Bill Bayless, CEO of American Campus Communities; Chris Payne, President of SARES-REGIS Group; Cindy Scharringhausen, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Camden Property Trust; and Julie Smith, Chief Administrative Officer at The Bozzuto Group. They are generous in sharing their honest challenges, valuable wisdom, innovative strategies, and time-tested tactics for success.

Related Links

Article on NMHC.org

You might say that innovation, passion, and real estate are in Lucy Billingsley’s blood. As the only daughter of real estate legend Trammell Crow, Lucy wanted to make her own name for herself and co-founded the Billingsley Company with her husband. The firm has been developing and creating spaces full of dynamic energy in the Dallas area for years.

In today’s round table discussion, Co-head of JLL’s Multifamily Capital Market’s platform, Christine Espenshade; CEO of Holland Partner Group, Clyde Holland; and Executive Director of Up for Growth National Coalition, Mike Kingsella explore the future of the Multifamily Housing Market and the policies shaping its trajectory.

While Clyde, Christine, and Mike agree that the outlook is positive and the economy is picking up, the supply is already a problem for the increasing demand in the market.

Clyde advises developers and builders to get start building now to get ahead of the projected buying challenges, with the knowledge that it may be slow in the beginning but will pay off as demand increases.

Christine emphasizes that institutional investors are already interested and willing to support these long-term projects because they know that the investment promises steady, safe returns. The shift from home ownership to long-term apartment occupancy is also a clear marker that multifamily housing is a crucial option the market needs to focus on.

Mike sees the issue of supply stemming from the exclusionary policies that are suppressing growth. At Up For Growth National Coalition, their mission is to advocate for a new approach to housing development, focusing on how growth benefits everyone in the community.

Clyde, an original founder of Up for Growth, feels the push back from the city council against development regularly.

“Even though there is a housing crisis my building housing is considered a negative… Cities have responded to housing not being affordable by introducing policies that made it more expensive.”

He adds that developer’s voices are often not valued because people think their motives and projects are all about making money, not about improving their community. Up for Growth acts as the voice for this cause, advocating for more affordable housing close to jobs and transportation so employees can spend more time with their families.

“If you have to commute for two hours each way in order to gain a job in the SF Bay Area, the breadwinner doesn’t have an opportunity to spend time with their spouse and their kids,” said Mike.

Mike and Clyde see a combination of tax-exempt bond financing for affordable housing at the federal level combined with state-regulated opportunities for development as the solution to both traffic congestion and housing challenges.

Christine also concludes that we need to think about housing as a holistic approach to growing our economy and mixing these government partnerships with private investments for a positive long-term plan.

Bill Stein, CEO of Digital Realty, one of the largest data center real estate companies in the world, entered the data center space just as the cloud was born.

“We are fortunately right at the middle of all of this, we are at the heart of this revolution.”

Bill grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, where relationships, friendship, family, and sports (specifically football) mattered above all else. He attended boarding school in Philadelphia, Princeton for his B.A. in the classics, and the University of Pittsburgh for law school.

After working for his father’s law firm as an insurance defense litigator, he joined Duquesne Light Company as a lawyer and then Assistant Treasurer, and then Westinghouse Credit and Westinghouse Electric where he tackled deals before and during the S&L crisis.

In 1994, Bill moved to San Francisco to work with one of his previous clients at Westinghouse, TriNet Corporate Realty Trust which was soon sold to iStar Financial Inc. He went on to serve as co-head of Venture Bank @PNC (a technology lending business) at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh with a satellite office in San Francisco.

Bill joined GI Partners (Digital Realty’s predecessor private equity fund) in 2004 as the CFO and Chief Investment Officer of Digital Realty Trust and helped GI’s data center portfolio go public as Digital Realty.

First, Digital Realty began expanding globally, acquiring properties in Europe and Asia. Their business was mainly leasing large chunks of space to financial institutions and technology companies until they bought Telex, an interconnection business which is crucial for data centers.

In the beginning, Digital Realty was an asset-focused business, but now it is much more customer-focused. There are a lot of real estate details in their relationships with their customers, however, the service level obligations they offer would not be found in a typical real estate firm.

