Leading Voices in Real Estate (Matt Slepin)

This week’s podcast guests are Carl Shannon of Tishman Speyer and Larry Baer of the San Francisco Giants. The pair discuss the opportunities in the land surrounding the Giants’ stadium. Together, Tishman and the Giants are building the Mission Rock mixed-use project, a new neighborhood adjacent to the Giant’s Oracle Park. The space is 28 acres with 1.6 million square feet of office and retail, 1,100 residential units, and eight acres of public open space — all on the waterfront.

Larry explains that the baseball kedIn

• Mission Rock
• Tishman Speyer
• Baseball Reference

Jim was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs. He has positive memories of the dynamic neighborhood full of families raising their kids and a strong public school environment. Also clear in his memory is a downtown visited on special occasions or to shop at Hudson’s, once America’s largest department store.

Jim attributes Detroit’s early lack of public transportation to the fact that it was the hub for automotive companies, making car ownership king. He wonders how different things might have been, had public transportation been implemented.

Many companies have maintained their presence in downtown Detroit through thick and thin, however, during this time of new investment, attracting and retaining top talent is the priority. Bedrock’s success has sparked competition and investment by others in downtown Detroit, helping bring young people and new businesses to the Central Business District.

Jim went to Michigan State College of Law and laughs about how many of his work colleagues now, were old neighbors and classmates of his when he was younger. Specifically, his friend Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans.

As Quicken Loans grew, Jim and Dan deepened discussions about moving the mortgage lender’s headquarters downtown from its suburban location in Livonia, MI. From there, they began to lay the foundation for major change.

Although Jim shares that he was not quite sure what the future held, he also wasn’t afraid of failure. He believed that as long as they never had a plan B and only focused on plan A, this was something that could be successful.

By the end of 2010, Jim and Dan had formed their company, and by January 2011, they had their first acquisition.

Just seven years later, Bedrock’s portfolio includes more than 100 properties, mostly concentrated within Detroit’s Central Business District and downtown Cleveland.

Now, downtown Detroit is home to tenants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft. Jim shares proudly that the residential, retail, restaurant, transportation, and arts scene have all been growing steadily.

If a developer calls me up and says I’m interested in Detroit, I’m like ‘Great, let me tour you through everything we’ve done, let me teach you what we know, and let me help you to acquire something and compete with me.’ …The more you help people, the better it is.

Jim’s parting advice is that it’s okay to fail because that’s how we all learn and get better.

Music was everywhere. We played music, we were encouraged to play music, we sang in the car. But that was also the 70’s.

Dar grew up in Chappaqua, NY during the 70’s. It was developing and becoming more progressive as a commuter city to New York City. Her parents were involved in city politics but also enjoyed art, gardening, and music.

Through volunteering and fundraising, her parents exemplified community building, her father specifically holding an instrumental role in bringing their local library to life. Dar emphasizes the importance and beauty of libraries as community gathering spaces.

Growing up, she has a clear memory of listening to Judy Collins and connecting with the seriousness and poetry of the songwriting. She pursued playwriting and theater until she moved to Boston where she began doing open mics and writing songs in its supportive, vibrant music community.

As Dar began traveling and performing, she shares how she fell in love with watching the small towns evolve with each performance, time and time again. She credits this cultivation of culture to the people and the community builders who bring the artists into the town.

I watched towns grow up as the venues grew up.

Positive proximity is the experience of living side by side with people and knowing that your life is better because there are other people, not despite the fact that there are other people.

Dar shares a personal example of this from her life of a man who tilled the herb garden while sharing differing political views. Although she disagreed with his politics, she was grateful to spend time with someone who was so different from her but shared a common vision for their community.

Some of the Towns That Dar Loves:

1. Her hometown, Beacon, NY.

2. Phoenixville, PA.

3. Gainesville, FL.

4. Moab, UT.

Based on her 25 years of touring the country, Dar wrote the book “What I Found in A Thousand Towns,” which highlights her unique perspective on how communities evolve. As a bonus, Dar plays her song, “February.” You can find more of her work on her website.

Gerald Hines founded his business in 1957 as a developer of office properties. His namesake company now has a presence in 201 cities and 24 countries, and manages over $110 billion in property. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market, but for partnering with the world’s best architects.

Born in Gary, IN in 1925, Hines was the child of parents who came on a boat from Nova Scotia. Growing up, he ran cross country and track and is proud to share that his team won the city championships. He entered college at Purdue early, completing 3 semesters of studies before joining the Army at 18.

While in the service, he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, and his travels introduced him to the inspiring architecture in Seattle and Tacoma.

After the Army, Hines returned to school to complete his Mechanical Engineering degree and spent some time selling engineering equipment.

He made the leap to development when his neighbor needed a building for 5,000 square feet and Hines said, “let me build it.” This catapulted his career and he began working with larger companies and properties.

“We just evolved… the brokers seemed to get the fact that we had a very high hit rate and so that attracted the better brokers to us with their projects, and quality and good value sustained our entry into that.”

The timing was perfect, as Texas was expanding and companies were moving there, so there was a lot of new construction. Hines’ reputation for quality and straight shooting helped them grow.

Hines recalls his first big project for Shell, building their new headquarters in Texas. He worked with architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill on it, and for the pitch, they used a fancy German lock set to denote the quality of the project they were going to create – and they won. He went on to work with architects like Phillip Johnson on Pennzoil, and create iconic buildings like New York City’s Lipstick building, The Galleria in Houston, and the Marche St. Germain in France.

Hines emphasizes the importance of a strong business culture, rooted in integrity.

“I think our (team) all realize what integrity means and we stand by our word. We treat people fairly and that’s very important to all of us.”

Episode Links

The Hines Website

Raising the Bar: The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines

Fred Tuomi was born in Minnesota, and went on to attend high school and college in Georgia, receiving a B.A. in Business Information Systems and a Masters in Business Administration from Georgia State University. While working for the Computer Sciences Corporation doing consulting, Fred connected with John Lie-Nelsen of Consolidated Capital and Johnstown Properties. This opportunity led to Fred creating the very first automated, apartment management system.

“The idea was, let’s use these things called computers that make everything more efficient and increase productivity… Let’s put it where we have most of our people. To really get the benefits of productivity enhancement, you have to make as many employees as possible productive, not just a few back at the home office.”

When the Tax Reform Act of 1986 killed the real estate limited partnership business, Fred connected with John Williams and John Glover of Post Properties, and then eventually was invited to join Equity Residential by Doug Crocker.

Fred and his family moved from Atlanta to Chicago, where he became President of Property Management at Equity Residential.

“We were trying to build two things. One was a uniform platform that was highly efficient… Second thing was to build a company culture.”

Fred shares how Sam Zell, Founder, and Chairman of Equity Residential (see our interview with Zell in Season One of Leading Voices), influenced and shaped its culture. Under Zell’s vision for acquiring irreplaceable assets, the company’s goal evolved from a gross asset accumulation model to a highly refined portfolio and operational platform. Technology also played a critical role throughout the business, including in revenue management, allowing them to study the relationship of supply and demand in a way that hadn’t been possible before.

It wasn’t long after Tuomi retired to spend more time with his grandkids and family, that he was approached by Tom Barrack and Justin Chang of Colony Capital. They wanted his advice on translating his apartment management strategy to the single-family rental business. While many doubted that a long-term ownership and management platform for the single-family market was possible, Fred was able to bring his experience from rolling up assets in the multifamily business and over time saw the business coming together with efficiencies and metrics comparable to the apartment industry. Each asset was bought with an eye on the long-term growth of stabilized income streams which meant that with the various mergers of the Waypoint, Starwood, Colony and Blackstone Invitation Homes portfolios, the footprint didn’t just get wider, it got more deep and dense, improving efficiency. Technology in the hands of the consumer and the front line employee also made these efficiencies possible.

