Commercial Real Estate Investment Conference Podcast (CREIC)

John Todderud, multifamily syndicator with 40 years in the game, went from writing code at Boeing and Fortune 500 tech companies to writing checks in real estate. Early in his conference strategy, he thought the play was to work the room, meet new people, cast the widest net possible. But he realized the actual deals, the real money, weren't coming from strangers met once in a hallway. They were coming from people he kept seeing. Over and over. Depth, not breadth.

And here's the thing nobody's talking about. If you've been in commercial real estate and capital raising for any amount of time, you know there used to be pivotal events. Industry gatherings that everyone circled on their calendar. The rooms where deals got done. Where relationships compounded year after year. A lot of those events? Sunsetted. Minimized. Gone. There's a vacuum right now.

That's exactly why this matters. This isn't just another conference. This is the new anchor event for people who no longer have one. If you know, you know. You show up once, you walk away with contacts. You show up three years in a row? You've got a network. You've got trust. You've got partners. That's where deals actually get done.

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Q1 2026 office market breakdown: U.S. office vacancy hit 21%, a record high and four full points above pandemic lows.

Simultaneously, tenants signed 120 million square feet of new leases — a 25% jump over Q1 2025 and the highest single quarter since mid-2018. This episode breaks down the paradox. The leasing surge wasn't driven by blockbuster deals but by an unusually high number of smaller transactions. Average new lease sizes remain 15% below pre-pandemic norms. Tenants are taking less space, committing to shorter terms, and moving into spec suites. This is flight to quality playing out in real time. Financial services firms are propping up stronger markets. Charlotte and New York both posted leasing volumes above pre-2020 averages. San Francisco is getting a lift from AI-driven tech leasing. But the ceiling is coming into view. Return-to-office movement may be approaching its peak. Job growth remains tepid. Rising energy costs are creating demand-side headwinds. For owners of high-quality, amenitized products in the right markets — Charlotte, New York, San Francisco, Orange County, Dallas — the demand signal is real. For everyone else, rising vacancy and expiring leases are still the story.

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This episode introduces the three people behind the room.

Cameron Iuvancigh from Thunder Bay, Ontario - working with TribeVest, strategic relationships with fund managers across the country, and his off-grid island project Superior Island. Vanessa Haynes from Tempe, Arizona - founder of Greattly, 15 years of executive marketing management, daughter of Pro Football Hall of Famer Mike Haynes, and founder of Greattly Gives nonprofit. Adam Carswell from Painesville, Ohio - architect of the capital-raising ecosystem, built RaiseMasters from zero to ten million dollars in 31 months, hosted over 1,000 interviews, and the Global Capital Connector. Together, they're creating a goldmine.

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.
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The office market as we knew it is gone. Remote work killed it. The pandemic accelerated it. Now capital is repricing office buildings into apartments. Yellowstone secured $203M to convert a 221,000 sq ft office building at 220 West 42nd Street in Times Square into 176 apartments, including 44 affordable units and 18,000 sq ft of retail. Financing includes $36M mezzanine from Naftali Credit Partners and main debt from Bank Hapoalim (U.S. lending arm), arranged by IPA's Capital Markets. The property was acquired in 2022 via deed-in-lieu of foreclosure for $161.1M, down from EPIC's $261M purchase in 2012.

This deal is part of a massive national trend. At the start of 2026, 90,300 apartments are under construction through office conversions, a 28% increase year-over-year and 291% increase since 2022. Office conversions now represent 47% of all adaptive reuse projects. NYC leads with 16,400 units in pipeline. Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Denver are all converting office to residential. National office vacancy is 17.6%, with eight top-25 markets above 20%. Austin at 24.6%, San Francisco at 24.2%.

Multifamily vacancy is 4.8% vs office at 19%. Multifamily rents up 21.3% since 2020, office rents up only 1.4%. Over 81 million sq ft of office space in conversion pipeline, 75% planned for multifamily. Fewer than 20% of office properties suit residential conversion. Conversions cost 20-30% less than new construction. RXR converting 1.1M sq ft into 1,250 units. Broad Street Development recapped another conversion for $175M. This is where institutional capital is flowing. This is the biggest real estate transition in America.

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

Sun Life Financial just made one of the most aggressive multifamily plays in years. $1.4 billion to take full control of Crescent Capital and BGO. Another $350 million to acquire Bell Partners, adding 70,000 apartment units across 12 major US markets. Combined, Sun Life now has over $100 billion in real estate assets under management. But this isn't just about buying buildings. It's about buying vertically integrated platforms with in-house management, local expertise, and operational control. Supply is still crushing demand. Vacancy rates aren't supposed to stabilize until late 2026. Most operators are treading water. Sun Life walks in and buys the machine. 75% of the Bell Partners deal is being paid in shares, not cash. A Canadian insurance company just told the market: the US rental market is undersupplied for the next decade, and we're positioning to own it. This episode breaks down what Sun Life's $1.75 billion move really means for operators, capital allocators, and anyone paying attention to where institutional money is actually going.

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

Columbus, Ohio just took the number one spot in the entire nation for multifamily permits issued with over 7,500 units. Los Angeles is right behind with almost 7,500 units. Miami and Orlando both around 7,000 units permitted. Brooklyn rounds out the top five with almost 6,800 units.

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The independent landlord sector is stabilizing. New data from Chandan Economics shows on-time rent payments climbed to 83.7% in February 2026, up from 82.8% in January. That's the highest reading since the wheels started wobbling in mid-2025.

This episode breaks down what the numbers actually mean:

The takeaway: This is stabilization, not a victory lap. The worst of the payment squeeze appears to be behind us, but we're not back to normal. It's a grind, not a snap back.

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Alterra Mountain Company just broke ground on The Stockman, Auberge Collection. A $550 million hotel-residence hybrid in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And it's telling you exactly where capital is moving.

This episode breaks down why this deal matters:

The Stockman is not an outlier. It's a signal of where the market is heading.

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The February rent numbers are in and the headline is going to scare some people.

National multifamily rent growth slowed to 1.2% year-over-year, down from 1.4% in January. Annualized monthly growth is sitting at 0.2%.

But context is the difference between panicking and positioning.

In this episode, we break down:

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AI job growth is hyper-concentrated in a handful of U.S. metro areas. If you're an investor, operator, or capital allocator, you need to know which ones and what it means for office demand and data center development.

In this episode, we break down:

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