🗞️ News & Moves 🏠
U.S. commercial construction just hit 8.3 million jobs (the most since 1939) but cracks are showing: employment dropped three straight months this summer and tariffs have pushed steel costs up 9.2%. The bright spot is that data centers are driving a construction frenzy, global capital keeps flowing stateside, and states like Texas are dropping $100 million in incentives to land megaprojects.
Smaller is proving smarter in industrial. Construction of sub-100,000 SF facilities is up 16% year-over-year while larger properties are down more than half, as last-mile and light manufacturing tenants drive demand. With $61.8 billion in transactions this year and rate cuts greasing the wheels, expect a strong Q4 finish.
🚨The Fed Pulse🚨
U.S. 5 Year Treasury | U.S. 10 Year Treasury | Fed Funds Rate |
|---|---|---|
3.60% ⬇️ | 4.02% ⬇️ | 3.87% ⏸️ |
Prediction markets now peg December's 25-basis-point Fed cut at over 80% probability, with Polymarket seeing $171 million in trading volume on the outcome. For CRE players, another cut could spark a late-year transaction surge as cheaper financing keeps institutional capital hunting for yield.
🏢 Chicago CRE Insider 📈
Chicago's industrial market is feeling the tariff hangover. Logistics rent growth has cratered from a 10% peak in 2023 to under 3% today, while flex and specialized segments hold steady in the 3-5% range. Smaller-footprint assets are outperforming the mega-logistics properties that drove the post-pandemic boom.
Last year, I shared my tech stack. It was one of my most-opened emails ever.
This year, AI didn't just upgrade my toolkit, it torched half of it.
What used to take three apps now takes one. What used to take an assistant now takes a bot.
Of the 5 million apps out there, only a rare few will take your productivity to the next level. After years of trial and error, I hunted them down the same way I hunt for the right avocado at the grocery store.
This is the 2025 edition. It’s leaner, faster, and rebuilt from the ground up.
The AI Layer
This is my new workhorse. The team feature is bonkers. You can collaborate with team members on ongoing projects, brainstorm deals, or clarify complex stuff - all inside one shared thread.
It has extensive memory. It handles complex, multi-step tasks. $150/month, and worth every penny.
Replaced Superwhisper for me. Ever been juggling three conversations while walking to your car? Wispr Flow turns my voice dumps into coherent texts and emails that actually sound like me.
It's faster, cleaner, and now my default for anything I used to type.
I use this instead of Google for most searches now. Need to research demographics, lease rates, or comps? It's almost as good as CoStar or Crexi for quick clarity. It's right there, on the go, in seconds.
This one's for simplifying big data sets. When I need answers distilled from messy information, Manus thinks like an analyst. Manus is like having a brand new “spreadsheet guy” on your team (and available whenever you need him).
This is where your 24/7 employees live (at almost no cost). I use it for tasks my VA used to handle. Example: finding an email or phone number for a contact. Lindy skip-traces LinkedIn and the web. If it's out there, Lindy finds it.
Another task this handles for me: scheduling. CC Lindy on an email thread, and it coordinates calendars, goes back and forth, and drops the invite into both calendars automatically.
I hope, by now, everyone is using ChatGPT (even my dad does).
The Builders
This is where you build fully functioning apps (with no coding required).
I created a due diligence checklist app for my team. Everyone collaborates on it. Everyone loves it.
Some people are building apps here and selling them. Wild times.
Game-changer for slide decks, presentations, and flyers. You talk, it builds. Voice-to-slides. I've personally designed presentations that don't feel like a bot made them anymore. Hands down the best presentation tool I've found.
Still here. Still your $13/month graphic design assistant. Flyers, social posts, marketing decks. All done in minutes.
The Classics (Still Standing)
Still my favorite email app. AI that corrects your emails. Swipe gestures. Snooze. Send-later. Team comment threads that kill endless back-and-forth. I hit inbox zero at least once a week.
Our command center. Universal folder hierarchies. Naming conventions across the team. GDrive's mobile collaboration is still unmatched.
My second brain. Daily planning, collaborative checklists, sending OMs on the fly. It does it all.
Where all my marketing happens. I'm writing this newsletter in Notion right now. The collaboration features are next-level.
Losing 15 minutes a day to password chaos adds up to 60 hours a year. 1Password solved that. Syncs across devices. Updates for the whole team. Stores logins, credit cards, everything.
Best platform for sending emails to many. I use it for this newsletter and for investor communications. It has that human, one-to-one feel (not the cold MailChimp vibe).
CRE-Specific Tools
This is our in-house Small Bay Industrial acquisition software. Opening to the public soon.
It's a superpower for getting in front of small bay owners. 10x (maybe 100x) speed on targeted acquisitions for small bay industrial.
Negotiating seller financing? Running cash flow scenarios? I've calculated numbers on the fly mid-phone-call. This app is your best friend.
Plat maps at your fingertips. First thing I check before stepping out of the car. Square footage, neighboring owners, property lines, everything I need.
Bonus Apps
Best software for virtual podcast recordings. Records locally on both ends, automates short clips, makes post-production painless.
Spell-checks my texts on the go. When I'm not using Wispr Flow, Grammarly catches the typos.
That's the stack.
Use it, abuse it, and let AI do the heavy lifting so you can focus on deals.
If this helped, please share it with someone who's still doing things the hard way.