Episodes

  • Affordability Is Now Structural, Not Cyclical

    Affordability Is Now Structural, Not Cyclical
    Dec 18 2025
    Mark Zandi is one of the few economists who can do two things at once: explain what is happening in the data, and explain why households experience it so differently. He is the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, and in our conversation, the last of my podcast series this year and the second of two Holiday Specials, he connected inflation, affordability, market structure, and geopolitics in a way CRE professionals will recognize immediately. The theme was simple, but not comforting: affordability is no longer a "cycle" story - it is becoming structural. And the US economy is increasingly dependent on a relatively narrow slice of consumers continuing to spend. Zandi's framing matters for sponsors and investors because it changes what "risk" looks like. If the top of the income distribution is carrying demand while the middle and bottom are constrained, the economy can keep moving - but it can also become unusually fragile if equity markets stumble or confidence shifts. He also made a point many people avoid saying plainly: even if AI is transformative, markets may be pricing in an adoption curve that is too fast. That is how you get corrections - not because the technology is useless, but because expectations got ahead of diffusion. Five questions we get into: Why has affordability re-emerged so forcefully in 2025 - and why does it feel like it is not going away? What does a "K-shaped economy" mean in practical terms for spending, jobs, and social stability? If the top 10% accounts for nearly half of spending, what breaks the expansion? Is today's AI boom more like 1997 or 2000 - and what would cause a valuation reset? Why does deglobalization threaten America's "exorbitant privilege," and what does that mean for markets? If you are underwriting 2026 with a clean, mean-reversion narrative, you will want to hear this conversation. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    47 mins
  • "This Time Is Different" – Yet Again

    "This Time Is Different" – Yet Again
    Dec 16 2025
    Ken Rogoff does not trade in headlines or market timing. He trades in history. As Professor of Economics at Harvard and co-author of This Time Is Different, Rogoff has spent decades studying what happens when societies convince themselves old rules no longer apply. His latest book, Our Dollar, Your Problem, extends that lens to today's economy – and to the quiet assumptions underpinning U.S. financial dominance. In our conversation, Rogoff unpacked why the dollar's "exorbitant privilege" still matters, why it is slowly eroding, and why the real risks facing the U.S. economy are not where most people are looking. This was not a discussion about panic. It was a discussion about probability. Among the questions Rogoff addresses: Why does dollar dominance lower borrowing costs for U.S. households and businesses – and what happens if that advantage fades? Why is the combination of high debt and higher interest rates historically dangerous, even for advanced economies? Why central bank independence matters more than most people realize – and why it is under pressure from both sides of the political spectrum. Why commercial real estate stress is serious but not systemic – and what risks matter more. Why AI could extend U.S. economic strength or trigger a sharp reversal – and why today's low volatility is misleading. Rogoff's core message is unsettling precisely because it is familiar. The United States has navigated debt, inflation, and institutional stress before. It did not escape unscathed. It adapted under pressure. The question is not whether adjustment comes. It is how – and under what conditions. If you care about macro risk, capital markets, or the long-term assumptions embedded in real estate and investment decisions, this conversation is worth your time. Tune in to hear it in full. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    59 mins
  • A Family Office Playbook for Real Estate

    A Family Office Playbook for Real Estate
    Dec 16 2025
    What do the most disciplined investors in real estate have in common right now? They're not chasing themes. They're not waiting for perfect headlines. They're buying when pricing resets and protecting capital at all costs. That's why my conversation with Onic Palandjian, partner at Group RMK, is worth your time. Onic helps steward a family office platform that has grown from $500 million to $2.5 billion by doing something increasingly rare in CRE: investing with patience, low leverage, and long-duration discipline. Their model is built on loss aversion, contrarian entry points, and a refusal to take operating risk without an exceptional basis. We covered a wide range of themes shaping 2026: the rise of family offices as agile allocators, the return of deep-value acquisitions, and why ground leases have become a compelling blend of yield, seniority, and inflation protection. Here are five questions we tackled: Why are family offices so well positioned for today's distressed pricing? How do ground leases deliver seniority, inflation linkage, and zero operating exposure? What makes a low-basis acquisition fundamentally different from a thematic bet? How does discipline with leverage create multi-cycle durability? Which opportunities are emerging as zoning, refinancing pressures, and capital scarcity converge? Onic's perspective is refreshingly unemotional: you only make money when you buy, and you only buy when the basis protects you. In an environment defined by volatility, scarcity of liquidity, and fractured sentiment, this mindset is not just conservative. It's strategic. If you want to understand how patient capital is positioning for the next phase of the market, this episode is a strong place to start. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    49 mins
  • Tax Certainty in an Uncertain Market

