The AFIRE Podcast

(Featuring Dror Poleg, Author, Rethinking Real Estate, Co-Chair, Urban Land Institute, Tech and Innovation Council, Co-Founder, Real Innovation Academy)

All of the middle class amenities much of the world takes for granted today are still relatively new—and were even considered radical when they first appeared on the real estate spectrum.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/drorpoleg02/

. . . so as the world emerges from the pandemic into the new normal, what are the key lessons of novelty and economic evolution the real estate ecosystem should understand today in order to better plan for tomorrow?

In the second half of AFIRE's conversation with Dror Poleg, author of Rethinking Real Estate, the AFIRE Podcast explores the growing tide of service expectations and amenitization for all real estate asset classes.

As much as these expectations were ascendent before the pandemic, their nascence underscores a larger and more radical cultural shift that transcends the real estate business while also reflecting similar pivotal moments of social evolution in history to transform the basic principles of how the built world works—and where each person and building user fits into the mix.

How this fundamental transformation has upsides and downsides to all building types, but those that are the most flexible and adaptable may have the most potential—because they're already prepared for the changes ahead.

Listen now to the episode on this page or your favorite podcast service (Apple, Google, Spotify).

(Featuring Dror Poleg, Author, Rethinking Real Estate, Co-Chair, Urban Land Institute, Tech and Innovation Council, Co-Founder, Real Innovation Academy)

Over the last several years, there has been significant change in the real estate industry—and the pandemic has served to kick that evolution into high gear. So what happens next?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/drorpoleg01

While some sectors—such as industrial and housing—have shown increased promise through and beyond this current advanced moment in the pandemic, some of the real changes in "core" assets might not become clear for several years.

In this newest episode of the AFIRE Podcast—the first of two special conversations with Dror Poleg, author of Rethinking Real Estate and Co-Chair of the Tech & Innovation Council at ULI—we dive into what happens next for these once-stable sectors, including office buildings and other real estate integral to the apparent cohesion of the central business districts before the pandemic.

As large companies seek new forms of flexibility for how they use their space, and how their employees utilize that space, they're also reimagining the services they provide—and the services they need in order to make these changes possible. According to Poleg, we're just at the beginning.

(Featuring Stefan Wundrak, Head of Research, Europe, Nuveen Real Estate)

A fast-changing and profitable landscape, industrial real estate, or what is now called “logistics” in Europe has firmly established itself as one of the key sectors on par with office, retail, and residential.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/duckling-or-swan/

The pandemic and subsequent severe recession has caused friction in many parts of the real estate market, especially in retail, hospitality, and office. In contrast, many parts of the industrial market are set to benefit, most obviously, the logistics sector.

With the development of the digital economy, data centers are the next frontier, where a mixture of REITs (mainly in the US) and private market capital (mainly in Europe) are shaping a new distinct asset class with huge growth potential. Data centers must be near their customers, which are consumers as well as businesses.

Stefan Wundrak, Head of Research, Europe, Nuveen Real Estate, talks about how industrial real estate has grown as a sector of its own driven by e-commerce and trends accelerated through COVID-19.

(Featuring Collette English Dixon, Executive Director, Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate, Roosevelt University)

How can the social and economic framework in real estate be changed to harbor a diverse and inclusive workplace?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/opportunity-for-change/

The historical structure of real estate, unconscious biases, and hiring approaches all promote the social and economic inequity that continues to exist today—within and beyond the real estate industry. In an echo for more transparency with communities of color, education provides a more holistic outlook towards diversity.

Collete English Dixon, Executive Director of the Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University, discusses how education can diversify and expand the talent pipeline for real estate hiring and culture. In order to attract a truly diverse pool of talent, it is important to be intentional when setting routes for career success.

(Featuring Brian Biggs, CFA, Research Director, Grosvenor Americas, and Madeleine Roberts, Research Analyst, Grosvenor Americas)

Portfolio diversification is one of the most fundamental concepts in investing. Diversification is a useful risk management tool employed to construct a portfolio in such a way that an investor is not overly exposed to any asset or risk.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/city-vs-property/

How can real estate investors think about constructing a diversified portfolio in an efficient and cost-effective manner? Investors do not necessarily need to spread themselves thin in order to thrive in portfolio diversification.

Brian Biggs, CFA, Research Director of Grosvenor Americas, and Madeleine Roberts, Research Analyst of Grosvenor Americas, talk about how the city lens is a powerful tool for diversified portfolio construction. By selecting a relatively small set of cities based on their long-run total returns relationships with one another, investors can build a portfolio that offers relative stability in uncertain times.

