Good morning. It's Sunday, Mar. 15, and in this week's edition, we're covering why Blackstone's global real estate head says industrial demand is about to accelerate, Goldman pushing rate cuts to September on Middle East inflation risk, and how to find the best deals in the hottest asset class in CRE…
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Blackstone is putting its money where its mouth is on U.S. re-industrialization. Nadeem Meghji, the firm's global real estate head, told attendees at the University of Miami's real estate conference that industrial demand is "poised to accelerate," driven by reshoring manufacturing and the massive AI infrastructure buildout.
Blackstone currently holds roughly $140 billion in data centers globally with an equal amount of development potential in the pipeline. With tech giants expected to spend nearly $700 billion on AI infrastructure, the overlap between industrial and data center real estate is becoming a major institutional thesis worth watching.
🔗 Dubai Real Estate Could Lose Up to 70% of Its Value: A shocking look at how the Middle East conflict is gutting Dubai's property market. Prices are already down 20%, investors are fleeing to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Turkey, and analysts warn of a 50–70% decline if the war continues. A stark reminder that geopolitical risk reprices everything. Read here
🔗 The 70s Are Calling, Are the CRE Markets Listening?: Brian Bailey, former Fed CRE expert and Head of Research at Trimont, digs into debt market conditions, rising operating expenses outpacing rent growth, and the risks the industry may be underestimating heading into 2026. A must-listen for anyone watching the capital markets math shift in real time. Listen here
🔗 The Biggest Shift in Real Estate in DECADES Has Started: Ken McElroy breaks down what's on his radar heading into this cycle: AI-driven job cuts, the $4 trillion wall of CRE loan maturities, why he's buying multifamily at 60% of loan value, and how affordability is reshaping the renter-to-homeowner dynamic. Practical, operator-level perspective from someone with 10,000 units and 25 years in the game. Watch here
The rate-cut timeline just got longer. Goldman Sachs pushed its Fed easing forecast from June to September 2026, citing inflation pressure from the U.S.-Iran conflict (Brent crude topped $104/barrel) and a labor market that's softening but not broken. CME FedWatch currently shows only a 41% probability of a September cut.
CRE Impact: Higher-for-longer means continued pressure on cap rates, tighter deal math on leveraged plays, and more runway for sellers to sit on the sidelines waiting for better exits.
Small bay industrial is the hottest asset class in CRE.
The data situation? Not so hot.
This Wednesday, 300+ operators, investors, and brokers are flying to Atlanta for the Small Bay Summit.
The room will be full of smart, motivated people all chasing the same asset class.
But almost every single one of them will go home with the same problem they arrived with:
Where do I actually find these deals?
There's a reason everyone is chasing small bay right now, and the numbers back it up. I wrote the full breakdown on LinkedIn - why small bay is outperforming big box across virtually every metric, where institutional capital is flowing, and what it means for operators and investors chasing this space.
The root of the problem is that there is no CoStar for small bay - no centralized database, reliable leasing comps, or clean owner data.
There’s really not even an easy way to figure out which properties even qualify as small bay.
CoStar doesn't cover it well. A huge chunk of leasing activity lives on Facebook Marketplace and places no commercial data provider has ever bothered to look.
So what do operators do?
Spend hundreds of hours manually pulling lists
Skip-trace owners through three different tools
Guess at market rents
Cold-call landlords with zero context
My partner Shea and I got tired of these messy processes.
So along with our co-founders Luke and Matt, we spent the last year building the solution.
It's called Industrial IQ. It’s an AI-powered platform built specifically for small bay industrial, and it launches March 18th.
Here's what's inside at launch:
Property database built only for small bay industrial: every asset we've mapped across US.
Leasing comps: sourced from everywhere online, including Facebook Marketplace, updated monthly.
Individually skip-traced owner data: cell phone numbers and mailing addresses of decision makers. Best accuracy you'll find, bar none.
And we're already building more: an AI leasing agent for automatic outreach, a property marketing suite, and direct mail integration.
Under the hood, we trained our models on flagship NVIDIA GPUs.
We retrained them over and over until they stopped thinking like a chatbot and started thinking like an operator. The result is something that actually understands this asset class. It's pretty magical, honestly.
If you'd like to see it, schedule a demo here.
If you're actively going after small bay industrial, what's your biggest bottleneck right now?
Finding the properties, getting to the owners, or figuring out market rents?
Hit reply. Your answer might literally shape what we build next.
And if you're heading to Atlanta on Wednesday, come find me.
I'd love to hear what you're working on.
LET ME HEAR IT
Until next Sunday.
Be well,
Saul
P.S. Missed my podcast with Nick Terry? Here is the full episode.
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Random Saul Fact: Getting prepped for next week's Small Bay Summit in Atlanta.