    Tax Certainty in an Uncertain Market
    Dec 15 2025
    In this week's episode, I spoke with Lisa Knee, Managing Partner of Real Estate Services at EisnerAmper, one of the largest tax and advisory firms serving institutional owners, funds, developers, and family offices across the country. Lisa works with clients who "touch dirt, own dirt, work with dirt" and her view is clear: the tax landscape has stopped moving, but the real estate market hasn't found its footing. She breaks down what the One Big Beautiful Bill actually settled (199A permanence, 100 percent bonus depreciation, renewed Opportunity Zone rules), and why none of it has thawed capital or clarified pricing. Capital is cautious, lenders prefer extend-and-amend, and investors still don't trust projected rents, expenses, or cap rates enough to lean in. We discuss topics that matter to serious operators, including: Which tax provisions now permanently shape deal economics for partnerships, REIT investors, and developers. How Opportunity Zones 2.0 works and what the 2026 "blackout" means for capital flows. Why B and C assets are under the most pressure even as A and D properties continue to lease. Why adaptive reuse is a specialist's game, not a market-wide solution for office. What lenders are actually doing behind the scenes and how extend-and-amend is shaping distress. If you're underwriting deals, raising capital, or making hold-sell decisions in 2025 as we head into 2026, this conversation gives you a clear, steady framework for understanding how tax incentives, lender behavior, and pricing uncertainty are interacting right now. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    50 mins
  • Winning Big in Retail

    Winning Big in Retail
    Dec 9 2025
    Jeff Rosenberg brings a multi-generation perspective to open-air, retail shopping centers, a sector most investors once wrote off. His family built and operated supermarkets and the centers around them starting in the 1940s. Big V Property Group grew out of that platform and today controls a $2.5 billion, 9 million square foot national portfolio of open-air shopping centers anchored by the likes of Target, TJX brands, Ross, HomeGoods, Sierra Trading, and others. That background matters: Big V understands how retailers actually make money, how store-level performance drives traffic, and why certain locations survive every cycle. A few insights stood out in our conversation: • Physical retail never died (online shopping, Covid etc) it evolved. Retailers now use stores as omnichannel infrastructure: showroom, warehouse, and last-mile all at once. • Power-center retail is effectively an ecosystem. A Target anchor drives demographic analysis, infrastructure improvements, credit co-tenancy, and consistent foot traffic for the rest of the center. • Supply discipline is doing the heavy lifting. Two decades of minimal development plus 96–97% occupancy make today's retail fundamentally different from overbuilt asset classes. • Lenders are leaning back in. Big V recently rolled eight core assets, about $1.1 billion, into a single fund and closed a $765 million on-balance-sheet bank loan, the largest retail financing in the country in 2025. • Underwriting today requires humility. Big V assumes no cap-rate compression. All value has to come from NOI growth and execution, not financial engineering. Here are five questions we covered: Why did retail survive when everyone predicted structural decline? How does a Target anchor change a center's economics? What does today's capital stack look like for high-quality retail? How do you underwrite exits when cap-rate compression is off the table? Where are the real risks in a sector that looks "safe" on the surface? If you want a grounded view of where the next leg of the retail cycle is heading and how an operator with a decades-long track record has never lost investor capital, this conversation is worth your time. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    45 mins
  • What RIAs Really Want From Real Estate

    What RIAs Really Want From Real Estate
    Dec 2 2025
    Jeff Brown has spent the last 15 years building exactly the kind of platform most sponsors say they want and very few actually execute: niche, disciplined, and trusted by the wealth-management channel. As founder and CIO of T2 Capital Management, he's grown a $1bn platform focused on three things: bridge lending, student housing, and B/C multifamily 'on the banks of the Mississippi.' Most of his capital comes from RIAs – a channel many sponsors talk about but rarely crack. In our conversation, we talked about what it really looks like when investors are bruised, liquidity is scarce, and the opportunity set is quietly improving. Here are five questions Jeff answered that matter for anyone raising or allocating equity today: What separates a real bridge lender from the "tourists" who entered the space in the last cycle? How do you underwrite B/C multifamily and workforce housing when markets are working through a supply glut from the ZIRP era? What's actually happening inside student housing? Why have RIAs made T2 their real estate allocation? How should investors think about 401(k) access to private assets? If you're trying to make sense of where capital will actually move in the next phase of this cycle and what it will reward, this episode is worth your time. Jeff is candid about the scars, clear about the opportunities, and refreshingly sober about what it takes to earn and keep investor trust. Tune in to the full discussion with Jeff Brown of T2 Capital Management to pressure-test your own thesis for the next leg of the market. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    55 mins
  • Retail Capital Is Rewriting CRE

