Real Perspectives Podcast

If you work in commercial real estate, you will have heard of Prop Tech recently, and it is likely that either you or one of your friends has an idea of how to improve commercial real estate through an innovative product or service. RET Ventures will likely be the firm you’ll meet if this is your goal, because they are solely focused on Prop Tech and look for ways to bring these innovative companies to the mainstream.

Today’s conversation with Aaron Ru, a Vice President at RET, gives us a glimpse of his company’s activities, how the world of Prop Tech breaks down and what are some areas where there has been lots of activity. It’s a bright future for the industry!

Today’s conversation takes us to the back yard! Not necessarily my back yard, but a place where some cities across the country are allowing homeowners to build free-standing structures, accessory dwelling units, or more colloquially known as granny units or in-law units. The world of ADUs had grown over the last decade, and some big cities have enacted laws allowing for speedier development of these in order to curb a shortage of housing.

Our chat with Adam Stone, the CEO and co-founder of ADU OZ Fund, or ADU opportunity zone fund, is now looking to bring investment dollars into this opportunity and most importantly into areas known as opportunity zones. He’s looking to really put a booster on this business and help bring housing in areas where its perhaps needed the most. Here is our conversation about his business and the cottage industry of ADUs that’s quickly evolving.

Today’s conversation is with Steve Glenn, the founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, the first prefabricated home factory in the nation dedicated to sustainable construction, materials, processes, and operations. Plant manufactures custom and single/multifamily homes that are high-quality, healthy, and durable. With their patented building system, Plant delivers low cost homes in half the time and with less waste than traditional site-based contractors. Plant models are fully customizable and available to individuals, developers, and architects.

We talk to Steve about how his company is transforming the home and multifamily development business and how he sees the business progressing not just in the United States, but possibly globally, as well. These are not your typical prefab homes, and Steve is not your typical entrepreneur, either, and our conversation will reveal how his perspectives have shaped Plant and hopefully the process of building of the future.

The Swig Company is a privately owned real estate investor operator based in San Francisco with a venerable +80-year history of investment, development, partnership and management of commercial properties in major U.S. markets. Today’s conversation with its CEO Jim Carbone and President Connor Kidd takes us through a period that the firm experienced over the last two years and how those times have helped the company re-affirm its strategy and vision for the future.

Oh, and Jim announces that Connor will be taking over the company, which was hinted at by Connor’s latest promotion and now reaffirmed during our conversation.

Bryan McLaren is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zoned Properties, a strategic real estate development firm whose primary mission is to provide real estate and sustainability services for the regulated cannabis industry. Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Bryan helps shape the industry across the country and brings an understanding of what cannabis can mean for the commercial real estate industry. In just a few years, this industry has expanded from farming to warehousing, manufacturing, retail, finance and transportation, in some places it is a significant player in the commercial real estate industry.

Today’s conversation takes us through some of the ins and outs of this industry and its impact on commercial real estate and beyond.

I have not worked in construction, but I can imagine the difficult task of having to redesign or reorient something during the design phase in order to meet new criteria or requests made by the development team. Finally, Alice Technologies has a solution that helps transform the industry through its generative construction simulation. 

Our conversation today is with Rene Morkos, the founder and CEO of Alice, who takes us through the company’s offering, how he came up with the product and where technologies like these will take construction and design in the future.

Today, we head down to Southern California, where are met with Jodie Poirier and Amanda Spangler. Jodie is the executive managing director of Colliers’ Greater Los Angeles region - she essentially runs the show for Colliers there - and Amanda’s role as managing director of Orange County and Inland Empire extends the group’s coverage into these two important Southern California submarkets. 

The commercial real estate market in this region has been impacted just like any other in the country. However, Southern California has two really big aces up its sleeve - it is the place where most of the stuff we buy from Asia enters the country, so its industrial market is one of the most important in the country. The second ace is the creation of content, which has exploded over the last two years as we’ve binged and spent time glued to our devices while waiting for COVID to end. 

Our conversation today takes us across Southern California’s commercial real estate market as we try to assess the drivers of this industry and what it may bring in the near term.

Rebecca Rockey is an economist and the Global Head of Forecasting at commercial real estate brokerage and advisory firm Cushman & Wakefield. In her role, she studies how economies, demographics, financial markets and commercial real estate interact— both at the macro and micro level. Today’s conversation covers some of the recent changes the Biden Administration enacted with the first phase of the Build Back Better bill. Its impact on commercial real estate is not insignificant and it promises to bring positive change throughout the industry. Rebecca’s perspectives will help us understand the timing of this bill, how different categories of the bill will help impact the industry and we’ll even touch on the dreaded I-word: Inflation.

In 1986, Scott Knies and a few of his colleagues set out to create a business-oriented organization that would help raise awareness of downtown San Jose. Over the next few decades, the San Jose Downtown Association would come to symbolize not only great dynamism in California’s third-largest city but also help promote the good work the city and its corporate citizens were doing to enhance the life of downtown San Jose.

As is the case with many other cities, San Jose, too, is experiencing a bit of a setback, but this is all prelude to some remarkable changes coming there over the next year or so. We sit down with Scott to talk about those changes and how the city will help shape Silicon Valley of the future.

Mark Anderson is the founder and president of MGAC, a Washington, DC-based owner’s representation, and project and cost management consultancy that was born our Mark’s focus on three simple concepts: have fun, do interesting work, and make money doing it. Since 1996, the company has developed and delivered full life cycle solutions for its clients from site selection, program development, cost and schedule modeling, design management, procurement strategy and construction oversight, to name a few.

With additional offices in the US located in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, MGAC has expanded its work across the Atlantic Ocean with its recent acquisition of U.K. property and construction consultants, RLF. Founded in 1885, RLF has 100 employees across four U.K. offices in London, Brighton, Birmingham and Glasgow, now places where MGAC can expand its operations.

Here’s our conversation with Mark and his view on the industry.