“We are now running 2,200+ homes from one centralized property management team similar to an apartment property office. In terms of headcount to assets, we are much more efficient than the apartment business. But we have to employ a lot more technology to bridge that gap.”

Fred sees Millennials entering the housing market society’s increased longevity as signposts for long-term market growth, and emphasizes the importance of developers stimulating the housing supply if we don’t want pricing to increase.

John Rahaim grew up in Detroit. His high school day of community service inspired him to understand the city more, and he went on to receive his B.S. in Architecture from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Architecture with an emphasis on Urban Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The Urban Design program focused on man-environment systems which especially fascinated John.

"It’s all about the interaction of human behavior and the environment and how each one affects the other."

After graduating from Wisconsin, he headed to Pittsburgh in the early 80’s, at which point it had the third largest number of corporate headquarters in the country. However, over the 15 years that he was there, most of them left, along with the 27 steel mills.

Despite this traumatic change to the city’s makeup, John credits Pittsburgh’s strong ethnic neighborhoods for maintaining their stability, low crime rates, and cohesion in a way that Detroit did not.

As a young planner, working with instrumental mentors and a talented, interdisciplinary team in Pittsburgh, John learned what a broad realm of topics planning encompasses.

"We have to know a little about a lot of things. It’s not just about buildings and design and whatever. It’s about the economy of the city, it’s about public spaces, and it’s about transportation, and it’s about the price of housing, and all of those things. That is really the kind of mix of things we have to deal with. And that was an enormous lesson for me."

From Urban Designer to Associate Director, he created strong relationships and rewrote Pittsburgh’s zoning review process. When he decided to move on, he spent some time in Rome to discern the new direction or his career, at which point a position for City Designer opened up in Seattle.

Halfway through his tenure at the Office of City Design during the late 90’s, the city started seeing significant growth. The Urban Growth boundary that the state had required of all counties since the 1990s had forced cities to think creatively on how to expand up rather than out.

After Seattle, he was tapped to take the Planning Director position in San Francisco. He was honored to join the rich planning legacy that exists there, however, he knew it would be no simple task.

He laughs that the most common greeting he received when he took the job was “Congratulations and my condolences.”

Government Service:

John notes that on the West coast, local government is bigger and more is expected from it, certainly when it comes to environmental sustainability.

He adds that the population is very knowledgeable which gives leaders both support and push back, as seen with the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), anti-development movement.

I’ll be honest, I think part of the aversion to change here is because this place is extraordinarily charming… It’s a beautiful city in a beautiful setting. And people are averse to change in a way that is stronger than the other settings I’ve been in.

John shares how the housing crisis in San Francisco is due to several factors, including:

1. A consistent decrease in development and residential building.
2. The extraordinary pace of change and turnaround after the recession.
3. The Millennial and Baby Boomer interest in city living.
4. The explosion of tech jobs.
5. The good news is that now they are building more housing than they have in years, and are on pace to meet their six-year goal of building 30,000 housing units.

In addition, he has begun diversifying the Planning Office’s responsibilities. This transformation spans duties from co-leading the city’s efforts on sea level rise to building a community development team focused on stabilizing vulnerable neighborhoods, to leading the city’s efforts on transportation planning.

John believes the profession has really matured over the last 30 years. While San Francisco certainly faces unique challenges, many cities are struggling with the same issues and concerns. For example, housing for the middle class is a huge issue everywhere, and transportation is a close second.

John’s advice to those interested in entering the field is to get a broad range of experience in both the public and the private sector. Particularly, he says you need to try to understand the financial motivation in the real estate industry, and why developers and builders do what they do.

San Francisco Planning Department

Jane Graf is the President and CEO of Mercy Housing based in Denver and operating nationally, one of the country’s largest nonprofit affordable housing organizations.

Jane’s work in affordable housing began early, as she founded the nonprofit Specialized Housing that built affordable housing for those with disabilities before she was 30. When her husband was relocated to San Francisco for his job, she began working for Catholic Charities, which eventually led to her joining Mercy Housing during a merger.

Jane credits Mercy Housing’s resilient structure to the Sisters of Mercy’s entrepreneurial approach and understanding that to do good work, you need to put money behind it and take risks.

25:40 “They built these institutional responses to need… They know how to not only start something but then really create an institution that can carry on the work way beyond their capability. And they’re really good at it… they’re completely fearless.”

She likens Mercy Housing to NPR, a national organization with local branches that are integral to the community. The real change and transformation happens on the local level because every community has different needs and resources.

Some of Jane’s important beliefs surrounding affordable housing include:

1. Property management should be about people, not compliance.
2. There is no single, one-size-fits-all model for delivering affordable housing.
3. Stabilizing and supporting people and communities in need will help them get access to foundational necessities like education, healthcare, and good jobs.

Jane’s career and life advice are:

1. Celebrate your mistakes because you learn way more from your mistakes than from what you did right.
2. Spend your time allowing yourself to be pulled towards your strengths.

Ken grew up in Northern California’s Bay Area, eventually receiving his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford in Business. Simultaneously, he obtained a California Brokers License because he was drawn to real estate. He was aware of the self-storage industry in California, but when he moved out to Boston after college he saw that there was a gap in the market on the East Coast. This piqued his interest in the industry.

After opening up the first Extra Space Storage in Billings, MT in 1977 in a partnership with his boss at the time, Ken went on to teach at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah. There, he continued growing Extra Space, until sky-high interest rates slowed down development in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990’s.

“I didn’t think it through very well… but you know, sometimes when you’re an entrepreneur you don’t have a good long-term strategy. You’re just trying to survive.”

Inspired by the corporate strategy class he was teaching, Ken realized in 1998 he was serious about growing Extra Space. He needed money, a good management team, and a partner to help him. Diane Olmstead of Arthur Anderson Real Estate Capital Markets Group helped Extra Space bring a financial partnership with Prudential Real Estate Investors. Spencer Kirk joined as a partner in order to put the team together, while Ken as CEO focused on acquisitions, development, and financing.

“We spent a lot of time working with employees, employee benefits, and employee motivation, and I think that that has paid huge dividends for us. Second of all, we always had a philosophy of being fair in any business transaction… we really internalized the idea that when you have a contract or business relationship, you’re always fair to the other guy.”

In the same way that you trust a Marriott Hotel, Ken recognizes that the secret sauce for success lies in the reputation of their business name.

Because its tenants don’t talk to one another, Extra Space can leverage technology to offer different prices and promotions based off of certain customer’s characteristics and the self-storage product they want to purchase. He credits this sophistication and tailored-pricing to why they are outperforming others in their industry.

Woolley is a serial entrepreneur and has a plethora of experience in industries including airlines, technology, mining, fast food, and more. But storage is the one thing he knows best and to be successful in real estate, he puts a lot of emphasis on having a good education and a lot of experience.

“If you want to be in real estate, there are two ways to approach it. Number one is start from the ground up. And that means you start developing small things with small partners. The other way is to get a job with a real estate company, learn the ropes, and then go off on your own.”

Links

Extra Space Storage

Entrepreneur Leadership Video 01

Entrepreneur Leadership Video 02

Entrepreneur Leadership Video 03

Joe Fraiman and Andrew Kitchell, the Co-Founders of Lyric, While it is tempting to compare their startup business to Airbnb, it is actually quite different. Lyric is a highly curated, highly designed, professionally-operated version of rentals where they have total control over the supply, design, and experience of their guests.

