The Nelson Report

For this month’s Nelson Report, James was joined by two visionaries in the PropTech world, Zach Aarons of MetapropNYC and John Sikaitis of Avison Young’s new global innovation practice. Zach Aarons has been investing in early-stage PropTech both individually and with his company for years now, having invested in close to 100 startups. On top of this, he just published a book titled, “PropTech 101: Turning Chaos Into Cash Through Real Estate Innovation.” James' other guest, John Sikaitis, just recently joined Avison Young as the Chief Innovation Officer after being with JLL for 15 years as the Managing Director of Research. His current focus within Avison Young is to drive ideas, develop processes and launch products at the intersection of data analytics and technology. 

This month, James is pleased to welcome back to the Nelson Report Mark Rose, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Avison Young, who just returned from several months in our London office and visiting other Avison Young locations throughout Europe. Last February, Avison Young acquired U.K.-based GVA, which was one of the U.K.’s leading and most diverse real estate advisory businesses. The transaction added Avison Young offices in the U.K, Austria; Bulgaria; China; France; Greece; Italy; Norway; Poland; Republic of Ireland; Romania; Russia; Spain; and United Arab Emirates (Dubai). Avison Young now has approximately 5,000 real estate professionals in 120 offices in 20 countries. James starts by asking Mark to share his insights about the uncertainties in the market—Brexit in London and political headwinds in New York City and other parts of the country. 

For this month’s Nelson Report James Nelson got the chance to have a rare interview with real estate visionary Bruce Ratner. Ratner has had a hand in some of the largest New York City developments including Barclays Center and Pacific Park Brooklyn. Since 1985, his company has built around 50 ground-up projects in New York City, including New York's tallest modular tower, the New York Times building, the 16-acre Metro Tech office complex and a Frank Gehry apartment tower.

In this podcast, they discuss Ratner's humble upbringing and how he went from lawyer to his first ground-up development with MetroTech. 

For the full interview, where they discuss things like the development of Barclays Center and working with Jay-Z, please listen to “Real Estate Investing – Live from New York”, James Nelson's new radio show broadcast on the VoiceAmerica network starting on October 29th at 7pm EST with a rebroadcast on October 30th at 7am EST.

Episodes will also be available in podcast form on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and Spotify.

Over the past few months, the real estate industry has had its attention largely focused on updates to rent regulation. For the September Nelson Report, James Nelson discusses something that will have resounding effects in the real estate community, but has received much less attention: The Climate Mobilization Act (CMA). YuhTyng Patka, a Partner at Duval & Stachenfeld LLP and co-chair of their task force to address the CMA, and Jeff Carleton, Managing Director/Auditor/Retro Commissioning Agent from Carleton Energy Consulting join him in the studio. 

For this episode of the Nelson Report James Nelson turns over the interviewer role to his colleague Gail Donovan, Senior Director of Marketing at Avison Young, who interviews him about why he is still bullish on New York City real estate.  

In June, the Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act of 2019 was signed into law, rocking the New York commercial real estate industry. In this two part series, James Nelson takes you through what happened and the outlook for the industry through interviews with four experienced real estate attorneys. Check out Part 1 here. For Part 2, James interviewed Douglas Heller, Counsel at Herrick Feinstein LLP and Craig L. Price, Partner at Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, LLP.

In June, the Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act of 2019 was signed into law, rocking the New York commercial real estate industry. In this two part series, James Nelson takes you through what happened and the outlook for the industry through interviews with four experienced real estate attorneys. For the first segment, he interviews two very accomplished landlord/tenant attorneys: Nick Kamillatos, partner at Rosenberg & Estis, and Christina Smyth, founder of Smyth Law. 

Several times a day James Nelson is asked, “how is the residential real estate market in New York City?” Answering this question can be incredibly daunting as a commercial broker, so to get some better insight on how to explain this, he turns to Jonathan Miller, President, co-founder and CEO of Miller Samuel, a real estate and appraisal company, and Vince Rocco of Halstead Real Estate who specializes in selling high-end luxury condos in New York City and is the radio talk show host of “Good Morning New York: Real Estate with Vince Rocco.”

With policies on rent regulation up in the air in Albany and Amazon’s decision to pull out of Long Island City, the local political climate is more dramatic than ever. To gain more insight on this, James Nelson interviewed Bradley Tusk and Eric Soufer. Tusk is founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures, a venture capital fund which has advised Uber and Fan Duel, among others, and is now representing CHIP on rent regulation. He previously served as Michael Bloomberg's campaign manager, as deputy governor of Illinois and as Senator Chuck Schumer's communications director. Soufer is Managing Director at Tusk Ventures who previously served as Director of Communications and Senior Counsel for policy to the New York State Attorney General.

For this month’s edition of The Nelson Report, James Nelson interviews his good friend Ryan Serhant in front of the entire Avison Young New York office. They discuss his childhood, how he made the move from acting to real estate and his daily habits and mantras that motivate him to be successful both in the real estate business and in life.