🗞️ News&Moves 🏠
Is commercial real estate finally past the doom loop? CBRE's midyear outlook says yes: investment activity up 10%, office sales jumping nearly 20%, and rent growth expected in 46 of 64 tracked markets despite vacancy hovering near 19%. The kicker—23.3 million square feet of zombie office space gets demolished or converted by year-end while prime locations tighten up. When the world's biggest CRE firm starts calling recovery amid tariff chaos and slashed GDP forecasts, it begs the question: are we finally looking at the bottom?
Miami's World Property Ventures is betting that the entire $654 trillion property market goes blockchain. Their World Property Bank launches 2026 as an SEC-regulated digital investment bank turning everything from CMBS to equity stakes into tradeable tokens, complete with its own exchange and prediction market. The timing's deliberate - tokenized real estate projected to hit $3 trillion by 2030 (from $120 billion today), plus another $2.39 trillion in tokenized debt by 2035. While skeptics cry "hype," nearly $6 trillion in disruption suggests tokens aren't just coming for real estate, they're already here.
🚨The Fed Pulse🚨
U.S. 5 Year Treasury | U.S. 10 Year Treasury | Fed Funds Rate |
|---|---|---|
3.796% ⬇️ | 4.25% ⬇️ | 4.33% ⏸️ |
The Fed governor who spent years fighting rate cuts just completely changed her tune, and CRE investors should be paying attention. Michelle Bowman is now urgently pushing for cuts to protect a weakening jobs market, marking a dramatic reversal after she and Gov. Christopher Waller delivered the Fed's first double-governor dissent in 32 years at July's meeting. Bowman's warning that delaying action "could result in a deterioration in the labor market" signals she's ready to move aggressively if employment data worsens before September, with futures markets already pricing in a quarter-point cut from the current 4.25%-4.50% range. For CRE players sitting on the sidelines waiting for cheaper money, Bowman's conversion suggests the Fed's pivot might come faster and harder than anyone expected.
🏢 Chicago CRE Insider 📈
Chicago industrial just posted its strongest quarter in over a year, and the supply-demand equation looks perfect for landlords. Q2 leasing hit 10.7 million square feet—the highest since early 2024—while new construction plummeted to just 9.3 million square feet in the pipeline, the lowest since 2018. With vacancy tightening to 4.67% and rents climbing to $8.20 per square foot, the math is simple: strong tenant demand meeting shrinking supply should keep Chicago industrial running hot through 2025.
On last week's episode of the Value Builder podcast, I interviewed Slava Menn, Principal at Good Harbor CRE, about his journey to $60 million in commercial assets under management.
Slava and I worked together on a shopping center in Lindenhurst, and I watched his team lease buildings at impossible speeds, so I had to ask him what his secret was. His answer was beautifully simple:
"If you put up a for lease sign and you answer the call, you're automatically ahead of 90% of the competition."
That's not even hyperbole.
Most commercial landlords treat leasing like a hobby. They stick a LoopNet listing up and hope someone calls.
When prospects do call, half the time nobody answers.
And that’s what separates the operators who cash flow from the ones who carry properties for years: speed kills the competition.
This realization became the foundation of Slava's approach - what I'm calling the PUFP (Pick Up the F*ing Phone) System .
It has four main components:
Massive signage with direct phone numbers. Not some property management company's generic line, his team's direct number.
Immediate response. When that phone rings, somebody answers. Not in an hour. Not tomorrow. Right now.
Systematic outbound prospecting. Several hundred DMs per week to potential tenants. Cold calling. Canvassing. Active hunting, not passive hoping.
Four-hour turnaround on showings. When someone wants to see a space, they see it within four hours. Not next week when it's convenient.
With this system in place, Slava can take a building from 60% occupied to 90% occupied in a matter of a couple of month If he's moving fast, sometimes it’s even quicker.
Every month a space sits vacant costs you money.
Every day you don't respond to a prospect, they're calling your competition.
Commercial tenants, especially small businesses, aren't browsing casually. When they're looking for space, they need it. The landlord who can show them something today beats the one who can schedule something next week.
If you want to dominate leasing in your market, the proven playbook there for the taking:
Put up massive red signs with your direct number.
When prospects call, answer immediately.
Schedule showings for the same day.
Follow up relentlessly.
Most landlords won't do this because it requires actual work. That's your opportunity.
Do this consistently, and you'll be ahead of 90% of your competition before you even get to the property tour.