With property valuations at historic lows, buying office or retail space instead of leasing it might make a lot of sense today. But there are lots of caveats to it.

Shifting from owner to occupier has many implications and requires a different skillset than managing a portfolio of leased real estate. However, a long-term commitment to a specific location—probably a company headquarter or a flagship store—is a good enough reason for a tenant to purchase the space.

Nevertheless, there are risks and concerns. Hear all about them in this FTI Experts’ Hub episode with Jahn Brodwin, senior managing director & co-leader of the Real Estate Solutions practice at FTI Consulting, and Rob Raymond, who serves as managing director in the Real Estate Advisory group within the Real Estate Solutions practice.

As the president of Colliers International’s Real Estate Management Services division, Karen Whitt leads a team of almost 2,000 people. Recently, she noticed that talent availability is loosening up at both the executive and the entry level, but finding qualified, experienced candidates is still a challenge. So retaining current employees is critical, and creative, empathetic leaders that understand the power of investing in training can go a long way.

Whitt serves as the 2024 President of CREW Network. In this CREW Up podcast episode, she talks to Commercial Property Executive Senior Editor Laura Calugar about the current hiring market.

The demand for traditional office environments is shifting, leading to significant impacts on vacancy rates, lease structures and development activity. As companies are looking for ways to right-size their portfolios and office spaces, the market's current outlook is showing some improvement. Office attendance is now closer to ⁠pre-pandemic levels⁠, and some companies have found the right formula for increasing leasing rates.

In the first episode of Step Into My Office, CPE’s new quarterly podcast series, Associate Editor Olivia Bunescu delves into the current office market trends across New York with Nick Berger, director of commercial leasing at The Moinian Group. Berger shares some of the company’s leasing strategies as it adapts to changing tenants’ needs and ⁠hybrid work models⁠.

Here’s what he discussed about:

Commercial real estate is often a family business, and some family-run firms have uncommon origin stories. Take BEB Capital. Headquartered in Port Washington, New York, a suburb on Long Island, the company reflects the entrepreneurial energy of the Brodsky family, led by its patriarch, Bert Brodsky.

Decades of success in the health care and technology industries evolved into a lateral move into commercial real estate investment. In a relatively short period, BEB Capital has emerged as a nimble industrial and office investor on the East Coast, and, most recently, has expanded into real estate finance.

In this episode, you’ll meet BEB Capital’s founding CEO, Lee Brodsky. He offers his take on the next wave of industrial opportunity, what’s driving demand, and the benefits of having investment and finance capacity under a single roof.

And he still calls himself a big fan of office. Probably not too surprising—before he took on his current CEO duties, he had a long run as a top New York City office leasing broker. You’ll hear how that experience informs his approach to leading a diversified investment and finance shop.

Episode highlights:

Birth of an investment business (1:53)

New industrial opportunities, strategies and new niches (3:23)

Scouting the next hotspots (6:28)

Factors that are shaping demand(7:46)

Why he’s still “a big fan of office” (9:46)

Private lender perspectives: thinking like an owner (11:59)

Lessons of a leasing broker (15:06)

 “Obsessed with communication” and being proactive (19:19)

Advancing a legacy of philanthropy (22:30)

CEO off the clock: family matters (25:09)

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in. For this episode, my guest is CRE Finance Council Managing Director Saraih Burki, head of regulatory affairs and sustainability for the organization.

Burki and I discuss how CREFC's Sustainability Initiative is helping members make sense of expanding imperatives and opportunities through education, advocacy and transparency.

"As a reputational issue, you want to be seen as as sort of a forward-thinking green type of institution, and honestly a lot of it is very practical," Burki said. "CRE lenders, investors have been focused on sustainability even before ESG." 

Here are some highlights from our conversation:

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More than a decade ago, CPE profiled Mesa West Capital, then an up-and-coming alternative commercial real estate lender, and its co-founders, Jeff Friedman and Mark Zytko. In the years since, the firm has continued to build its platform as an institutional capital source.

As Mesa West marks its 20th anniversary, this episode of Investment Matters catches up with the firm's current leadership. Ronnie Gul is co-CEO in Los Angeles, where the firm was founded. Raphael Fishbach opened Mesa West's New York City office in 2010 and now serves as co-CEO.

In this episode, you’ll hear their expectations on what’s next for the real estate capital markets and investment in the second half.

Episode highlights:

Investor and occupier sentiment across the globe is still recovering, with no major changes from the first quarter of the year. This is the main trend stemming from the most recent Global Commercial Property Monitor survey released by the Royal Institution of Royal Surveyors in London. A growing number of CRE players sense that the market has reached the bottom of this cycle or is very close to reaching that level.

In this podcast episode of our RICS Monitor quarterly series, Senior Economist Tarrant Parsons told Commercial Property Executive Senior Editor Laura Calugar that the mood that stems from the organization’s latest survey is that the worst is now behind us.

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live. For this episode, I am chatting with Jessica Long, NAREIT's senior vice president of Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability, following the release of the sixth annual REIT Industry Sustainability Report.

The report tracks ESG progress for the 100 largest REITs by market capitalization in five areas: transparency and reporting, leadership & governance, resources & resilience, workforce & culture and community and business connections.

Here are some highlights of the topics we discussed:

EV charging has become a must-have amenity for apartment dwellers as well as commercial tenants. But the planning and placing of EV chargers is no small task for property managers.

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in. My guest for this episode is FirstService Residential's George Barriere, general manager of the Marina Palms Yacht Club & Residences, a 470-unit condominium complex in North Miami Beach, Fla.

When EV usage began increasing at Barriere's luxury property, he installed the ADS-TEC Energy Charge Box, which consists of a battery-booster box and two fast-charging dispensers. Tune into hear how and why he chose this system to meet his residents' current and future charging needs. As Barriere puts it, if residents have the charging capability they require, they will buy more EVs. If they buy more EVs, buildings will need more chargers.

Here a sample of the topics we discussed:

Rising demand for charging (3:13)

Multifamily pain points (4:59)

A million different business models (6:53)

A solution for the future (8:42)

The value proposition (15:48)

Who bears the cost? (20:23)

Wendy Mann came into the workforce in the late '80s, and until the early 2000s, roughly 98 percent of the CEOs she worked for were men. As they began retiring, an increasing number of women took their places. Additionally, more women have now become leaders of the organizations that represent the real estate industry.

Why did that happen? Women are great multitaskers, great problem-solvers and great collaborators and these skills became more required for success as time passed, according to CREW Network’s CEO.

Man spoke to Laura Calugar, senior editor with Commercial Property Executive, in a new podcast episode of our quarterly CREW Up series with CREW Network leaders and, among other things, she had a message for all real estate CEOs. Tune in now!