Real Estate Capital

Alicia Glen of MSquared explains how she structured capital stacks and self-funded a platform to scale past founder dependency.

Alicia Glen, Founder and Managing Principal of MSquared, returns to catch Nancy Lashine up on her progress building one of real estate's most ambitious affordable housing platforms. Since their conversation in 2024, MSquared has grown to 14 projects across nine states, backed by two funds and a fast-growing base of institutional investors.

That growth has taken MSquared into places most developers overlook, including red states like Indiana. Alicia explains why local leaders there are often more pragmatic about mixed income housing than national politics would suggest.

[14:28] "It doesn't even matter whether you're a Republican or Democrat. . . It’s really about trying to find that counterparty who wants to be part of the solution and then making sure that actually the math works."

She also walks through how her firm makes mixed income housing viable, from tax exemptions in Dallas to GSE products built for mixed income deals.

Alicia is candid about the fundraising gap she faced as a woman starting her own platform, even with three decades of experience spanning Goldman Sachs and City Hall:

[56:08] "I really thought, naively, with my resume and my background, even during COVID, I would be able to raise a ton of money really quickly. . . . If I were a boy, it would have been completely different. And I will stick by that till the end of my days."

Alicia also weighs in on Mayor Mamdani's housing plan and why she's bullish on New York and Los Angeles despite the headlines. She closes with what it will take for MSquared to outlast her.

Links

Alicia Glen | Real Estate Capital (2024)

Alicia Glen | LinkedIn

MSquared | Website

Larissa Herczeg breaks down GP stakes, seeding strategy and building durable real estate partnerships.

Larissa Herczeg, Founder and Managing Partner of 1 Seed Partners, joins Nancy Lashine to trace her path from corporate law to building one of real estate's leading GP seeding platforms.

Larissa walks through how her firm structures deals, preferring revenue participation over full ownership, and explains why patience and discretion matter more than chasing whatever property type is hot. She's direct about why she avoids partnerships with new groups:

[17:46] "Partnerships are loveless, sexless marriages where all you do is talk about money and your children. We like a partnership that's been tested for at least ten years, because it's hard."

She's equally blunt about the fee math that many founders get wrong:

[35:10] "It constantly baffles me that people will turn away capital because the fee's too low. So instead you're going to make one and a half percent on zero. Somehow that's better than making one percent on $200 million."

Larissa also shares how she left Oak Street for Blue Owl before founding 1 Seed Partners in 2024. She points out what she looks for in the operators she seeds and why emerging managers and mega funds each bring real advantages to the table.

Larissa closes with her take on how the GP stakes space has evolved since 2016, from a niche few understood to one of the hottest corners of real estate capital markets.

Links

Larissa Herczeg | LinkedIn

1 Seed Partners | Website

Dennis Lopez, CEO of QuadReal Property Group, discusses platform investing and Quadreal's broader investment strategy.

Seeking markets with long-term demand, like data centers and affordable housing, is one of the main ways QuadReal has increased its success during Dennis’ tenure. However, Dennis shares there is a major challenge to supply in a high-demand market, like data centers, right now:

[20:02] “The real constraint to supply now is power, and solutions to power take a long time.”

To continue to be attractive within the industry, a property needs to have the right population density and location.

The conversation goes on to focus on the complexities of global real estate investment, including the challenges faced in international markets, such as China, and how environmental risks like ocean flooding and wildfires are shaping investment strategies.

One of the most important things a real estate company can control, Dennis emphasizes, is to invest in its people.

[30:00] “The most important thing has been to establish a culture with [your] people. A culture of performance, a culture of responsibility, integrity [...], collaboration.”

Dennis’ insights shed light on the strategic pivot towards debt over equity operations, the importance of cultivating new skills, and the intricacies of global real estate.

Christopher Merrill shares the strategy that scaled Harrison Street to $109 billion in assets under management.

Christopher Merrill, co-founder and global CEO of Harrison Street Asset Management, joins Nancy Lashine to discuss building one of the world’s largest alternative asset investment firms. 

Since founding Harrison Street in 2005, Chris has helped grow the firm to $109 billion in assets under management (AUM) across real estate, infrastructure and private credit.