With a background in software and finance, Joe moved West and started Tastemaker, a company created to help people find the right interior designer. At this time, Andrew was managing Beyond Stays and reached out to Joe at Tastemaker to remodel their properties.

They had lunch and quickly realized they shared a passion for the possibilities at the intersection of technology, data, and real estate. They saw that people want to live and travel in a more flexible, experience-driven way and they decided to learn: what does this transition look like, what are the challenges, and how can they solve them?

Bridging the trust gap with apartments and short-term rentals was an immediate challenge. However, by identifying the underlying reasons for mistrust between apartments and short-term renters, Lyric was able to implement strategies that built trust, like background checks.

As the relationships blossomed, Lyric secured the high-quality product they wanted while providing apartments with new revenue streams for their portfolios, valuable amenities for their residents, and an additional conversion funnel.

“The most interesting thing is that we have the ability to serve all kinds of different types of customers and use cases… Everything from the two-day leisure trip, the five-day business trip, the 30-90 day relocation or home displacement, all the way to the much longer pattern,” said Andrew.

From the beginning, Joe and Andrew knew the importance of securing investors – which include NEA, Fifth Wall Ventures, Barry Sternlicht, and Signal Fire – who would help them scale, build up their real estate expertise, grow their brand, double down on data, and accelerate growth.

“It’s about having the passion and the curiosity to say ‘Hey, I believe there is something behind that mountain and we’re going to hike in that direction, and we’re going to learn things along the way, and course correct,’ and I think that’s what investors are looking for,” said Joe.

Andrew and Joe are quick to admit that it would be challenging to run a company of Lyric’s scope by themselves. They credit their complementary skill sets and ability to discuss things with the other as vehicles for helping them move quickly, test things, and solve problems.

Note from the host- In this episode, you will actually hear me being interviewed, rather than me doing the interview. Jeff Large is the editor of Season 2 of Leading Voices. He interviewed me on his podcast, The Jeff Large Podcast, where he talks about tech, podcasting, and running a business. I get to discuss how this relates to real estate from both a recruiting and leadership standpoint. Enjoy!

I founded Terra Search Partners in 2006, a highly consultative executive search firm specializing in the real estate industry. Clients hire Terra as an advisor and consultant to help them understand and hire leaders for their firm.

Curiosity, humility, a deep understanding of others and their industry, and people who talk about mentors and teams are traits that I consistently see in true leaders. All of them come from some depth of knowledge in the industry that they grew up in.

“They don’t just land on the moon and become a leader. They grow up in the industry and they grow up by being exceptional through the pathways that they grow.”

People have built amazing companies in the real estate industry. In Leading Voices, I have had the opportunity to interview some amazing folks who have built great businesses. Indeed, I have gained inspiration and insights from most of the interviews. A few to call out are Fred Tuomi, Gadi Kaufman, Keith Oden, Mary Ann Tighe, Sam Zell, Jonathan Rose, John Rahaim, Jane Graf, Steve Wilson and many others.

I’ve found that my own leadership strength lies in being a thought leader within the industry and an advisor who listens well and tries to continually add value for clients, candidates, and colleagues.

“My success and my happiness becomes not just about my own contribution, but actually about having a company around me that I can teach and work and mentor and have those that love it as much as I do… Teaching that is something that inspires me a lot.”

When ULI asked if I wanted to be their “Terry Gross”, I didn’t realize the level of passion and desire I would have for hosting a podcast series. I find that the breadth of knowledge that I’ve gained over the 20 years I’ve spent in the industry is very useful as I interview the leading minds in real estate.

For me, podcasting is a great way to grow a business through thought-leadership and credibility, but most importantly, I am passionate about showing the diverse value that real estate companies and leaders add to their cities. It’s inspiring both for leaders already in the business as well as young people thinking about careers in the industry.

Find a meaning and a purpose in the work you do. Come to your job with a passion and interest day in and day out, and you will bring things to the next level.

Karl Polen did not start out with his sights on real estate. He left his Midwest roots for Nashville at 19, eventually playing with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Johnny Cash.

“One of the highlights of my life is that I actually met and chatted with Johnny Cash. He was an incredibly gracious guy.”

Karl credits music for shaping his professional career by teaching him the type of discipline and focused effort it takes to become successful.

When he needed a steadier paycheck, Karl went on to work in accounting and received his MBA at Vanderbilt. He was drawn to an entrepreneurial culture, worked with Ed Robson of Robson Communities in the 1980’s, and then joined Francis Najafi, Founder of Pivotal Group, as a partner in real estate investment. Working with these driven entrepreneurs was incredibly fulfilling, and Karl thrived in his role as he helped focus and implement the larger vision.

Karl had long intended to work in public service after being inspired by his work on various boards over the years, and during the global financial crisis in 2010, he left Pivotal Group and transitioned from the board to staff with AZASRS.

Here, he has transformed their approach to real estate by focusing on demand-driven investing.

“We eliminated a middleman, we were able to have more control over our destiny in terms of selecting the type of deals we wanted to do, and then we also have more control to be able to exit an investment or increase an investment, depending on how things are going.”

Because they are a small staff of nine, they work closely with their consultant RCLCO to identify the right markets and partners for success.

• Follow your bliss. Experiment. Find out what means something to you, then dig as deep as possible, become the best you can be, and find a market for it.
• Don’t be afraid to take risk.
• Be prepared to reinvent yourself and be ready to adapt.

Links from the Episode

• Arizona State Retirement Systems Investments
• Arizona State Retirement Systems Strategic Asset Allocation (2018)
• Karl Polen’s GitHub page

Clara Brenner is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that provides seed capital and regulatory support to the tech startups addressing the challenges facing urban dwellers. Clara and I had a wide-ranging discussion about her career, business, and the startups and technologies in which her firm has invested.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., Clara was surrounded by real estate and government, and found herself drawn to both. Her undergrad thesis explored the historic relationship between real estate developers and local government in Lower Manhattan.

“Ultimately, I decided to go down the real estate development path because it seemed like you were equally influential and you got to have more fun, be more creative, and make more money.”

After four years of working in real estate, Clara realized she wanted to be her own boss. She returned to school at MIT Sloan with a vision to start her own real estate development firm.

Clara and her friend Julie Lein crossed paths at MIT Sloan and realized they both had a fascination with companies that were tackling meaningful challenges in cities. After some in-depth research, they discovered that these companies were facing a lot of similar challenges, around issues such as fundraising challenges, physical space, and regulatory and political hurdles.

This sparked the creation of their investment vehicle and accelerator Tumml.

“I think real estate is a great career if you want to have an impact on the physical environment around you, which is I think is something so many people want now, they want to feel like and see the influence of their work every day.”

Tumml paved the way for Clara and Julie to found the Urban Innovation Fund, a more sustainable, long-term investment vehicle that writes larger checks, is involved in multiple rounds of investing and takes board seats. This $24.5 million dollar fund has a diverse portfolio that Clara says aligns with their vision for creating scalable solutions that shape the future of cities. This looks like everything from Milk Stork, a breast milk shipping service for the traveling businesswoman, to Udelv, a driverless delivery service.

Their set of investors are more traditional, financially motivated entities who they refer to as “impact curious.”

Clara highlights the fact that today, people often look to technology as the changemaker; however, she points to politics and policy as the place where real, slow, painful change happens. Identifying transformative technology is very important, but you still need to vote and be politically engaged to create real change.

Chip Conley started one of the country’s first boutique hotel chains, Joie de Vivre, when he was just 26 years old. After selling the company, he joined the startup Airbnb at age 52, despite the fact that the young founders were primed to disrupt his industry.

Read more about Chip’s leadership

Read more about Chip’s role at Airbnb

Pre-order Chip’s newest book, Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

Learn more about Chip’s other books

*This is a rebroadcast of our previous interview with Chip Conley.

