The AFIRE Podcast

(Featuring Jim O'Shaughnessy, Managing Director & Hotel Group Leader, Barings Real Estate)

If history is a guide, the time to invest in hotels is when things look bleak. This appears to be one of those times.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/checkincast/

Hotels and retail properties have borne much of the global pandemic’s brunt since the spring of 2020 with COVID-19 ravaging the US economy and dramatically altering consumer behaviors.

And while the challenges facing the retail sector are as much about structural change as they are about cyclical weakness, the story is notably different in the hotel sector, which remains underpinned by long-term structural growth drivers.

That doesn’t mean the picture for hotels has been rosy. In fact, as a result of the global pandemic, US hotels saw their largest-ever decline in demand in 2020—with revenue per available room (RevPAR) down approximately 47.5% compared to 2019.1 And even this striking statistic doesn’t tell the full story, as it wasn’t until March 2020 that the virus started to truly weigh on demand in the US.

Jim O’Shaughnessy, Managing Director & Hotel Group Leader of Barings Real Estate talks about the underlying structural trends, in place long before COVID, and how they will intersect with the coming cyclical recovery—which will inevitably be uneven across the hotel sector and tied to factors such as location and property attributes.

(Featuring Gilda Perez-Alvarado, Global CEO, JLL Hotels and Hospitality)

The pandemic has heavily impacted the hospitality sector, but a growing wave of non-traditional investors has shown heightened interest in getting a piece of the evolving industry.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/franchisingcast/

While certainly not approachable to every kind of entrepreneur, hotel franchising can be a great way to diversify a portfolio and bolster income.

With the lodging industry ready to move forward, third-party management and franchising agreements have come to the forefront of impacting global investor interest, with hotel owners demanding increased flexibility, deeper focus on operations, and more control of their assets.

Gilda Perez-Alvarado, Global CEO of JLL Hotels and Hospitality, talks about the expected demand for hospitality and what's going to happen next for the hotels and reopening continues in the US.

(Featuring John Falcicchio, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Washington, DC)

As cities in the US adapt to a new normal, city leaders, planners, developers, and investors have a new challenge: to define the "new normal" of the built environment. And though it stands unique among American cities, Washington, DC could have answers for our collective urban futures.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/betternormal/

On this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, John Falcicchio, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development for Washington, DC, talks about how the district is not only working to embrace a new normal, but also implementing innovative solutions as a means to create a better normal.

Racial equity and affordable housing are top-of-mind, alongside promoting and preserving density in the city's business districts and workplaces, including reimagined retail experiences and use of public space. What are the obstacles that DC is facing in particular, and what are lessons other cities can learn from DC's ideas and experiments?

According to Falcicchio, collaboration between all city stakeholders—including residents, business and restaurant owners, building managers and owners, investors—is the key to the future of US cities.

(Featuring Robert Sun, Leader of Product Development and Corporate Strategy, GTIS Partners)

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the advantages of single-family living. It appears to have accelerated an existing trend of migration to less dense, more affordable areas.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/goldilockscast/

The US housing market began 2020 with favorable demographics-driven housing demand, balanced new supply, healthy home appreciation, and responsible mortgage lending. However, the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic led to the worst economic disruption in history, with more than 22 million lost jobs between February and April 2020.

In response, the US government approved nearly US$3 trillion in fiscal stimulus while the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero and rolled out an unprecedented scale of support to restart the financial system. Combined, government responses to the COVID-19 crisis helped to stabilize the economy and the housing market has emerged as a bright spot in the recovery.

However, the resilience of the housing market can be explained by structural factors that persisted before and during the economic crisis. Robert Sun, leader of Product Development and Corporate Strategy at GTIS Partners—a leading real assets private equity firm in the Americas, investing in the US and Brazil—discusses these structural factors, and what's next for housing in the US.

(Featuring Brad Dockser, CEO, Green Generation)

Just as the pandemic has accelerated changes in culture, it has underscored the symbiosis between the built environment and the natural world. What's the key to "greening" the next generation of commercial real estate?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/sustainability-in-cre/

As industry professionals move back to the office, the dynamics of the "new normal" are kicking into high gear, including a renewed corporate focus on ESG strategies, actions, and intentions. Financial decisions can't be divorced from the key principles of environment, social, and governance (ESG) standards that are increasingly central to investment decisions for commercial real estate.

Brad Dockser, CEO of Green Generation—a firm that operates globally at the intersection of energy, real estate, capital markets, and technology—discusses how real estate leaders and investors can achieve a low-carbon future—and why the future is now.