Chris traces the firm’s strategy back to his early experience investing in central Europe, where he learned the value of pursuing fragmented markets and building strong teams. That experience shaped a principle that continues to guide Harrison Street’s relationships: 

[00:06:38] “If you get alignment of interest right, it works.”

Chris shares Harrison Street’s early focus on student housing, senior housing, medical office and self-storage, and how local operating partnerships have helped the firm build scale in these sectors. 

Chris also explains why deeper relationships with universities and health systems are creating new opportunities across real estate and infrastructure.

As more capital enters alternative real estate, experience becomes increasingly important to identifying risk.

[00:31:23] “No one likes to talk about their mistakes. I do. I try and bring them up a lot of times with investors and say "We've made mistakes in these sectors, and I think those scars are making us stronger.”

Across each stage of Harrison Street’s growth, a truth has emerged: scale creates the most value when it strengthens alignment, creates experts and preserves investment discipline. 

Resources

Christopher Merrill | LinkedIn

Harrison Street | Website

Katie Grissom of Nuveen discusses the retail resurgence and how retailer relationships shape investment decisions.

Katie Grissom, Nuveen’s Global Head of Retail, joins Nancy Lashine to discuss the evolution of institutional retail investing. Katie oversees more than $20 billion in retail assets across the U.S., Europe and Asia, and retailer relationships sit at the center of every investment decision at Nuveen. 

She explains how direct conversations with tenants influence underwriting, market selection and long-term portfolio construction, giving the firm insight that extends beyond traditional market data.

[00:18:14] “The retailer is the most important piece of what we do. And having those relationships gives us an unfair advantage.”

Partnership and deal structure are incredibly important. Katie shares why convenience-oriented retail continues to outperform, how demographic trends differ across global markets and why investors should look beyond headline returns when evaluating retail opportunities. 

[00:41:50] “The risk for the retail space is that it is so localized and it’s so granular that you've got to understand where all the risks are.”

Katie’s perspective combines the operational knowledge of how retailers think with the discipline of institutional investing. Listen for what’s next in the retail investment space.

Resources

Katie Grissom | LinkedIn

Nuveen Real Estate | Website

Kensington Vanguard’s Michelle Kleger shares how relationships, consistency and follow-through fuel successful careers in real estate.

Michelle Kleger is an expert relationship-builder.

She joins Nancy Lashine in this episode to share her unconventional path from hospitality into real estate and practical advice on mentorship, follow-up and building a long-term career.

Michelle works in business development, where she brings in clients and shepherds their deals through closing. In the title industry, you can’t compete on price because it’s state-regulated. So, Michelle has built a franchise on relationships and trust.

She did it by spending years meeting people over breakfast, lunch and drinks with one goal: getting to know them. 

[00:07:35] “I was talking about the business probably zero. I was developing relationships with people.”

Michelle’s love of people has helped her develop lasting relationships across the industry that continue to drive deals and open doors for her today.

The conversation also explores commercial title insurance, business development, networking systems and the habits that keep relationships active over time. Michelle also shares about founding Girl Gang CRE in 2017, a community of more than 3,500 women in commercial real estate.

[00:24:18] “The one thing I’ve learned from being at the same company for 10 years is the power of relationships.”

Michelle highlights how the strongest competitive advantages in commercial real estate are the relationships you build and the value you create before anyone asks for it.

Links

Michelle Kleger | LinkedIn

Kensington Vanguard National Land Services | Website

Girl Gang CRE | Website

Park Madison’s executive committee revisits its 2026 predictions and examines the trends shaping real estate for the rest of the year.

Park Madison’s executive committee, Rob Kohn, Carrie Coulson, Jack Koch, Brian Di Salvo and John Sweeney, joins Nancy Lashine for a mid-year assessment of the firm's 2026 Outlook. The group examines which themes have played out as expected, where market conditions have shifted and what investors should watch during the second half of 2026.

The discussion covers interest rates, fundraising, transaction volumes and the continued importance of distributions as institutional investors gradually return to the market. 

[00:12:43, Carrie] “There’s a lot more scrutiny on how managers are actually creating value. . . . not just ‘Here’s my track record, here are my returns.’”

That scrutiny extends to different asset classes as well. The team talks about why niche operating strategies continue to attract capital, how data centers are navigating growing pushback and why industrial assets with access to power are becoming increasingly valuable.