(Featuring Christopher Muoio, Vice President, Data and Research, Madison International Realty)

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought massive shifts in behavior, as social distancing and other public health protocols have reshaped our daily lives. What does this mean for institutional investment in the office sector after COVID?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/institutional-investment-office-sector/

A wide-scale embrace of remote work and decentralized labor forces will have significant ramifications on the future demand for office space across the US. However, these narratives have been counterbalanced by companies such as Amazon and Facebook leasing additional office space in recent months, as they envision a future return to normalcy once the pandemic has subsided.

Given the potential impact remote work could have on office space demand and investments, determining its true scale is paramount. If remote work set-ups were not having negative impacts on company operations, and were viewed favorably by executives, then such impacts and views would need to be accounted for in the investment process and market selection—at least in the near- to medium-term.

In this podcast, Christopher Muoio, Vice President, Data and Research of Madison International Realty, talks about how his group used both traditional and alternative data analysis to get at the heart of the current remote work environment and the outlook for institutional investment in the office sector after COVID?

(Featuing Gleb Nechayev, CRE, Head of Research, Chief Economist, Berkshire Residential Investments)

The pandemic has rekindled the old debate about real estate dynamics in cities versus the suburbs. But real estate is cyclical, so to see what the future holds, watch the fundamentals.

https://www.afire.org/summit/shiftingtosuburbs/

Real estate investors should consider a couple of factors when deciding where to acquire or build the next property. Recent data does indeed show that multifamily and office properties in the suburbs are outperforming, a trend that is likely to continue in the near term.

To look beyond the immediate horizon, it helps to remember that real estate is cyclical and, as time progresses, property rents and prices always adjust so that the pendulum of tenant and investor demand swings in the other direction. Much depends now on how quick and material this adjustment in fundamentals will be over the next couple of years, as well as how much the sentiment towards living and working in high-density areas changes as a result of the pandemic.

Gleb Nechayev, CRE, Head of Research and Chief Economist of Berkshire Residential Investments provides insight on the impact COVID-19 on the investment landscape, specifically in the multi-family and office sectors.

(Featuring Gunnar Branson, CEO, AFIRE)

As COVID comes to define a new era, institutional investors in real estate will need to understand that prior strategies won't work like they once did.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/changing-paradigm

Online shopping, virtual work, and emerging technology are a few of the ways that COVID shaped the new reality. As trends continue to accelerate, new habits replace old ones, and unlike past events, these have personally impacted everyone to some extent.

What are people doing now and why? In order to understand the changing priorities in the real estate industry, there needs to be a closer observation in the way people are reacting to them. Working through Zoom calls, social distancing, and limited travel are seemingly normal now, but which new behaviors will become permanent?

Gunnar Branson, CEO of AFIRE, discusses the implications of COVID-19 on the investment landscape, and offers a new perspective on how to mitigate this new change.

(Featuring David C. Smith, Americas Head of Occupier Research, Cushman and Wakefield)

COVID forced an experiment at global scale to test productivity and culture in a work-from-home environment. Now that we're a year into the experiment, what's the future of the office sector ecosystem?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/office-space

With the coronavirus pandemic entering into its second year, a lot of occupiers are rethinking their real estate strategies. Investors are trying to find the right way to pivot and find new strategies for value creation in the midst of a large-scale workplace evolution.

As most workers, especially in the US, are not yet allowed or interested in returning to their offices, investors have the opportunity—and the urgency—to build out long-term scenario plans, strategize future decisions and investment philosophies, and understand the current field of options available. Latency in the office sector has opened up the possibility of new forms of thinking that rely on keeping occupiers productive and engaged within the evolving real estate landscape.

David Smith of Cushman and Wakefield provides recent insights on the four emerging, key purposes of office space, including a look at how occupiers are changing their own thinking around office use.

(Featuring Valeria Falcone, Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, Real Estate Country Head-Italy, Barings Real Estate, and Joe Gorin, Managing Director, Head of Portfolio Management and Value-Add Investing for the US Real Estate Equity, Barings Real Estate)

The pandemic altered assumptions about the real estate, including the shift in demand, location, and even the environment itself. Yet, at the center of the storm are the value-add investors who drive opportunity and risk when it comes to change.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/afirepodcast30-value-add

How is the value-add landscape changing because of the COVID-19 pandemic? It is evident that changes have been felt across product types and sectors like multifamily, industrial, office, retail, and e-commerce. In addition, the trends within these sectors accelerated quickly, proposing a new challenge for investors—meeting the demands that occupy the competitive industry to acquire value-add deals.

Despite the growing disparity between functional office spaces and obsolete office spaces, a disciplined approach to value-add investing is necessary to determine rent values for assets given the increase of population growth and migration patterns.

In this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, Joe Gorin and Valeria Falcone of Barings Real Estate discuss how the thematic approach in real estate is changing and what structural impacts it's having beyond the pandemic.