Commercial Real Estate Investment Conference Podcast (CREIC)

Two Trillion Dollars Reshaping Real Estate in 2026

Capital splitting into two flows. Operators positioning now are winning.

The Housing Play: Adaptive Reuse

90,300 office-to-residential conversions in pipeline. Conversion costs $250-275k per unit. Office buildings at 40-60% discounts. Downtown residential land costs $500k-$1M per unit—the discount covers conversion.

Incentives: Historic Tax Credit (20%), Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, property tax abatements, TIF, federal 20% conversion credit pending.

The Play: Capital flowing into downtown cores with residential demand and weak office fundamentals.

The Infrastructure Play: AI Data Centers

$600-725B deploying in 2026. Goldman Sachs projects $7.6T through 2031.

The Constraint: Power. 30-50% of planned 2026 US AI data centers delayed/canceled due to grid constraints.

The Economics: 1 gigawatt facility generates $14B annual revenue. 1-2 year payback on 15-year asset.

The Play: Operators who secure power win. Capital flows to markets with power availability.

Your Position

• Downtown + residential demand? Adaptive reuse.
• Power + hyperscaler interest? Data centers.
• Neither? Sidelines.

Operators positioning now are winning.

Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity - Vertically integrated multifamily investing. rise48.com

Banks are out. Non-banks are in.

Alternative lenders captured 37% of non-agency CRE loan closings in 2025, up from historical averages. Banks dropped to 31%. This shift is structural. Non-banks move fast. They structure deals banks won't touch. Higher leverage. Mezzanine options. Transitional assets. Bridge financing. Capital is rotating away from big-box industrial toward flex space. Flex is trading in the mid-to-high 6% range with 4.2% vacancy versus 7-7.5% for broader industrial. Rent growth is stronger. Demand is resilient.

Private credit funds raised about $30 billion in 2025 alone for North American real estate debt. Private credit AUM globally is projected to hit or exceed $2 trillion in 2026. Why? Refinancing wall. About $936 billion in CRE loan maturities in 2026. Banks aren't covering it. Non-bank lenders are filling the gap. First-lien loans in the 8.0 to 8.5% range. These are attractive risk-adjusted returns for institutional capital. Pension funds, insurance companies, family offices are all allocating to private credit. For quality assets with experienced sponsors, capital is available but selective. The market is separating winners from losers.

There's a fourth player emerging: tokenized real estate. Fractional ownership on blockchain. USDC yields. Global access. No traditional refinancing cycle. Platforms like RealT have tokenized 970+ properties. Investors from 125+ countries. Daily rental income distributed in USDC. Entry points as low as $50. Tokenized real estate is currently around $20 billion with projections to reach $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Capital isn't frozen. It's rotating. Away from banks toward non-banks. Away from big-box industrial toward flex. Away from traditional refinancing toward private credit and tokenized alternatives.

Capital is available but selective, disciplined, flowing to quality assets with experienced operators and strong fundamentals. The operators who understand this moment are positioning now. The ones waiting for perfect conditions are getting left behind. This is the conversation happening in the rooms that matter.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Dallas-Fort Worth just hit an inflection point.

After years of record deliveries, the worst of the oversupply wave is passing. In 2024 and 2025, DFW delivered record apartment units. Vacancy hit 12%, a 20-year high. But construction is collapsing. The pipeline has shrunk for 11 straight quarters. In 2025, DFW delivered about 32,000 units. In 2026, completions are projected to drop to around 25,000. That's a 50% decline from peak. Q1 2026 data shows occupancy at 93.2%. Rents averaging $1,483. By late 2026, occupancy is hitting 93.5% and rents recovering to around $1,517. DFW is moving from an oversupplied market to an operator's market. Now let's talk about policy risk.

Los Angeles passed Measure ULA in 2022. It's called the mansion tax. 4% on real estate sales over $5.3 million. 5.5% over $10.6 million. But it applies to all high-value properties. Not just mansions. Multifamily apartments. Commercial buildings. Mixed-use sites. Everything over the threshold gets hit. Sales of multifamily-zoned properties over $5.3 million fell by nearly two-thirds after the tax passed. UCLA research shows the tax caused a causal reduction of at least 1,910 multifamily units per year. That's an 18% decline relative to pre-tax averages. Multifamily permits fell 27% post-tax.

Federal data shows only 7,363 multifamily units permitted in one recent year. That's a 46% drop from 2022. The lowest since 2013. Developers are leaving. They're shifting to suburbs like Burbank. They're going to other states. The tax raised about $1.19 billion. But revenue is falling short of projections. Fewer sales mean fewer transactions. And because of Prop 13, fewer sales also reduce ongoing property tax revenue. The net effect is a housing deficit, including fewer affordable units. The policy backfired. You try to tax the rich, but you end up destroying the supply you're trying to create. Here's what's really happening. You have two markets moving in opposite directions.