They also question how immune the real estate industry is to developments in AI, especially given that people will always need a place to live, work and play.

[00:17:50, Jack] “I do think just generally as an asset class, there is some protection given that we’re humans and we always physically need those three things.”

The conversation reinforces that patient capital and operational expertise continue to separate durable investment strategies from opportunistic ones.

Resources

Park Madison Partners' website

2026 Outlook report

Brendan Wallace discusses how AI is reshaping real estate, venture capital and the future of PropTech.

Brendan Wallace joins Nancy Lashine to discuss how generative and agentic AI are fundamentally changing the real estate industry for investors, operators and PropTech companies. 

The conversation explores why traditional “point solution” software is no longer enough for real estate firms trying to stay competitive. 

Brendan explains that companies now must integrate AI directly into their operations and decision-making infrastructure rather than treating technology as a separate IT support function.

[00:14:18] “If you still conceptualize your business that way, as we have leasing and development and reporting and then tech over here, you've fully lost the plot because what matters to truly capture the value of generative agent AI is you can't think of it as technology. You have to think of it as business.”

Brendan also discusses how AI is reshaping venture investing itself, compressing competitive advantages and increasing the concentration of returns among a small number of breakout companies. 

He argues that firms that are hesitant to adapt will fall behind quickly as the industry undergoes a major transformation.

[00:50:30] “Doing nothing around generative and agentic AI, not having a strategy, is an existential mistake at this point.”

The episode also covers climate investing, global innovation ecosystems and why Brendan believes the next five years will bring more change to real estate management than the previous two decades combined.

Links

Brendan Wallace | LinkedIn

Fifth Wall’s website

Brian Feldman, Compass Datacenters’ Vice President of Development, discusses data center development, power procurement, and the future of digital infrastructure.

Brian shares how unexpected opportunities early in his career led him to work with data centers. After graduating from Columbia’s business school, he joined Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) long-range planning team. At AWS, Brian was responsible for buying land for data centers and then procuring the power contract to energize it. 

He learned that data center location primarily depends on what problem the business is trying to solve. Brian points out that use and sales tax incentives and varying data center governance laws across the U.S. play a key role in site selection, too.

[00:15:06] “Data centers like to be next to other data centers [because] . . . [they] are all about interrelational databases and interrelational compute. . . . [T]hat means they can talk to each other almost instantaneously and really almost act like one greater facility.”

Brian shares how much data centers permanently boost local economies. They employ thousands of people during construction—people who live, eat and spend money in the community.

[00:43:40] “The construction cycle just continues. They're temporary jobs, but what people don't often realize is the level of permanence because these buildings do require constant upgrade and retrofit. And that's one, baked into the economics, and two, based [on] the lease terms.”

While the data center boom eventually will slow down, Brian emphasizes that the industry’s fundamental drive is society’s demand for computational power. And things like phone use and the need to interpret data aren’t going anywhere soon.

Links

Brian Feldman | LinkedIn

Compass Datacenters’ website

Daniel McGill of Joby Aviation shares how electric air transit and vertiports could reshape real estate value and development.

Daniel McGill of Joby Aviation joins Nancy Lashine to explore how electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft could reshape the built environment. 

With a background spanning Hines, Apple and institutional real estate, Daniel brings a practical lens to what it takes to introduce entirely new vertiport infrastructure into existing cities.

[00:16:43] “Literally the way you pick up your phone to call an Uber Black to get to the airport or an event, now there's an option to pick up an aircraft to fly you to said destination.”

He explains how landing pads on rooftops and underutilized spaces could become a powerful differentiator for assets, particularly as landlords look for new ways to drive demand and increase value.

Daniel outlines how this technology could expand where people choose to live and work, unlocking new geographies by dramatically reducing commute times. He emphasizes that adoption will take time and intentionality, pointing to Waymo’s rollout of its self-driving cars as an example to follow.

[00:31:30] “It requires patience. . . . We need to be early and often engaging with the community.”

Daniel highlights how forward-thinking real estate owners can position themselves at the forefront of a new mobility paradigm. He goes further than predicting the future of transportation and real estate by giving a glimpse into what is already on the cutting edge.

Links

Daniel McGill | LinkedIn

Joby Aviation | Website