In today’s episode, Ron Terwilliger, a great influencer in the apartment sector and dedicated philanthropist, shares part one of his story: his leadership at Trammell Crow Residential and how he literally spawned the next generation of the business.

Ron TerwilligerRon Terwilliger grew up in Arlington, Virginia in the late forties and fifties. He played baseball and basketball at Wakefield High School, and despite a back defect which was thought to be the end of his playing career, he went on to play for the Naval Academy. There, he was named an Academic All American in basketball.

Post-graduation, he spent five years in the Navy before getting his MBA at Harvard.

“I had one real estate class and I really liked it. I have a fairly good feel for numbers and how they relate and how to think about the quantitative side of the business.”

His first real estate job was at Sea Pines Company at Hilton Head Island, where he met colleagues who would go on to work with him closely over the years. When the economy shut down and Sea Pines went bankrupt, he was almost frightened out of real estate. However, he also credits the intensity of the experience at Sea Pines, the recession, and their youth for creating such strong relationships between him and his co-workers.

After Sea Pines, he joined the Henry C. Beck Company in Dallas as CFO where he helped grow the business. While in Dallas he was invited to join Trammell Crow Residential by Terry Golden (a business school classmate).

Trammell Crow’s offer required him to take a significant pay cut, but he would have a 40% share in the company. He remembered how his father never took a risk and realized that if he didn’t take this shot, he would never become an entrepreneur. Dick Michaux, a former Sea Pines associate, was his first partner. When Ron completed his first apartment project he made his first million.

He credits Charlie Fraser of Sea Pines and Trammell Crow as his two mentors and emphasizes the importance of leaning on people who have a lot of experience in the business to teach you the ropes.

He spent most of his time cultivating relationships with investors and lenders, managing core partner relationships, and hiring. Individuals who stood out to him were often MBA’s, smart, had a good feel for numbers, an engaging personality, a healthy balance of work and pay, with a strong commitment to support their families.

At Trammell Crow, Ron shares that his vision was to get rich slowly by avoiding over-leveraging and to think of your partnership as lasting for a career.

It was a desperate time for a lot of people in real estate. At Trammell Crow, they didn’t have any recurring income or assets other than a property management business that was cash flowing, so they had to make salary cuts and let people go which he says was incredibly difficult. These people didn’t deserve to lose their job, but it was just a fact of life and necessary to save the company.

This challenging time however brought about growth in a new way.

As the market got back on its feet, they began developing again. Ron attended a conference with his colleague Chuck Berman, where they met with Fred Cavan about doing a REIT in the Northeast.

This series of events led to the creation of AvalonBay with Dick Michaux, Bryce Blair, and Tim Naughton serving as CEOs. Gables with Marc Bromley was formed six months later. Four years later Leonard Wood left to form Wood Partners and about that same time Bruce Ward started Alliance.

As these tree branches from the family tree of Trammell Crow grew, Ron continued to build it back and strengthen the roots. After the recession in 2008, Ron retired and set his sights on philanthropy, which we will dive into on next week’s episode!

Ron Terwilliger’s outstanding career and legacy didn’t end when he retired from Trammell Crow, it only grew.

Coming from a low-income family with little expectations of wealth, he wanted to give back and affordable housing seemed to be the most natural place for his philanthropic interest to bloom.

   “As I started to get wealthy in my late forties and fifties, I began thinking: what should I do with my time and wealth?”

From his $100 million legacy gift to Habitat for Humanity, chairing Habitat’s international Board and the Enterprise Community Partners board to name a few, Ron gives generously of his money, time, and expertise.

While he is very active in the private sector, his role in the public sector has made a serious impact. After being invited to give a lecture at Harvard on Housing Policy in America, he became inspired by the great Shortage of affordable housing in this country. He characterized this shortage as a housing crisis formed a foundation and started meeting with senators and congressman to change federal housing policies and transform the system.

He shares how he has found that unfortunately, the time and resources that the government have devoted to this crisis have been scarce, and housing affordability has not been given the attention and effort it deserves and needs.

   “The bottom line to me with this growing shortage of affordable workforce housing is the way we are going to address itis by providing more creative subsidies for construction and more income subsidy. I’m pleased to see that some of the state’s Governors as well as mayors of major cities are paying attention.”

When people hear “low-income housing” or “affordable housing,” they often mistakenly think of people who are unemployed or aren’t working. Ron has opted to call it “affordable workforce housing,” however, as it is actually our nurses, firefighters, and policemen who fall into this category and often have to make a serious commute to work because they can’t afford to live close to their job.

Ron believes strongly in the importance of selfless, kind, generous leaders who people trust. These were the types of leaders he tried to attract at Trammell Crow, and he credits their ability to give honest feedback and work hard for creating a “utopia-like” work environment.

Two great CEO’s who inspire him and who he works with closely today are Jonathan Reckford at Habitat for Humanity and Terri Ludwig at Enterprise.

Ron serves on 11 boards and is actively engaged in offering advice, money, and time. He admits that initially as he entered philanthropy, he was embarrassed to talk about how much he gives away, but he has been encouraged that by telling others about his philanthropy it will inspire others to give generously of their time and talent.

Find something to do that you really love. Discover the breadth of real estate, see where you can fit, and don’t be afraid to change roles or direction as necessary to do what you want.

Jon Geanakos grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, raised mainly by his Greek immigrant grandparents. They gave him a strong sense of ethnicity and hard work, speaking Greek predominantly in their home and running a local grocery store and ice cream parlor. He was recruited to play lacrosse at the University of Lowell and it was there that he found himself embracing leadership. As the captain of his lacrosse team, he excelled at helping the right people work together to achieve their goal.

His lacrosse coach introduced him to the president of the local bank, Lowell Institution, and that set him on the trajectory to real estate.

   “It’s fascinating how one person just at that pivot point in a young person’s life can guide you to what your life’s work is. You never understand the profoundness at the time when it happens, you obviously realize it when the years have passed.”

After a few years at the bank, he was approached by some of the bank’s investors to join them in starting The Tallard Group. This gave him his first entrepreneurial experience. When they closed their doors shortly after, he applied to join Copley Real Estate. There, he took a job as a portfolio manager of failing properties in Texas, and later in Ohio.

At Copley, he remembers sitting at meetings amongst Ivy League executives and feeling like he didn’t belong or deserve to be there. However, each time he would make a successful decision, he felt his confidence slowly building.

   “When somebody says, ‘This is a really difficult job, you might fail at it,’ I always tell people ‘You must take the tough job because that’s where the upside is… and you’ll learn something from it.’”

When Copley and AEW merged, he faced a fork in the road: his mother was diagnosed with cancer and he was ready to move into a more brokerage-focused role. While she was in surgery, he contacted 150 names in the hopes of finding a position in New York, and this initiative landed him at Secured Capital.

After gaining experience in brokerage, Trammell Crow approached him and he moved back into closing deals in capital markets. When CBRE merged with Trammell Crow in 2006, Jon trusted his gut and joined Houlihan Lokey where he discovered a new dimension of real estate. During his time at Houlihan Lokey, one of his clients who he was advising on capital raising opportunities, Anthony Westreich, invited him to join Monday Properties as a partner.

At Monday Properties Jon began identifying emerging gateway markets like Nashville, Portland, and Denver, which had the potential for large profits. He had a vision for how this could become a viable business, and Cabot Street Capital Partners was born. While this new venture was exciting, it was also lonely. When JLL pursued him, Jon knew it was time to move on to the next step in his career and realized this was it – it was the perfect opportunity.

