The AFIRE Podcast AFIRE

Many leaders believe this is the key to becoming fully immune to all future risks—but evading risk forever is just unrealistic.

Risk plays a big part in commercial real estate. To thrive, it’s crucial to adopt a proactive approach to manage risks effectively.

So how can commercial real estate investors thrive in a time of such incredible volatility, change and blindness? How do we thrive amid constant uncertainty and exposure to risk?

On this new episode of the AFIRE Podcast, AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson sits down with General Stan McChrystal (Ret.), CEO and Chairman of the McChrystal Group, to discuss the risks facing investors during this time of heightened uncertainty in commercial real estate.

As a retired four-star general in the US Army, General McChrystal translates his military training to educate leaders in commercial real estate on how to employ a proactive approach to managing risks instead of steering clear of possible failures.

There’s this “unwillingness to be realistic about risk,” says McChrystal. “As a consequence, when you try to mitigate risk to zero, it takes so long that you’ve priced yourself out of the option.”

In this riveting conversation about risk, General McChrystal walks us through what’s considered effective communication, how avoiding mistakes amounts to the first blunder, and how to fight back against our inclination to avoid risk.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/202403cast

Technology can be enormously disruptive to commercial real estate. Remote work is responsible for the global devaluation of office properties. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the way we live and work.

So what will be the effect of AI on institutional investment strategies?

https://www.afire.org/podcast/202402cast/

To get at some answers, AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson talked to one of his favorite futurist investors, Jeffrey Kanne, president and CEO of National Real Estate Advisors, an AFIRE member firm and investment manager specializing in a build-to-core strategy, developing and managing large-scale, urban commercial and multifamily projects for its institutional client accounts.

“The advent of AI as a technological tool is going to greatly increase the rate of change,” Kanne tells Branson. “I’m very nervous about where you can place money and think it’s safe.”

The best opportunity for investment, Kanne believes, is in data centers that provide consistent power and temperature-controlled environments for the Googles, OpenAIs and Microsofts of the world.

With that in mind, Kanne and Branson discuss how investors can enter the data center market.

“It’s not rocket science,” Kanne says, while outlining potential pitfalls and barriers to entry for new operators. “It’s incumbent on all of us as investors to think about what the world will be like in five years, ten years, fifteen years,” Kanne says. “When I look ahead, data centers are a good place to focus on.”

Cognitive dissonance abounds in commercial real estate. On the one hand, the Fed is citing strong employment figures and predicting a soft landing.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/202401cast/

And yet, the commercial real estate industry is navigating serious issues in the office sector.

Will office distress trigger bank failures? Will those bank failures affect the broader economy? When will interest rates go down? And when they do, will the Fed cut enough to benefit commercial real estate? 

In his conversation with AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi sounds off on all these topics and more.

“If I was at the Fed, I would argue: let’s cut rates now,” Zandi says. “Obviously there’s a lot of uncertainty, but I think the most likely scenario is June.”

Plus: Zandi talks AI, China and other geopolitical risks, and how he expects the upcoming US election will affect market volatility.

Listen now on your favorite podcast platform, or watch on the AFIRE YouTube channel.

On the tail end of the hottest year on human record, it’s clear that climate change is already here—and not slowing down. In the years ahead, the effects of climate change will pose real hardships for billions of people around the world.

The challenge of climate change is clear, especially for real estate, as explained in the first of this special two-part series. Now, in this second and final entry of the latest AFIRE Podcast—inspired by the special climate change section featured in the most recent issue of AFIRE’s award-winning Summit Journal, and sponsored by the global ESG consultancy, AccountAbility—AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson and Summit Journal Editor-in-Chief Benjamin van Loon propose that climate change can also represent opportunity for forward-thinking investors.

Climate migration will require new housing in resilient geographies, creating demand for fast and efficient construction methods. Extreme weather and other disasters will highlight the need for more robust building techniques. And an historically hotter world also could usher in carbon markets that use Web 3.0 to better reflect the actual cost of assets that contribute to global warming.

(Watch the video version of this episode on the AFIRE YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Hxizapwf0&ab_channel=AFIRE)

Featuring interviews with:
Jacques Gordon, Executive in Residence, MIT Center for Real Estate
Bob Geiger, Executive Director, Partner Engineering & Science
Parag Khanna, Founder and CEO, Climate Alpha
Zhengzhen Tan, Research Scientist, MIT Center for Real Estate

The year 2023 has been the hottest year in recent record—and it will likely be the coldest year for the rest of our lives.

In the face of these record-breaking numbers and climate events, 2023 also proved to be a year that real estate investors lead the charge in confronting the constantly evolving challenges of climate change—including insurance rate hikes, migration and population changes, and the irrational implications derived from “the tragedy of the horizon.”

In this, the first of a special two-part episode—inspired by the special climate change section featured in the most recent issue of AFIRE’s award-winning Summit Journal, and sponsored by the global ESG consultancy, AccountAbility—AFIRE CEO Gunnar Branson and Summit Journal Editor-in-Chief Benjamin van Loon take viewers and listeners through a conversation with the industry’s top thought leaders to explore how investors can prepare for the impending intersection of climate change, global investment, and the future of real estate.

(Watch the video version of this episode on the AFIRE YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWYO08tKnZA&ab_channel=AFIRE)

Featuring interviews with (in order):
Bob Geiger, Executive Director, Partner Engineering & Science
Hans Nordby, Head of Research and Analytics, Lionstone Investments
Jacques Gordon, Executive in Residence, MIT Center for Real Estate
Parag Khanna, Founder and CEO, Climate Alpha

Despite the overwrought headlines and apocalyptic economic forecasts, office buildings still matter. At the same time, the use of office is changing and an increasing need for sustainability requires all office owners and developers to alter their approach.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/202311cast/

According to Anthony Malkin of Empire State Realty Trust, the altered approach won’t be easy or business-as-usual, but there is a compelling future.

Office buildings matter, including the ones that are already built. The use of office is changing dramatically, and office owners are now required to alter their approach to the business. Sustainability and decreasing carbon is now a given. Flexibility for tenants no longer just part of a wish list.

Anthony Malkin, President, Chairman, and CEO of Empire State Realty Trust, joins the AFIRE Podcast to discuss how, despite the overwrought headlines and challenge of changing existing office buildings to fit the times there is a compelling future, even if it isn’t easy or business-as-usual. As Malkin explains, if you can make it with the century-old Empire State Building, you can make it anywhere.