DFW is healing because supply is normalizing. LA is getting worse because policy is destroying supply. Capital is flowing to markets where supply is rational and policy doesn't punish you for building. DFW is getting capital. LA is losing capital. Operators in DFW are about to see rent growth. Operators in LA are about to see continued pressure. This is the moment where the market separates the winners from the losers. DFW operators who understand the supply inflection are positioning now. LA operators who don't understand policy risk are getting left behind. Supply cycles are predictable if you pay attention. Policy risk is avoidable if you're smart about where you deploy capital. DFW gets it. LA doesn't. This is the conversation happening in the rooms that matter.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Two separate markets just sent the same signal.

Law firms are anchoring the premium office market, 21.7% of all leases above $100 PSF in Q1 2026. Meanwhile, San Francisco apartment rents are surging 7.7% year-over-year, with South of Market up 19.2% and Mission Bay up 15.8%. Quality assets are separating from everything else. Capital knows where to go. It's going to quality. It's going to scarcity. It's going to assets with pricing power. If you own mediocre real estate, you're in trouble. If you own quality real estate in a supply-constrained market, you're printing money. This is the conversation happening in the rooms that matter.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Alternative Lenders Fuel CRE Financing Rebound

In Q1 2026, alternative lenders captured 53% of non-agency CRE loan closings, up from 19% a year ago. Banks got squeezed out by regulatory constraints and now sit at 22% market share. Non-banks move faster and are more flexible on structure, but charge higher rates and tighter covenants. Quality assets get funded. Mediocre deals struggle. The operators who understand where capital is coming from, how to structure deals for non-bank lenders, and the true cost of that capital are the ones deploying right now. The rest are sitting on the sidelines.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Houston's onshoring boom is hitting record levels.

Supply chains are reshuffling. Capital is flooding into industrial real estate in Texas. But construction costs just jumped 6.2%. Energy prices are up. Steel is up. Lumber is up. The economics of building new industrial capacity to support onshoring are getting crushed. Developers trying to build new face margin compression. A project that penciled at 8% returns six months ago is now looking at 4% or 5%. Some deals don't pencil at all anymore. But existing industrial assets? That's where the real play is.

Operators with existing industrial in Houston are capturing onshoring demand without construction risk. They're leasing existing space at premium rates to companies reshoring operations. Existing industrial assets are becoming scarce. Developers trying to build new capacity are facing construction inflation that's eating their returns. Smart money figured this out already. They're buying existing industrial in Houston, not developing new. Existing assets command premium pricing. New development gets delayed or repriced lower. The scarcity of existing industrial is real. And capital knows it. For operators in Houston right now, you need to understand your position.

Do you own existing industrial capturing onshoring demand? Or are you trying to develop new capacity at breakeven economics? Because the market is separating those two positions very clearly right now. Existing industrial in Houston is a goldmine. New development is a trap unless you can absorb construction inflation.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Hudson Yards just hit full occupancy. Manhattan's biggest megadevelopment.

No office space left. That's huge. But what does that actually mean? It means trophy office is back. And it's not just a New York story. This is a bifurcation signal on steroids. While Hudson Yards is at full occupancy, distressed office investments hit 4.3 billion dollars in 2025. A decade high. So you've got two markets happening at the same time. Trophy assets thriving. Aging stock getting crushed. So capital is consolidating? Exactly. Flight to quality. The best buildings, the best locations, the best experiences—that's where serious money is moving. Everything else is getting repriced hard. What about the operators caught in the middle? They're in trouble. If you own aging office without a trophy positioning, you're facing serious pressure. Tenants are moving to Hudson Yards. They're moving to the best buildings. They're not staying in mediocre space. So what's the play for operators right now? You either own or control trophy assets, or you're repositioning aggressively to become one.

There's no middle ground anymore. The market is separating. Capital is concentrating in the best buildings. Smaller players are getting squeezed out. And this is accelerating? It's accelerating fast. Hudson Yards at full occupancy while distressed office hits a decade high—that's not a coincidence. That's the market telling you exactly where it's going. Trophy or trouble. That's the choice. So for operators watching this, you need to understand your position in this bifurcation. Are you trophy? Are you becoming trophy? Or are you exposed? Because capital knows the difference. And it's moving accordingly. The operators who see this shift clearly, who understand that trophy is the only sustainable play.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Equinox just announced they're expanding into hotels, branded residences, and adaptive reuse projects.