In Jon’s position at JLL, he finds himself employing everything he has learned over the years, as he oversees all sales and financings for the firm’s Capital Markets platform in the U.S., Canada, Latin and South America. This involves everything surrounding investment baking and executing transactions on ownership. While he spends the majority of his time in the U.S. and Canada, his dashboard and longstanding relationships with investors bring him around the world to places like Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Jon identifies JLL’s technical proficiency and expertise, global connection, and wonderful client management as key differentiators among their competitors in the industry. An intentional and active focus on their communication and culture has also lead to huge growth, client satisfaction, and success.

“You have to be as selfless as you possibly can. It really isn’t about you, it’s about them.”

His tips for leadership and managing a team include:

• Be as selfless as possible and remember it is not about you, it’s about them.
• Be patient.
• Simplify things whenever possible.
• Be forthright and truthful, even when it is hard.
• Be consistent.

Besides working hard and being competitive, Jon says that intellectual curiosity is key to success. You must be open to asking more than the obvious, linear questions. He also identifies increased diversity and ever-evolving technology as game-changers that will transform the future of real estate for the better.

Please check out our coverage from GlobeSt.com. You can read the article, “Eight Ways to Succeed in Real Estate” here.

Jon names real estate as a career that is only limited by your own imagination and work ethic. Outwork everyone around you, network aggressively, align yourself with mentors, and remember that you can always find new paths to learning.

Lisa Picard is a woman with a vision. Thanks to technology, the office development space has evolved from a B2B market to B2C, and she’s on the front lines of in an industry resistant to change.

“We’re really not producing products per say; we’re creating ideas. And so, … organizations’ access to ideas is really through collaboration, connection, of having really high-quality talent.”

Lisa grew up in Southeast L.A. County with her twin sister and Depression-era parents who taught her to cherish and respect her resources. This instilled in her a fascination for her urban environment, and she went on to study Urban Planning at California State Polytechnic University.

After graduation, she worked closely with the City of L.A., and she saw how developers had a different view book than she did. She wanted in and applied to MIT to dive deeper into development, planning, urban economics, and finance.

Just before heading to MIT, at the age of 22 her father suddenly died and her mother the summer after, and Lisa had what she calls her mid-life crisis at 22. As painful as the grieving process was during her time at MIT, it taught her the importance of embracing each moment fully and staying true to herself.

After MIT, Lisa moved back to San Francisco and began her journey with the Bristol Group where she had the freedom to grow and learn what a deal looked like and how to create one. From there, she joined the Hines team in Seattle and rode out the rollercoaster of the dot-com era. Next, she was approached by Canyon Ranch, where she learned the power of experience and brand.

“Humanistically, there’s always got to be an invitation… when I say an invitation that’s the brand piece, that’s the promise of whatever it is, when I have that engagement with a piece of real estate.”

When she was let go by Canyon Ranch, she felt like she had lost her sense of identity. She moved back to Seattle, and learned how to value herself as simply “Lisa Picard.” She started Muse Developments focused on multi-family development, and was soon approached by Skanska to expand their business in Seattle. She agreed and joined them in merchant building.

Her vision for bringing humanity and experience-driven spaces into each of her projects made a big impact on Seattle, but she felt called to influence other cities. So when Equity Office approached her, she was ready to join them.

As the CEO of Equity Office, Lisa is focused on the vision and positioning of projects, like the Willis Tower in Chicago, in a way that satisfies the desires of the market.

She looks at it with the mindset that every worker needs a balanced diet of productivity: concentration space, collaboration space, and community space. This is what the modern workforce desires, and that is the value and level of service she is striving to deliver as she repositions assets.

At first, Lisa admits that she tried to fit in. But thanks to her mentors who instilled confidence in her and empowered her to believe in herself, she learned her worth. She hopes to do this for other women.

When you work in the urban environment and real estate, what you put into the environment affects people. It changes the urban environment and you have to give a sh*t. You have an obligation to people and your surroundings.

Liz Holland is now CEO of her grandfather’s over 77-year-old real estate business, Abbell Associates. She never imagined she would end up there, but she says it was amazing creating a relationship with her grandfather and becoming his colleague for two years before he passed away and continuing his legacy.

“It’s such a challenging time in retail real estate because things are transforming so quickly and certainly there have been big retail disruptors in the past and there will be bigger retail disruptors in the future, so it’s been quite exciting for us both in our real estate business and our software business to anticipate those disruptors and ride the wave.”

Her early career in bond trading, law school, her time at Sekadden Arps, and then working in government for a congressional commission gave her a thick skin and taught her how to take risks. She also was quick to learn that she had a strong desire to be an expert in whatever field she was in and make sure that what she was learning today would benefit her tomorrow.

When her grandfather called her to run his business in 1997, she said yes. She started updating it with the new technology necessary for lease management and bringing a new energy to the efficiency. Her grandfather was very open to every change she proposed and she learned many lessons from him, including:

   You have to be patient.

   You have to have the long view.

   Sometimes the best deal you do is the one that isn’t done. Don’t chase it.

   The right deal for you will come along.

At Abbell, their portfolio is 75% is retail, and 25% office. However, they are looking to grow the office percentage specifically in Chicago and are excited to have Liz’s new app LayerCake assisting in guiding their development decisions.

LayerCake is changing the way developers and retailers choose their location. It allows a detailed look at the new developments going on in and around the site, as well as how customers behave at the surrounding locations.

“What’s so exciting to us about kind of the big data introduction into this analysis is any market study from the past was driving down the road looking in the rearview mirror because you were always looking at what happened in the census 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 9 years ago… but the predictive analytics component to it of knowing that what people are doing there today likely predicts what they’re going to be doing there tomorrow… is really cool.”

Liz reminds us that shopping is behavior and people are creatures of habit. With technology, we have so much more access to information and data on customers that stores are able to tailor what they carry in store according to their customer’s needs and wants.

People used to say retail was dead, but over the last two years, that narrative has changed (despite what the papers may say).

Businesses are discovering that there is a very narrow margin between online and storefronts, and if you want to make money, you need the customer to come into your store.

What they’ve learned is that certain retailers can change the shopper profile. For example, at one mall they added a Target, and that changed the mall from a monthly destination to a weekly destination. Now, they’re focused on creating more of hybrid assets rather than traditional malls, adding external entrances rather than the enclosed mall retailers of the past.

Liz also foresees the convergence of big entertainment venues with shopping malls as something we will see a lot more of in the future.

For Liz, seeing members of the community at a mall getting all of their needs met in a clean, safe, welcoming space is what fulfills her.

Be willing to do the job that nobody wants to do.

When Art Gensler started his firm in 1965, Gensler solely did interiors. Today, it is not just an interior or a design firm; rather, Gensler thinks of itself as a full-scale, client-focused design firm with a team of 6,000 in 48 offices around the world.

He remembers knowing he wanted to be an architect from since he was 5 years old, and credits his ability to visualize things and communicate that vision well to his skill as a planner.

After working in the service, he went on to work for a Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in NYC, spent time in the British West Indies, and created the entire architectural standards guide for Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons. At 30, he struck out on his own.

Art says that when he founded Gensler, it started slowly by focusing on producing high-quality work. The recognition Gensler received for these early projects led him into the consulting field, and soon Gensler was being tapped by Pennzoil to do more than just interior design. Now, their workload is about 50% architecture and 50% interiors, branding, graphics, product design, and consulting.

“You’re designing space for people that they’re going to use, not just look at, but actually physically use which is the most important space that we’re going to do. So I’ve always felt that the interior is as important as the outside.”

Art emphasizes that at Gensler, it’s not just about the designer. The receptionist and the accounting department get just as much recognition as the designer. And ultimately, their clients are the priority.