    Retail Capital Is Rewriting CRE
    Nov 25 2025
    My guest today, Tim Bodner, doesn't just analyze capital markets - he helps shape them. As Partner at PwC and Global Leader of its Real Estate Deals business, Tim advises some of the world's largest investors – pensions, sovereign wealth funds, REITs, private capital firms - on transactions exceeding $300 billion. He also is a contributor to PwC's Global Real Estate and Real Assets Deals Outlook, giving him a uniquely panoramic view of how capital, policy, and real assets now intersect. In our conversation, Tim explains why the capital stack is being redrawn. Retail savings and annuities are moving from the periphery to the core of capital formation. Private credit, powered by insurers, is filling the vacuum left by banks. And the definition of "real estate" is expanding fast into "real assets" like data centers, senior housing, manufacturing facilities, sports or entertainment venues and infrastructure. It's not just about what's being built, it's about who's funding it, and how. Here are five questions Tim and I discuss that every serious investor or sponsor should be asking right now: 1. How will retirement-plan capital change the equity landscape for real estate? 2. What does the rise of insurer-backed private credit mean for developers and borrowers? 3. Why are institutions shifting from "real estate" to "real assets" and what falls inside that new perimeter? 4. How should sponsors navigate co-invest and direct-deal demand from pensions and sovereigns without slowing execution? 5. Is the "fog" of uncertainty finally lifting and where is capital rotating back into traditional sectors? If you want to understand where capital is truly flowing, how policy and product design are reshaping investor access, and why operating capability is emerging as the new alpha, this episode is worth your time. Listen to my full conversation with Tim Bodner of PwC, a rare, clear-eyed look at how capital formation in real assets is changing beneath the surface. *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    58 mins
  • Why Small Shops Beat Big Boxes

    Why Small Shops Beat Big Boxes
    Nov 18 2025
    Richard Tucker has seen every phase of retail, from enclosed malls to mixed-use, and still chooses the least glamorous corner of the sector: small-bay, necessity-driven strip centers. As CEO of Tucker Development, a 10MM square foot development company, he's now systematizing that playbook into a Midwest portfolio with modest leverage, steady cash, and an exit designed for institutions. In a market obsessed with timing the rate cycle, this is an operator's strategy: buy centers with proven tenancy, fix physical frictions (depth, access, service lanes), keep leverage low (60–65%), hedge rates, and let small rent steps compound at the portfolio level. It's less about shiny anchors and more about durable local habits. Richard and I discuss: Why unanchored strips now. What is WALD and how does it drive resilience and investor returns? Best practices for taking on debt. How 'boring' can yield a 9% current pay. Why taxes matter and what not to look at. If you're underwriting the next two years as an operator, not a speculator, Tucker's checklist is a useful filter for deal flow you can own through volatility. His team spends more time on downside than upside and builds something a bigger buyer can actually absorb. That discipline is scarce. Tune in to hear how Richard separates cosmetic "retail" from real, necessity-based demand and why "good real estate with good business plans always wins out." *** In this series, I cut through the noise to examine how shifting macroeconomic forces and rising geopolitical risk are reshaping real estate investing. With insights from economists, academics, and seasoned professionals, this show helps investors respond to market uncertainty with clarity, discipline, and a focus on downside protection. Subscribe to my free newsletter for timely updates, insights, and tools to help you navigate today's volatile real estate landscape. You'll get: Straight talk on what happens when confidence meets correction - no hype, no spin, no fluff.Real implications of macro trends for investors and sponsors with actionable guidance.Insights from real estate professionals who've been through it all before. Visit GowerCrowd.com/subscribe Email: adam@gowercrowd.com Call: 213-761-1000
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    53 mins