“What we provide is a secure space, and we provide access to power. We provide connectivity. We provide power redundancy. So if power lines go down… we have initially batteries in our data centers that kick on to keep the servers running until the generators kick in.”

Bill explains that their tenants, including Amazon and Microsoft, are quite loyal and secure because it’s an expensive proposition to leave. Digital Realty’s global footprint, trust, and certainty of delivery give them a tremendous competitive advantage as their customers are confident knowing they can expand their current campus if necessary.

The Internet of Things, sensors in your home, an Amazon device that controls your lights or searches the internet for you, motion detectors, autonomous driving, virtual reality, artificial intelligence… Data centers are crucial to the ecosystem of the technological advances happening now and in the future.

“Innovation here is trying to figure out where the puck is headed, and get there before the puck gets there.”

Don’t be afraid to take educated risks, be open to new opportunities, and value transparency, integrity, ethics, and relationships. You never know when a friendship might matter.

Daryl Carter is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Avanath Capital Management, LLC, a real estate investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates affordable and workforce housing communities across the US. His dual focus on both investment returns and improving the communities where he invests is rare in this business, and we hear on this episode what drives Daryl to succeed in this balancing act.

John Stewart is the Founder and Chair of the John Stewart Company, a San Francisco-based owner, developer, and manager of affordable and mixed-income housing, founded in 1978 with three employees.

Today, the Company has 1,400 employees in five offices in the state of California, managing 31,000 units with over 2000 units in its development pipeline.

John grew up in California, graduating from Stanford in 1956 with a liberal arts degree and a focus on history and finance. When he was recruited by U.S. Steel, he moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles but found that the large corporate culture wasn’t a good fit for his entrepreneurial mindset. He switched to TRW as a young management trainee and moved in 1964 to Houston to join TRW’s new offices at the Johnson Space Center.

“In careers, once in a while there’s sort of a choice point… we saw the astronauts and NASA up close and personal, but I was also interested in finding out about life in a Southern city.”

John showed up as an out-of-towner at the Houston Council on Human Relations to see how he could help and get involved. He joined its low-income housing committee and soon became Chair. His activism quickly caught the Mayor’s attention, who requested that TRW fund a paid leave and lend John to the city for a year to chair the City’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing. TRW agreed.

John became so interested in housing that when his year was up, that he headed back to Los Angeles with TRW and encouraged them to apply for HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) Operation Breakthrough for manufactured housing.

TRW was selected, and built nearly a thousand modular affordable housing units in Sacramento and New Mexico; however, manufactured housing was not profitable and John decided to make an offer to acquire 500 units of section 236 multi-family housing from TRW, and the John Stewart Company was born.

“One of the few things I did right was plan for capital losses. Every start-up book I read said the dominant reason for failure in small businesses is undercapitalization, so I assumed two years of losses and that’s what it was.”

John shares how he capitalized on other’s mistakes by buying and investing in properties that were about to go into assignment or foreclosure. In the process he built trust with HUD. When President Ronald Reagan implemented the low-income tax-credit program in 1984, he began using these credits as an alternative method of financing.

“I’ve found that if you are just doing management, particularly low income, with a lot of challenging residents, you don’t last long… it helps to have another line of work, and that would be the development side, the acquisition, the rehab.”

In the last 15 years, the company has gone beyond acquisition to also develop new construction projects. John shares that he especially likes working with non-profit corporations in joint ventures because they complement one another.

And while he admits that he has had deals that go sideways – there is always a risk – everyone he works with wants to build products that are architecturally attractive and “pencil out.” This is what makes working in this industry fulfilling.

After 25 years John sold his company to Southern California Edison. In another choice point, after 5 years he bought it back mainly due to differing views on the company mission. Now, John is proud to have partners that he works with who have been with him for years and who he trusts completely.

While others may argue it’s a waste of money, John emphasizes the importance of creating good-looking, market quality housing for low-income people.

“My argument is that form and function are connected. You build a schlock product, people will treat it like a schlock product. You build something elegant, they treat it well, with respect, and your turnover is less.”