“Success for designers and people in our industry is not how big the pile of chips is in front of you. Success is a happy client and a successful project.”

When Apple asked Gensler to create a brand new retail experience, Art was up for the challenge. While he says it was hard work and wasn’t easy, it was a project he will always be proud of.

When Riki Nishimura, Director of Urban Strategies, joined the Gensler team, he was nervous and wondered whether his ideas would get lost in the big firm. However, he soon found that it was an empowering culture where design solutions were discovered through natural collaboration.

He cites their current project of Cisco Guangzhou Smart City Master Plan in China as an exemplary piece of work that embodies Gensler’s culture.

“It creates a platform for innovation and enables people to achieve their maximum potential.”

There’s a balance you have to strike in development. Art shares the example of how Steve Jobs never did focus groups because he said they didn’t know what was possible.

You have to push things and people out of their comfort zone to a certain point.

“We have to now really build frameworks which are adaptable and modifiable, and the inside is going to be more modifiable than the outside, but they’ve all got to be changeable because the world is changing and people have to recognize that.”

Art: Get a good, broad education. You need a breadth of knowledge to be a future contributor to society. Also, learn how to speak in public.

Riki: You might not be able to solve all of the issues, but always leave things better than when you found them.

Colin Wiel is Co-Founder Chairman, and CTO of Mynd, a full stack, tech-enabled, property management company focused on small residential (single family rentals plus small multi-family buildings).

Colin grew up in Washington D.C., went to high school in Reno, Nevada, and went to UC Berkeley where he got his BA in mechanical engineering. Straight out of college, he landed a dream job at Boeing, where he wrote algorithms for automatic control systems and developed groundbreaking new software.

He had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and soon struck out on his own as an independent software consultant working with giants like Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Netscape, where he became one of the very first Java programmers in the world.

He began developing and teaching the Java curriculum for UC Berkeley and while continuing his consulting with a new focus on Java. Eventually, his consulting grew into a full-fledged firm and he brought on many students he had taught. One of their big projects was transitioning Charles Schwab’s website from C to Java, which at the time it was the largest e-commerce website in the world.

When he sold his business, a friend sparked his interest in the mobile home park marketplace, and he started investing in that corner of real estate.

“If that idea is counter to what most people think, all the better because that’s where the opportunity lies.”

As he continued investing in mobile home parks and researching the single-family home market, he realized he could make more profit there. He connected with Doug Brien who had a similar idea, and they started buying homes and renting them out, with a long-term selling strategy.

People thought they were going to cap out because of the sheer amount of management and upkeep, but their profits and vision said otherwise.

17:00 “We said, ‘With all due respect, we think we can build a cloud-computing, mobile computing, infrastructure. A single system of record that our people use, but also the residents use, our vendors, we’re all connected… and then we can build systems on top of that to automate a lot of the functionality or just systematize what happens so that it all runs smoothly so that we’re not dropping balls.’”

They raised a series of funds and continued to grow Waypoint (now Invitation Homes) as the pioneers in the space. Eventually, Colony Starwood and Blackstone entered the arena, and that’s when it really became a new industry. After 5 years, they went public as a REIT in a partnership with Starwood called Starwood Waypoint.

“So when the big conservative, institutional investors saw that single-family rental is generating the same NOI margins as multi-family, then it was sort of ordained to be a legitimate asset class.”

After going public as Starwood Waypoint, Colin knew he wanted to strike out on his own again and be in an innovative, start-up environment.

He saw how massive and fragmented it was, and how nobody was leveraging technology in the way that had revolutionized other industries. This reflection is what led him to start Mynd, and he quickly asked Doug to partner with him again.

“It tends to be a full stack company that’s providing a complete end to end service that’s competing with the incumbents that disrupts an industry.”

Property management is complex. From collecting rent, managing repairs and maintenance, to leasing vacant units, Colin saw that accounting and the flow of money were integral to the solution he wanted to create. With these priorities in mind, they began creating a software with an accounting platform from scratch, that gives a property owner a real-time transparent view of what’s going on at their property in a revolutionary way.

Their strategy is focused on expanding into new markets like San Diego and Seattle, by acquiring property management principals and then shifting them into their own software. This streamlines the property managers job and improves their service while giving Mynd a spokesperson in that community.

Looking forward, Colin is excited to use their data to offer new products and services, like owners insurance, vacancy insurance, and financing products to renters in a much more efficient way.

For Colin, giving renters a better experience isn’t just about good business, it’s about human dignity. He is confident that by helping renters have a better experience, Mynd is helping society transition from a renters society to an owners society.

When he’s not thinking of innovative new ideas, Colin has a philanthropic partnership with Wildlife Works Carbon to protect the Panama Rainforest.

Real estate is known for being a slow-moving industry. However, if you are young, nimble, and willing to take a chance, there is a huge opportunity to innovate the space.

Sam Zell, one of the most storied names in real estate, describes his riveting journey from his parents’ escape from Poland in 1939 as Hitler invaded to how he built his real estate empire at Equity International, created the modern REIT, and lead the industry public.

• More about Equity Group Investments
• Forbes Magazine on Sam Zell’s success
• Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

John Stewart is the Founder and Chair of the John Stewart Company, a San Francisco-based owner, developer, and manager of affordable and mixed-income housing, founded in 1978 with three employees.

Today, the Company has 1,400 employees in five offices in the state of California, managing 31,000 units with over 2000 units in its development pipeline.

John grew up in California, graduating from Stanford in 1956 with a liberal arts degree and a focus on history and finance. When he was recruited by U.S. Steel, he moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles but found that the large corporate culture wasn’t a good fit for his entrepreneurial mindset. He switched to TRW as a young management trainee and moved in 1964 to Houston to join TRW’s new offices at the Johnson Space Center.

“In careers, once in a while there’s sort of a choice point… we saw the astronauts and NASA up close and personal, but I was also interested in finding out about life in a Southern city.”

John showed up as an out-of-towner at the Houston Council on Human Relations to see how he could help and get involved. He joined its low-income housing committee and soon became Chair. His activism quickly caught the Mayor’s attention, who requested that TRW fund a paid leave and lend John to the city for a year to chair the City’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing. TRW agreed.

John became so interested in housing that when his year was up, that he headed back to Los Angeles with TRW and encouraged them to apply for HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) Operation Breakthrough for manufactured housing.

TRW was selected, and built nearly a thousand modular affordable housing units in Sacramento and New Mexico; however, manufactured housing was not profitable and John decided to make an offer to acquire 500 units of section 236 multi-family housing from TRW, and the John Stewart Company was born.

“One of the few things I did right was plan for capital losses. Every start-up book I read said the dominant reason for failure in small businesses is undercapitalization, so I assumed two years of losses and that’s what it was.”

John shares how he capitalized on other’s mistakes by buying and investing in properties that were about to go into assignment or foreclosure. In the process he built trust with HUD. When President Ronald Reagan implemented the low-income tax-credit program in 1984, he began using these credits as an alternative method of financing.

“I’ve found that if you are just doing management, particularly low income, with a lot of challenging residents, you don’t last long… it helps to have another line of work, and that would be the development side, the acquisition, the rehab.”

In the last 15 years, the company has gone beyond acquisition to also develop new construction projects. John shares that he especially likes working with non-profit corporations in joint ventures because they complement one another.

And while he admits that he has had deals that go sideways – there is always a risk – everyone he works with wants to build products that are architecturally attractive and “pencil out.” This is what makes working in this industry fulfilling.

After 25 years John sold his company to Southern California Edison. In another choice point, after 5 years he bought it back mainly due to differing views on the company mission. Now, John is proud to have partners that he works with who have been with him for years and who he trusts completely.

