I spent some time this week looking at a new playbook out of the AI world, describing what they call the "AI-native software development life cycle." And the more I read it, the more I realized: this isn't really a software story. It's our story. The steps engineers use to build a software application are almost identical to the steps we use to take a piece of dirt and turn it into a building. Plan, design, build, test, deploy, maintain. Swap "code" for "construction drawings" and you're reading our world in real estate development.

-------------
**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Visit The Cost Segregations Guys, our sponsor using this link for a discount. Cost Segregation is the key to accelerating depreciation and improving cash flow in your portfolio.

------------

On today's show we are looking at why Property Tech company Peerspace filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

For over a decade, Peerspace was celebrated as the "Airbnb for hourly space." The company promised to unlock millions of dollars in value hidden inside under-utilized physical real estate. But its sudden filing in bankruptcy court exposes the deep structural vulnerabilities of trying to monetize space by the hour.

The company Peerspace was supposed to revolutionize the industry. But operational friction choked its unit economics, and we will look at the severe liability issue that ultimately forced its restructuring.

-------------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Our book this month is “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life” by Martin Seligman.  It is an influential book about the way people explain success, failure, adversity, and disappointment to themselves. Seligman, one of the most important figures in the development of positive psychology, argues that optimism is not simply a personality trait that people either possess or lack. Instead, he proposes that optimism can be learned by changing the habitual explanations people make about events in their lives. The result is a book that combines psychological research, practical exercises, and personal reflection to explore how our thinking patterns influence performance, health, relationships, and resilience.

A pessimistic person is more likely to view a setback as permanent, believing that the problem will continue indefinitely. The same person may also view the problem as pervasive, assuming that failure in one area means everything is going badly. Finally, the pessimist may personalize the setback by concluding that it happened because of a fundamental personal weakness. An optimist, by contrast, is more likely to see the same problem as temporary, limited to a particular situation, and caused by factors that can potentially be changed.

-----------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Back in 2018 we made the decision to invest in Lake Charles Louisiana.  The thesis behind investing in this market is that the community is at the epicenter of a network of natural gas pipelines. Like some things in the energy industry, the timelines can be long and major projects often get delayed. As a result, not all of our projects in Lake Charles have gone as planned. 

The south coast of the US is blessed with a lot of oil and natural gas. In fact, there is so much natural gas that US prices for natural gas are consistently among the lowest in the world. There are lower prices in the middle east in there Persian Gulf, but these are often government subsidized prices. 

So anywhere you have very low energy costs, you will find energy intensive industries setting up shop. 

This is why most of the LNG plants in the US are along the gulf coast. You will also find petrochemical plants than manufacture chlorine for swimming pools, fertilizer plants, ethane crackers for manufacturing polyethylene, to name just a few.

Let’s go through an inventory of the current projects that are underway in this small town. There is the Louisiana LNG project where the first phase of the project consists of a $17B investment. There is the Venture Global CP2 facility which is a $32B investment. Then there is Commonwealth LNG which is a $12B project. The Cameron LNG project recently entered production and is now exporting 15M metric tons of LNG. The first phase of Venture Global is also in production and pumping out 12 million tonnes per year of LNG. 

Last week SpaceX announced their Louisiana Space port with Governor Landry in attendance. 

SpaceX plans nearly 30 launches per day from 10 launch pads once the spaceport is fully built out.  This $100B investment will bring 10,000 permanent jobs to the area. 

But if you are going to be launching a lot of rockets into space, you will also need a ready source of propellant.  SpaceX uses natural gas and oxygen as the propellants involved in the reaction. They need a few things to build a launch site on this scale. 

1. They need to be south facing with ready access to a coastal area to the south. 
2. They need a massive supply of natural gas
3. They need about 125,000 acres that are far from population centres so as not to interfere with residents. 

This location in Vermillion Parish in Louisiana is almost exactly equidistant between Lafayette Louisiana and the location of our property in Lake Charles. 

Now the market conditions seem to point to bringing a new apartment project into our construction pipeline. We are actively getting quotes and arranging financing for this project. We don’t know what the future holds. After all, we live in an unpredictable world. But if the current demand persists, this project is going to make a lot of sense, not just for the next few years, but for the longer term outlook.

-------------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Today's show is a talk that I gave to the members at American IRA last week. We're talking about how the old value add playbook for apartments is broken and a different asset segment that we believe is working instead.

--------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Michael Bull is based in Atlanta and he heads up Bull Realty. He is also the host of America's Commercial Real Estate Show. To connect with Michael email him at [email protected] or visit bullrealty.com. The podcast can be found at https://www.creshow.com/

-------------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

On today’s show we’re talking about short-term rentals, and more specifically, a change in how governments are enforcing short-term rental regulations.

For years, most short-term rental regulation focused primarily on the property owner.

Do you have a license? Are you collecting the correct lodging tax? Are you violating occupancy limits? Are you operating in a location where short-term rentals are even permitted? Some places enforced permitted uses through the zoning code. Some chose to overlay special regulations for short term rentals independently of the zoning code. 

Increasingly, governments are asking a different question.

Why chase thousands of individual property owners when you can regulate the handful of technology platforms where nearly all of these transactions take place?

That shift is happening right now.

-----------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

There is a strange thing happening in rental housing across the United States.

If you looked only at national statistics, you might conclude that the business of owning an apartment is largely unchanged. 

Since January 2025, more than forty states have passed, published, or court-decided something that touches deposits, notices, fees, or evictions. 

Each individual change can look small.

Taken together, they represent something much larger.

---------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

On today’s episode, we’re taking a deep dive into an issue that is quickly becoming one of the most critical factors in site selection, underwriting, and property development across North America: the state of our electrical grid.

If you’ve been reading the headlines, you’ve probably seen a lot of finger-pointing. The mainstream narrative goes something like this: artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centers are single-handedly overwhelming our power grid, driving up energy prices, and threatening to break our infrastructure. But if you dig just one layer beneath the surface, you realize that AI isn't the underlying cause of this crisis—it’s simply the catalyst that exposed a multi-decade backlog of underinvestment.

Today, we are looking at the real drivers behind grid modernization, why Public Utilities Commissions kept the system running on borrowed time, and what this means for you as a real estate investor.

To understand why billions of dollars in capital expenditure are suddenly flooding into grid modernization, we have to look back at how public utilities have operated for the past forty years.

-------------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Today, we are taking a closer look at last week’s executive shakeup at Fannie Mae. A lot of market commentators are treating this as a simple administrative hurdle—telling investors to prepare for extended processing times and minor closing delays.

While extended processing times are annoying, that perspective misses the real danger facing real estate investors today.

The major risk isn’t that your loan officer takes an extra few weeks to get back to you. The major risk is abrupt policy volatility. High-level executive changes at government-sponsored enterprises don't just swap out office nameplates—they signal an imminent shift in lending policy.

-------------

**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**
 Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)  
 iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)  
 Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)  
 LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)  
 YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)  
 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])  
**Y Street Capital:**
 Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)  
 Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)  
 Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)