(Featuring Robert Jue, CEO, Standard Real Estate Investments, Jerome Nichols, President, Standard Real Estate Investments, Shubhra Jha, Principal, Standard Real Estate Investments)

The investment community can have an active role in an equitable economic recovery—but it will require the necessary discomfort of recasting the traditional risk/return framework.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/recastingriskandreturn/

Recessions typically put a hard stop to development. Shrinking economic activity, loss of jobs, and uncertainty about the recovery make it more challenging for developers and lenders to greenlight projects. But this pandemic-induced recession is different, because the supply/demand balance heading into it was not too out-of-sync with economic realities, and the amount of leverage in the ecosystem was not too onerous. More importantly, the pandemic and the uneven K-shaped recovery have magnified and laid bare some deeply ingrained systemic deficits in housing, healthcare, education, retail, and other services for minority and other disadvantaged communities.

Robert Jue, Jerome Nichols, and Shubra Jha of Standard Real Estate Investments discuss how inclusive development that lifts up overlooked communities is sustainable, equitable, and profitable—not just by the metrics of traditional financial results but, more importantly, by creating true social impact.

This podcast is based on the article “Recasting Risk and Return” from Summit Journal. Read and download the article here: https://www.afire.org/summit/recastingriskandreturn/

(Featuring William Maher, Director of Strategy, RCLCO Fund Advisors, and Ben Maslan, Managing Directors, RCLCO Fund Advisors)

Though leverage is an important part of capital funding, it’s important to ask LPs if (and how) they should take control of their real estate leverage.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/leveragingcontrolrclco/

Leverage is widely used in real estate as an important part of the capital funding, and real estate and leverage have gone hand-in-hand since mortgages originated in England in the Middle Ages. When used wisely, it can enhance returns and provide other portfolio benefits. Institutional investors manage real estate leverage in a variety of ways, but typically utilize relatively low levels of leverage for low-risk investments and higher levels of leverage for higher risk investments. In general, this has worked out in terms of overall returns, but may not be the most efficient strategy.

In this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, RCLCO Fund Advisors’ Director of Strategy and Research William Maher and Managing Director Ben Maslan discuss how institutional investors should continue to use moderate levels of leverage on a portfolio-wide basis but also explore ways to minimize the cost and maximize the flexibility of real estate leverage. In particular, overall fund-level leverage can offer investors lower interest rates while not encumbering specific properties held in their portfolios.

This podcast is based on the article “Confronting the Myth” from Summit Journal.

(Featuring Shumeca Pickett, Founder, Principal, Alfred Dewitt Ard)

The events of the past year have driven businesses to confront racial inequity, but some still shy away from the challenging language needed to make real, restorative, and economic progress.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/confrontingthemythcast/

. . . so what should leaders in the real estate industry do to meet the moment? Corporate social responsibility (CSR), diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives, and ESG reporting are part of the solution, but don’t always inspire change from the top down. What can the past tell us about the present to provide the framework for individuals and organizations to foster a more equitable future?

In this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, Shumeca Pickett, Founder and Principal of Alfred Dewitt Ard, a social impact consultancy, talks about race, equity, White supremacy, and challenging but necessary language needed to create meaningful change.

Listen now on your favorite podcast service (Apple, Google, Spotify) for the full episode.

(Featuring Ed Wagoner, CIO, JLL)

In the post-COVID built environment, understanding building users at all levels will be critical to asset and investment performance. But how exactly is the “user” changing, and what does that evolution mean for investors?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/uxandcre

As employers return to office, amenities will matter. But as a result of the pandemic, the “value” of everything from shared space, outdoor access, eating, and vertical transportation means something radically different. How is the definition of these services and the overall building-user experience changing, and what role to owners, managers, and investors have in meeting these expectations? And what will happen when they can’t?

In this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, Ed Wagoner, CIO, JLL Digital talks about how proptech, “user experience design,” and building usage has changed throughout the pandemic, and what investors will need to do to overcome the challenges of a rapidly evolving built environment.

Listen now on your favorite podcast service (Apple, Google, Spotify) for the full episode.

(Featuring Richard Florida, Urbanist, Author, Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto)

As the cities cautiously re-open into the late phase of the pandemic, writer and urbanist Richard Florida believes that metros have a unique opportunity to reimagine and redefine what a “central business district” will look like in the new normal. Community is key.

www.afire.org/podcast/postcrisiscities/

In this two-part AFIRE Podcast (the FIFTIETH EPISODE of the podcast!) host and AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson sits down with Richard Florida, urbanist, author, and professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, to discuss the the crisis cities were facing before the pandemic, how the crisis accelerated evolving trends in work and lifestyle habits, and the opportunity cities have right now to reimagine what live-work-play means in their communities.

As a prolific economist and researcher in global urban trends, Richard Florida has helped investors better understand how cities have changed and evolved, particularly through his work in The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) and The New Urban Crisis (2017). In this podcast, Florida calls on investors to embrace change as work habits, families, and use of the built environment adapts to life after the pandemic.