While others may argue it’s a waste of money, John emphasizes the importance of creating good-looking, market quality housing for low-income people.

“My argument is that form and function are connected. You build a schlock product, people will treat it like a schlock product. You build something elegant, they treat it well, with respect, and your turnover is less.”

John has found this approach has also helped change the perspective of neighborhoods who are initially opposed to development. When they encounter this dynamic, they bring doubtful prospective tenants and neighbors inside other John Stewart Company Developments to give them a palpable sense of what the new residence will be. Once the tenants and surrounding residents talk to the management, see the quality of the space, the screenings of residents, and the security, it has a very positive effect.

If you’re in the affordable housing business with a purely financial bent, then this isn’t your cup of tea. But if you’re comfortable with moderate, reasonable returns, and can accept the risk, this is for you. At the end of the day, you’ve created an attractive physical product that’s a difference-maker in society.

Daryl Carter is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Avanath Capital Management, LLC, a real estate investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates affordable and workforce housing communities across the US. His dual focus on both investment returns and improving the communities where he invests is rare in this business, and we hear on this episode what drives Daryl to succeed in this balancing act.

Bill Stein, CEO of Digital Realty, one of the largest data center real estate companies in the world, entered the data center space just as the cloud was born.

“We are fortunately right at the middle of all of this, we are at the heart of this revolution.”

Bill grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, where relationships, friendship, family, and sports (specifically football) mattered above all else. He attended boarding school in Philadelphia, Princeton for his B.A. in the classics, and the University of Pittsburgh for law school.

After working for his father’s law firm as an insurance defense litigator, he joined Duquesne Light Company as a lawyer and then Assistant Treasurer, and then Westinghouse Credit and Westinghouse Electric where he tackled deals before and during the S&L crisis.

In 1994, Bill moved to San Francisco to work with one of his previous clients at Westinghouse, TriNet Corporate Realty Trust which was soon sold to iStar Financial Inc. He went on to serve as co-head of Venture Bank @PNC (a technology lending business) at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh with a satellite office in San Francisco.

Bill joined GI Partners (Digital Realty’s predecessor private equity fund) in 2004 as the CFO and Chief Investment Officer of Digital Realty Trust and helped GI’s data center portfolio go public as Digital Realty.

First, Digital Realty began expanding globally, acquiring properties in Europe and Asia. Their business was mainly leasing large chunks of space to financial institutions and technology companies until they bought Telex, an interconnection business which is crucial for data centers.

In the beginning, Digital Realty was an asset-focused business, but now it is much more customer-focused. There are a lot of real estate details in their relationships with their customers, however, the service level obligations they offer would not be found in a typical real estate firm.

“What we provide is a secure space, and we provide access to power. We provide connectivity. We provide power redundancy. So if power lines go down… we have initially batteries in our data centers that kick on to keep the servers running until the generators kick in.”

Bill explains that their tenants, including Amazon and Microsoft, are quite loyal and secure because it’s an expensive proposition to leave. Digital Realty’s global footprint, trust, and certainty of delivery give them a tremendous competitive advantage as their customers are confident knowing they can expand their current campus if necessary.

The Internet of Things, sensors in your home, an Amazon device that controls your lights or searches the internet for you, motion detectors, autonomous driving, virtual reality, artificial intelligence… Data centers are crucial to the ecosystem of the technological advances happening now and in the future.

“Innovation here is trying to figure out where the puck is headed, and get there before the puck gets there.”

Don’t be afraid to take educated risks, be open to new opportunities, and value transparency, integrity, ethics, and relationships. You never know when a friendship might matter.

In today’s round table discussion, Co-head of JLL’s Multifamily Capital Market’s platform, Christine Espenshade; CEO of Holland Partner Group, Clyde Holland; and Executive Director of Up for Growth National Coalition, Mike Kingsella explore the future of the Multifamily Housing Market and the policies shaping its trajectory.

While Clyde, Christine, and Mike agree that the outlook is positive and the economy is picking up, the supply is already a problem for the increasing demand in the market.

Clyde advises developers and builders to get start building now to get ahead of the projected buying challenges, with the knowledge that it may be slow in the beginning but will pay off as demand increases.

Christine emphasizes that institutional investors are already interested and willing to support these long-term projects because they know that the investment promises steady, safe returns. The shift from home ownership to long-term apartment occupancy is also a clear marker that multifamily housing is a crucial option the market needs to focus on.

Mike sees the issue of supply stemming from the exclusionary policies that are suppressing growth. At Up For Growth National Coalition, their mission is to advocate for a new approach to housing development, focusing on how growth benefits everyone in the community.

Clyde, an original founder of Up for Growth, feels the push back from the city council against development regularly.

“Even though there is a housing crisis my building housing is considered a negative… Cities have responded to housing not being affordable by introducing policies that made it more expensive.”

He adds that developer’s voices are often not valued because people think their motives and projects are all about making money, not about improving their community. Up for Growth acts as the voice for this cause, advocating for more affordable housing close to jobs and transportation so employees can spend more time with their families.

“If you have to commute for two hours each way in order to gain a job in the SF Bay Area, the breadwinner doesn’t have an opportunity to spend time with their spouse and their kids,” said Mike.

Mike and Clyde see a combination of tax-exempt bond financing for affordable housing at the federal level combined with state-regulated opportunities for development as the solution to both traffic congestion and housing challenges.

Christine also concludes that we need to think about housing as a holistic approach to growing our economy and mixing these government partnerships with private investments for a positive long-term plan.

You might say that innovation, passion, and real estate are in Lucy Billingsley’s blood. As the only daughter of real estate legend Trammell Crow, Lucy wanted to make her own name for herself and co-founded the Billingsley Company with her husband. The firm has been developing and creating spaces full of dynamic energy in the Dallas area for years.

In this special edition showcasing a panel discussion from the 2019 National Multifamily Housing Council Meeting, we explore the centerpiece topic of recruiting and managing talent in today’s industry with four leaders in the apartment business: Bill Bayless, CEO of American Campus Communities; Chris Payne, President of SARES-REGIS Group; Cindy Scharringhausen, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Camden Property Trust; and Julie Smith, Chief Administrative Officer at The Bozzuto Group. They are generous in sharing their honest challenges, valuable wisdom, innovative strategies, and time-tested tactics for success.

Related Links

Article on NMHC.org

Cedric Bobo is the Co-Founder of Project Destined, a 501c3 that educates both inner city kids and military veterans in financial literacy and community development by their investing, shark tank style, in real real estate deals in their communities. Project Destined brings in the kids and the vets alongside major real estate investment firms like Brookfield in the Bronx and Cortland Partners in Atlanta, with sponsorship and participation from the NBA and celebs like A-Rod, J Lo, and Mariano Rivera. The mission of Project Destined is to transform minority youth into owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Cedric tells his career story — from growing up in Memphis, to Harvard Business School, to investment banking and private equity at DLJ and The Carlyle Group, to founding Project Destined.

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt Slepin interviews Gilda Perez-Alvarado. Gilda was recently, in September 2018, named the CEO for JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group, Americas. In the interview, Gilda shares her career story — from growing up in Costa Rica, to hotel school at Cornell, then working across the globe on hotel transactions, and now her leadership in the business. She shares her wisdom both about the ever-changing hotel business and its ever-deepening engagement with its guests as well as the global nature and appeal of investing in the sector.

This is the first part of back-to-back episodes on the hospitality business. Our conversation with Gilda will be followed up with a conversation with Ed Walter, formerly head of Host Hotels and Resorts, and now the Global CEO of the Urban Land Institute.