John has found this approach has also helped change the perspective of neighborhoods who are initially opposed to development. When they encounter this dynamic, they bring doubtful prospective tenants and neighbors inside other John Stewart Company Developments to give them a palpable sense of what the new residence will be. Once the tenants and surrounding residents talk to the management, see the quality of the space, the screenings of residents, and the security, it has a very positive effect.

If you’re in the affordable housing business with a purely financial bent, then this isn’t your cup of tea. But if you’re comfortable with moderate, reasonable returns, and can accept the risk, this is for you. At the end of the day, you’ve created an attractive physical product that’s a difference-maker in society.

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Colin Wiel is Co-Founder Chairman, and CTO of Mynd, a full stack, tech-enabled, property management company focused on small residential (single family rentals plus small multi-family buildings).

Colin grew up in Washington D.C., went to high school in Reno, Nevada, and went to UC Berkeley where he got his BA in mechanical engineering. Straight out of college, he landed a dream job at Boeing, where he wrote algorithms for automatic control systems and developed groundbreaking new software.

He had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and soon struck out on his own as an independent software consultant working with giants like Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Netscape, where he became one of the very first Java programmers in the world.

He began developing and teaching the Java curriculum for UC Berkeley and while continuing his consulting with a new focus on Java. Eventually, his consulting grew into a full-fledged firm and he brought on many students he had taught. One of their big projects was transitioning Charles Schwab’s website from C to Java, which at the time it was the largest e-commerce website in the world.

When he sold his business, a friend sparked his interest in the mobile home park marketplace, and he started investing in that corner of real estate.

“If that idea is counter to what most people think, all the better because that’s where the opportunity lies.”

As he continued investing in mobile home parks and researching the single-family home market, he realized he could make more profit there. He connected with Doug Brien who had a similar idea, and they started buying homes and renting them out, with a long-term selling strategy.

People thought they were going to cap out because of the sheer amount of management and upkeep, but their profits and vision said otherwise.

17:00 “We said, ‘With all due respect, we think we can build a cloud-computing, mobile computing, infrastructure. A single system of record that our people use, but also the residents use, our vendors, we’re all connected… and then we can build systems on top of that to automate a lot of the functionality or just systematize what happens so that it all runs smoothly so that we’re not dropping balls.’”

They raised a series of funds and continued to grow Waypoint (now Invitation Homes) as the pioneers in the space. Eventually, Colony Starwood and Blackstone entered the arena, and that’s when it really became a new industry. After 5 years, they went public as a REIT in a partnership with Starwood called Starwood Waypoint.

“So when the big conservative, institutional investors saw that single-family rental is generating the same NOI margins as multi-family, then it was sort of ordained to be a legitimate asset class.”

After going public as Starwood Waypoint, Colin knew he wanted to strike out on his own again and be in an innovative, start-up environment.

He saw how massive and fragmented it was, and how nobody was leveraging technology in the way that had revolutionized other industries. This reflection is what led him to start Mynd, and he quickly asked Doug to partner with him again.

“It tends to be a full stack company that’s providing a complete end to end service that’s competing with the incumbents that disrupts an industry.”

Property management is complex. From collecting rent, managing repairs and maintenance, to leasing vacant units, Colin saw that accounting and the flow of money were integral to the solution he wanted to create. With these priorities in mind, they began creating a software with an accounting platform from scratch, that gives a property owner a real-time transparent view of what’s going on at their property in a revolutionary way.

Their strategy is focused on expanding into new markets like San Diego and Seattle, by acquiring property management principals and then shifting them into their own software. This streamlines the property managers job and improves their service while giving Mynd a spokesperson in that community.

Looking forward, Colin is excited to use their data to offer new products and services, like owners insurance, vacancy insurance, and financing products to renters in a much more efficient way.

For Colin, giving renters a better experience isn’t just about good business, it’s about human dignity. He is confident that by helping renters have a better experience, Mynd is helping society transition from a renters society to an owners society.

When he’s not thinking of innovative new ideas, Colin has a philanthropic partnership with Wildlife Works Carbon to protect the Panama Rainforest.

Real estate is known for being a slow-moving industry. However, if you are young, nimble, and willing to take a chance, there is a huge opportunity to innovate the space.