Most people see this as fitness brand diversification. But wellness is becoming a capital allocation signal. The best operators in real estate aren't just building apartments or office space. They're building experiences. And capital is following that shift hard. Luxury properties are competing on wellness amenities now. Rooftop recovery centers. Spa amenities. Integrated fitness. These aren't nice-to-haves anymore - they're deal-makers. Properties without a wellness layer are getting repriced lower. It's a different kind of bifurcation. Used to be Class A versus Class B.

Now it's experiences versus dumb boxes. Operators with aging stock, no wellness integration - they're facing serious repricing pressure. The smart money figured this out already. Equinox expanding signals that wellness is reshaping where capital goes. Hotels. Residences. Adaptive reuse. These are the vectors where serious operators are deploying capital right now. If you're not thinking about the wellness layer in your real estate strategy, you're already behind. You need to understand this shift. This is the moment where the market is separating the operators who get it from the ones who don't.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

April 2026 brought a modest 0.2% month-over-month rent increase, but the year-over-year picture tells a different story.

National multifamily rents remain down 0.2%, with massive oversupply in the Sun Belt creating a bifurcated market. The numbers are stark: - 740,000 units currently in lease-up, mostly in the Sun Belt - Dallas vacancy at 12.2%, Houston at 19.5%, Austin at 16.7% - Austin rents down 4.3% YoY, Denver -3.6%, Tampa -3.4%, Phoenix -2.7% - Meanwhile, New York up 4.8%, San Francisco up 4.1%, Chicago up 3.3% Construction starts have collapsed from 2022 peaks, but the backlog from 2024-2025 is still hitting the market.

Expect 12-18 months of continued pressure in oversupplied markets. The opportunity? Outer-ring submarkets in the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Texas are showing double-digit rent growth. Employment gains are strong (Charlotte +37.6K, Dallas +14.9K, Tampa +15.5K). The smart money is moving to where supply is constrained and employment is strong. The operators winning right now are the ones who understand the moment and move decisively. The ones losing are waiting for perfect conditions that aren't coming.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com 

Luxury hospitality is having a moment right now that most people are completely missing. The data is clear. Luxury hotels are outperforming every other segment. RevPAR growth at the high end is crushing the rest of the market. Q1 2026 just came in. San Francisco luxury hotels up 31% RevPAR. Xenia Hotels raised full-year guidance.

RevPAR growth now expected between 2.75 and 5.25 percent. That's luxury performing while the broader market is flat. Here's what's happening. Affluent travelers are spending more. They're staying longer. They're choosing experiences over everything else. And the smart money knows this. Private equity is mobilizing. They backed 46 percent of all travel and hospitality deal value in the second half of 2025. That's 20 billion dollars. But they're not buying midscale hotels. They're buying luxury. They're buying lifestyle properties. Design-led, experience-driven assets that command premium pricing. Trinity Investments and Sculptor just bought the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort for 835 million dollars. 809 rooms. 27 acres. Golf. Event space. That's the playbook.

Meanwhile, what's not working? Midscale hotels are getting crushed. Independent hotels are facing margin pressure. The flight to quality is real and it's accelerating. Supply is the story. Luxury segment hit a record high in Q1. 102 projects, 25,527 rooms. That's up 16 percent in projects and 23 percent in rooms year over year. But here's the thing. That's still constrained. The broader market is adding 77,000 rooms in 2026. Luxury is a fraction of that. Scarcity is driving pricing power. And then there's India. The luxury hospitality market in India is 18 billion dollars right now. By 2030, it's going to be 85 to 90 billion dollars. That's 12 to 20 percent compound annual growth. 100 million affluent consumers. 1.2 million millionaires. Capital is flowing there hard.

So where is the smart money actually going? Luxury resorts in gateway markets. Lifestyle hotels in Asia Pacific. Wellness properties. Properties with spa, with events, with experiences that justify premium pricing. Branded residences. Four Seasons residences. Auberge residences. HNWIs are buying these. They're not just hotels. They're alternative investments. And the capital markets are cooperating. Senior debt is mispriced at 8 to 8.5 percent. That's protection for strong markets. Cap rates are stable. Dry powder is deploying. The bifurcation is complete. Luxury is winning. Everything else is fighting for scraps. The people who understand this moment, who can read the data and know where capital is actually flowing, they're positioning now.

Episode Sponsor: Rise 48 Equity
Rise 48 helps you protect and grow your wealth by investing in large multifamily apartment buildings. Vertically integrated property management. Vertically integrated construction. They do all the work.
rise48.com