Find out more about Gilda Perez-Alvarado:

Gilda on LinkedIn

Gilda & JLL

Gilda & Cornell

Today’s interview is with Ed Walter, who was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed has had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.

Find out more about Ed Walter:

Renowned Real Estate Industry Leader W. Edward Walter Is ULI’s New Global CEO

Q+A with ULI’s New Global CEO, Ed Walter

Today’s interview is with Bill Bayless who is the co-founder and CEO of the only publicly traded student housing company, American Campus Communities (ACC). Bill co-founded the company in 1993, literally just down the hall from Michael Dell who founded Dell Computers—that’s right, two of Austin’s biggest companies founded just a few dorm rooms apart from each other.

This company is one of the true pioneers in the student housing business. ACC’s initial mission revolves around a deep and long term commitment to excellence and service—be it to employees, customers, investors—focusing on more than just a transactional goal.

To learn more about Bill and American Campus Communities visit:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-bayless-1235b62a/

https://www.americancampus.com/

Also mentioned in this episode:

Keith Oden – Creating the Ultimate Company Culture (podcast)

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, host Matt Slepin engages in a sort of joint interview with Chris Rising, CEO of Rising Realty Partners, an LA-based vertically integrated real estate firm, and host of The Real Market Podcast. Chris and Matt talk about the lessons they’ve learned while hosting their podcasts and their experiences interviewing leaders in commercial real estate. They also swap questions with each other about their business journeys. While Matt talks about his work in executive search at Terra Search Partners, Chris discusses his family built company, Rising Realty Partners, which he co-founded with his father—real estate legend, and past client of Matt’s—Nelson Rising. Rising Realty Partners is largely an office property company, and is deeply focused on bringing technology, sustainability, and diversity into the real estate industry.

Learn more about Chris Rising and Rising Realty Partners:

Rising Realty Partners

The Real Market Podcast

Gene Golub is the Founder and Chairman of Golub and Company, a family-owned, international real estate developer and owner based in Chicago.

Now in his eighties, Gene discusses the discipline and passion it took to build this commercial real estate business from the ground up in the ‘60s, and how his family values and culture have shaped its impressive trajectory. Gene highlights the projects and partnerships that influenced the company’s growth, from its early beginnings in his hometown of Chicago to Eastern Europe and beyond.

Today, Gene guides the company directionally but has passed the baton onto the second and third generations of family members. The family’s strong trust in one generation to the next is a defining factor in the rich Golub and Company legacy.

Bobby Turner, the Principal and CEO of Turner Impact Capital, and previously the leader of Canyon’s real estate investment platform, is a passionate force for good in the real estate industry.

His career began as a money maker and pure wealth creator in the private equity world, particularly in real estate at Canyon. Gradually, he eased into impact investing through an early partnership with Magic Johnson. This led to a revelation that inspired him to focus exclusively on impact investing, the art of balancing impact and profits, and the creation of Turner Impact Capital.

Since 2014, Turner Impact Capital has become one of the country’s largest social impact investment funds, with $3 billion of investment potential in three areas:

Workforce housing where they have acquired 7800 units.

Charter schools with his partner Andre Agassi, which has built 103 public charter schools.

Healthcare facilities investments where they have developed or acquired 15 community healthcare centers.

Bobby is a compelling, brilliant man who strongly makes the case for pursuing social good through the lens of business.

Turner Impact Capital Celebrates Five Years of “Profits With a Purpose”

Larry is the founder and CEO of The New Home Company, a West Coast focused public homebuilder founded in 2009 in the depths of the financial crisis.

Prior to forming The New Home Company, Larry was the CEO of John Laing Homes, where he was instrumental in growing that business from a small, two market company to the second largest private homebuilder in the US; he sold the firm in 2006 in the largest private residential transaction in US history.

Larry talks about lessons learned in the homebuilding business and his thoughtful, intentional, lessons-learned approach to the business in the forming of The New Home Company.

Larry talks passionately about his leadership journey from high school teacher and coach to building and running teams and companies in the homebuilding business and the meaning of his company’s mantra that “buildings homes is a noble thing to do with your life”. We discuss the audacity of using the word “noble” just as have other Leading Voices guests spoken about the articulation of mission in their firms.

This is Matt Slepin and welcome to Leading Voices in Real Estate. I just read the sad news that architect Phil Freelon, a guest on the show back in June 2017, just passed away. This is a rerelease of that interview.

In the interview, we spoke about his life, his work, his family and his battle with ALS, which he approached as another mountain to climb. Phil is best known for designing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He was also the mastermind behind Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights and San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.

This was a particularly moving conversation. Phil did not shy away from talking about his disease and how he was using the limited time that he knew he had left to plan for his legacy, both within the architecture industry for aspiring Black architects and also with his family. Phil was a soulful man, which I think comes across in the interview.

With his passing, we are re-releasing the original interview, which I hope you will enjoy.

After our summer hiatus, Leading Voices in Real Estate returns for its fourth season. To kick it off, host Matt Slepin shares the current trends of listeners and the direction for the new season. He also reflects on some of his favorite moments from the series that include:

The episode with Lisa Picard, CEO of EQ Office, and how she demonstrates that there are no limits for women on how far they can take their careers.

A two-part episode with Ron Terwilliger, former CEO of Trammell Crow Residential, where he walks through the entirety of his influential career and his lasting impact on the real estate industry. A big portion of the conversation is on affordability, a common topic of this podcast that we see in other episodes like Bobby Turner, Daryl Carter, and Jonathan Rose.

In the final interview of season three with Larry Webb, founder and CEO of The New Home Company, he concluded with the statement “homebuilding is a noble enterprise” and Matt and Larry shared a discussion on what that means for the real estate industry

Also, with the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization.

With the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization. Learn more about his career trajectory as you head to and from one of the largest meetings in the real estate industry. Here’s a little bit more about Ed:

Ed Walter, was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.

The late 1980s saw massive changes in the real estate industry. The passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and then the S&L crisis that followed transitioned the industry into a modern, institutional business. During this time, Dr. Peter Linneman had just started reworking the real estate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Dr. Linneman was an outsider economist who saw the obvious future in information, transparency, and capital flows. This week’s conversation dives into Dr. Linneman’s experience, from his perch at Wharton where he learned from and then counseled the then giants in the industry on this transformation as well as trained the future generation of leaders in the business.

Dr. Linneman’s story begins in Lima, OH, which at the time was a booming industrial city. He supported himself starting at a young age to attend private high school and went on to obtain his masters and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. During his studies, he was trained by prominent economists including Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, George Stigler, Ted Schultz and Jim Heckman. As an economist by trade, he started his career in general economics and industrial organization, which at the time was mostly manufacturing. Soon after, he pivoted to commercial real estate.

The Dean the University of Pennsylvania approached Dr. Linneman and asked him to evaluate the real estate curriculum in their business program. Following his research, he developed and designed Wharton’s renowned real estate program and subsequently served as the founding chairman of the department and the Director of Wharton’s Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center for 13 years. Quite literally, Dr. Linneman wrote the textbook for collegiate real estate programs.

Beyond his time in academia, Dr. Linneman has had a tenured career as a Founding Principal of Linneman Associates, a leading real estate advisory firm; CEO of American Land Fund; and CEO of KL Realty. He’s also advised leading corporations and served on over 20 public and private boards, including serving as Chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, where he led the successful restructuring and sale of Rockefeller Center in the mid-1990s.

While Dr. Linneman is now retired from Wharton’s faculty, he and his wife Kathy support a program, Save A Mind, Give A Choice, which commits to educating young children of extreme poverty in rural Kenya. Dr. Linneman contributions to the academic study of the field has been instrumental in training the leaders of the real estate industry today and subsequent educational programs in real estate fields.