Leading Voices in Real Estate

Ismael Guerrero, President and CEO of Mercy Housing, dissects the housing affordability crisis, subsidized housing, and stewardship of public dollars.

Christopher Hawthorne, Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture, discusses why collective spaces deserve intentional design and public support.

Jordan Slone, Chairman and CEO of Harbor Group International, talks about the secrets to the growth of his company’s now $20 billion AUM portfolio.

This week’s podcast guest is Chris Merrill, the co-founder and CEO of Harrison Street, a $55 billion family of real estate funds focused on demographically-driven real estate niche sectors such as student housing, senior housing, life science, self-storage and infrastructure throughout the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.He talks about their strategy as a break out from the four main real estate “food groups” and how their strategy is “de-risked” both by focusing on these multiple niche sectors and through working through multiple operating partners in each business.Chris shares about his starting the company with his long time mentor, Chris Galvin, the prior CEO of Motorola. He talks about how the partnership with Galvin focused Harrison Street’s business strategy around these alternative real estate asset classes and a spirit of innovation rather than following the herd in the business. He also talks about recapitalizing the company with an investment by Colliers Group International and the synergies that enabled the company’s tremendous growth and new opportunities for his teammates. Chris shares about the growth, evolution and the natural progression into new investment areas for the firm, including internationally, and how he is mentoring and providing opportunities for the next generation of leaders in his business.Related Episodes: Kevin Marchetti | Leading Voices EpisodeBill Stein | Leading Voices EpisodeChris Hartung & Michael Van Konynenburg | Leading VoicesResources:Harrison Street | WebsiteChristopher Merrill | HS Website

This week’s podcast guest is Kevin Marchetti the co-founder of Bay Grove, a real estate private equity firm that has built the world’s largest portfolio of cold-storage warehouses, and its operating company, Lineage Logistics, that runs the business. The company has scaled up by acquiring different businesses and portfolios, and now Lineage employs over 25,000 people globally. It offers a deep set of services to its clients, beyond the four walls of the warehouse, including logistics, transportation, food prep, and information technology. This business moves beyond pure real estate into true partnership and adds value services to the industry client base. Kevin talks about how they built the portfolio through acquisitions of long-standing local cold storage family businesses, raising over $7 billion of capital, and the process of creating the Lineage operating platform. A story about strawberries encapsulates the lifecycle of the work, from picking to freezing, to using it as an energy source in the warehouse, to sending it to the stores for consumers. The discussion also hits on Kevin’s commitment to carbon reduction and the work Lineage is doing to establish the future of renewable energy in the warehouse sectors. He talks about being the fifth largest adopter of solar panels in the United States and signing the Climate Pledge for zero net carbon emissions by 2040.

This week’s podcast guest is Wemimo Abbey, a 30-year-old entrepreneur already making waves in the apartment business as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Esusu. Esusu allows lower income renters to use their rental payments to help build their credit scores to create a pathway to their personal financial health. Wemimo and his cofounder only just started the company in 2018, it is now valued at over $1 billion and used by over 50% of the nation's largest owners and operators of apartments. Wemimo credits his journey from Nigeria to Minnesota and his mother’s hard work and focus on his education as pivotal contributions to his entrepreneurial success and desire to support underserved communities.  The story of how Esusu was started leads Wemimo to talk about the win-win-win construct built into the program. This design supports the renters, the landlords, and the credit bureau while also providing solutions for homelessness with relief programs during COVID.  The process of creating a start-up in real estate requires strong relationship-building skills. Wemimo shares how he and his partner built synergy with other companies through relationships that helped catapult Esusu to success. Don’t miss this episode with Wemimo and his timeless advice for creating a meaningful career in real estate.

As a holiday treat, this rebroadcast episode from January 2021 features Paul Saffo, forecaster and Head of Future Studies at Stanford University. He forecasts the future of city development in light of historic patterns of change, economic shifts, and the role of real estate post pandemic.  Paul talks from a perspective outside of the real estate industry, calling those who work and thrive in it “wickedly smart and wickedly practical.” The conversation highlights real estate as ground zero in urban development and future city growth.  He breaks down both macro and micro level ways to look at real estate investments and capital growth. The significance of regional planners is highlighted and Paul encourages visionary approaches to merging global civilization and social cohesion.  By focusing on themes that have stood the test of time throughout centuries of change, Paul believes that we can become good ancestors and build urban developments that will take us more successfully into the future.

MacArthur Foundation Genius Award Winner and internationally recognized leader in the field ofhomelessness, Rosanne Haggerty, President and CEO of Community Solutions, dives deepinto the challenges of the homelessness crisis and talks about how the problem is indeed“Solvable”.Rosanne puts the homelessness crisis in context as a symptom of broader systemic failuresrather than as the fault of individuals experiencing homelessness. Her non-profit CommunitySolutions has created a program called “Built for Zero” which has worked in over 100 cities andcounties across the county to implement its systematic approach, by harnessing data andcollaboration, to bring homelessness to “functional zero”. The goal is to ensure thathomelessness is a rare and brief experience, and never an enduring way of life.Rosanne provides insights into how fragmentation among government and servicesorganizations has prevented real transformation and how necessary disciplined collaborationand a fresh mindset are to lasting change. She talks about the role of the real estate industry ina discussion of the ripple effects on property values and our downtowns and the responsibilityeach community has to find solutions. Her team is using the  MacArthur Grant for $100M tosupport those communities in their network and encourages listeners to start being proactivethrough their businesses and within their communities.Resources“Homelessness is Solvable” – Rosanne’s podcast interview with Malcolm Gladwell (June 2019)Rosanne Haggerty | LinkedInCommunity Solutions | Home

This week’s podcast guests are Michael Van Konynenburg, President of Eastdil Secured, and Chris Hartung, Executive Director of Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics at Berkeley and Co-founder of the Terra Firma REIT investment funds.  Mike and Chris provide their perspectives on how the downturn is affecting both the public and private commercial real estate markets particularly given the near lockdown in the real estate capital markets. Mike breaks down the overall capital markets and transaction slowdown response, while Chris talks about how trading in REIT portfolios has been impacted. The conversation turns to preparing for the next cycle, advice to focus on core strategies, and the interrelated challenges of office and work-from-home transitions and the impact, and need for leadership from the real estate industry, on our CBDs.ResourcesMichael Van Konynenburg | LinkedInChristopher Hartung | LinkedIn

Ross Perot Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and real estate developer, talks about his varied businesses, inside and outside of real estate, including the development of the giant Alliance project in Fort Worth, developing public private partnership projects in the US and abroad, and about his father’s legacy. Legacy comes up right away as Ross reminisces about his father taking him to work, being the first to fly a helicopter around the world, and being a business partner with his dad. They acquired, over time, the land for Alliance in Fort Worth and, of necessity, became a developer of the project themselves during the S&L recession.Ross talks about Hillwood’s work in public private partnerships across the country, including the airport project at Alliance, conversions of military bases, development of the Victory project in Dallas and his company’s work in Poland. He talks about this all coming together in their development of the Air Force Memorial project.Resources:LinkedIn | Ross Perot Jr.Hillwood Development