Earlier this week, Amazon's Alexa fund invested in Plant Prefab, a construction company. Why did it do it? What does it mean for consumers and construction company? And what does it signal for the industry as a whole?

Amazon's investment follows other construction-related moves by Softbank, Google, and a growing interest in the smart home spaces by Apple and other hardware companies. 

David and Dror discuss latest developments and their implications.

___

Dislocation is a podcast dedicated to innovation in real estate — exploring technology's impact on the way in which assets are planned, designed, financed, built, marketed, and operated.

Dror Poleg is the founder of NYC's Rethinking.RE, where he advises institutional real estate investors on innovation and investment in emerging technologies. His insights have been featured in reports and events by KPMG, PWC, Urban Land Institute, JLL, PERE, NYU, Savills, Estates Gazette, and EPRA. Read more here: www.rethinking.re/dror-poleg/

David Friedlander is the founder of Hothouse.co, a marketing communications, public relations, and trend consultancy with a narrow focus on the future of real estate. Hothouse work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Dwell, CNN, and many other outlets. Read more here: hothouse.co/about/

Episode 9: Amazon Construction Company?

Dislocation is a podcast dedicated to innovation in real estate — exploring technology's impact on the way in which assets are planned, designed, financed, built, marketed, and operated.

Joining us this week is Julien Smith, the Co-founder and CEO of Breather, a company that operates a network of furnished spaces that companies can access on demand — to use for a meeting, an offsite, or as a temporary office. 

Breather raised about $150 million so far, from investors such as Zach Aarons, RRE Ventures, Slow Ventures, Temasek (Singapore), and Caisee de Depot which is one of the largest pension funds in Canada.

Some of the topics covered include:

- How do you build a real estate company for the 21st Century? 
- What does it mean for office space to be responsive to customer's needs?
- How big is the opportunity for Space as a Service?
- How will WeWork, Convene, The Office Group, Industrious, and Breather fit into the new office landscape
- Lessons from Salesforce early SaaS efforts for Space as a Service Companies
- Changes in consumer, investor, and landlord interest in flexible space

___

Dror Poleg is the founder of NYC's Rethinking.RE, where he advises institutional real estate investors on innovation and investment in emerging technologies. His insights have been featured in reports and events by KPMG, Urban Land Institute, JLL, PERE, NYU, Savills, Estates Gazette, and EPRA. Read more here: www.rethinking.re/dror-poleg/

David Friedlander is the founder of Hothouse.co, a marketing communications, public relations, and trend consultancy with a narrow focus on the future of real estate. Hothouse work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Dwell, CNN, and many other outlets. Read more here: hothouse.co/about/

Episode 8: Julien Smith, Co-Founder & CEO Of Breather

Dislocation is a podcast dedicated to innovation in real estate — exploring technology's impact on the way in which assets are planned, designed, financed, built, marketed, and operated.

This week, Dror and David discuss how demographic changes impact demand for real estate; how cyclical demand impacts innovation in housing construction; and recent developments in the Space-as-a-Service market. 

Key points from this podcast:

- There will be 21 million people aged 100 or older by the year 2100, compared to onyl 150,000 in 2000.

- 50% of households in large US cities are single-person. These households used to consist mostly men, but are now majority female.  

- Rezi is planning to spend $10 million on buying up residential leases and using them as inventory to streamline the multifamily rental process.

- Autodesk CEO says that “by 2050 there will be two billion more people on the planet – we have to build 1,000 more buildings a day for the next 32 years to house them." — is that a lot or a little, and how will construction catch up?

- Is it possible to integrate and innovate in the construction industry in the face of extremely cyclical demand? How will AI and automation impact how the industry respond to such cycles? How does Katerra approach these challenges? 

- Convene raises $152m from ArrowMarks Partners, Revolution Growth, RXR, Brookfield

- Breather launches new "Month Plus" offering, to provide longer-term furnished private offices to its clients

- Senior WeWork executive tells media "We are a real estate company in the same way that Uber is a taxi company. We have no real estate and they don't have any taxis" — is that true? And if not, why do they keep repeating it?  
____

David Friedlander is the founder of Hothouse.co, a marketing communications, public relations, and trend consultancy with a narrow focus on the future of real estate. Hothouse work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Dwell, CNN, and many other outlets. Read more here: hothouse.co/about/

Dror Poleg is the founder of NYC's Rethinking.RE, where he advises institutional real estate investors on innovation and investment in emerging technologies. His insights have been featured in reports and events by KPMG, Urban Land Institute, JLL, PERE, NYU, Savills, Estates Gazette, and EPRA. Read more here: www.rethinking.re/dror-poleg/

Episode 7: Real Estate Demographics, Integrated Construction, Space-as-a-Service Heating Up

Dislocation is a podcast dedicated to innovation in real estate — exploring technology's impact on the way in which assets are planned, designed, financed, built, marketed, and operated.

This week, Dror and David discuss a recent UCS study about the impact of climate change on RE markets, PMG's new shared/social housing expansion, Harvard's report on the state of housing, Breather's new institutional backers, MetaProp's new Proptech venture fund, and ING's analysis of technology's impact on traditional real estate owners.

Contents: 

- 02:25 Union of Concerned Scientists research report on the potential impact of climate change on real estate

- 8:30 PMG, a large residential developer, and their PMGx shared/social/coliving projects in Chicago, Denver, Miami and beyond

- 13:11 Harvard Center for Housing Study's report on the state of the nation's housing

- 16:50 Breather, a space as a service operator, raises $45m from Temasek and CDPQ

- 23:35 MetaProp closes a new $40m Proptech fund, with LPs PGIM, RXR, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, and JLL

- 30:15 ING report about the impact of technology on the real estate industry
____

Dror Poleg is Managing Partner of NYC's Rethinking.RE, where he advises institutional real estate investors on innovation and investment in emerging technologies. His insights have been featured in reports and events by KPMG, Urban Land Institute, JLL, PERE, NYU, Savills, Estates Gazette, and EPRA. Read more here: www.rethinking.re/dror-poleg/

David Friedlander is the founder of Hothouse.co, a marketing communications, public relations, and trend consultancy with a narrow focus on the future of real estate. Hothouse work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Dwell, CNN, and many other outlets. Read more here: hothouse.co/about/

Episode 6: Shared housing, Flexible space, Climate Change, and Proptech Investment

Dislocation is a podcast dedicated to innovation in real estate — exploring technology's impact on the way in which assets are planned, designed, financed, built, marketed, and operated.

This week, David and Dror discuss Starbucks's decision to allow non-customers to access its bathrooms and spaces, the merits of building a proper business around coworking and bathrooms, and what Steve Jobs would have done if he was in charge. We also discuss Senior Housing and the Silver Tsunami of babyboomers who are retiring, how Jimmy Buffer is using his Margaritaville franchise to develop residential communities, and NYC's  latest RFP to use modular construction in the service of affordable housing.  

Are you in New York? Next week, David and Dror will present at an informal gathering with friends from the city real estate and technology industries. Pizza and Proptech — please join us! Full details here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pizza-proptech-with-david-friedlander-dror-poleg-tickets-46041605682

____

Dror Poleg is Managing Partner of NYC's Rethinking.RE, where he advises institutional real estate investors on innovation and investment in emerging technologies. His insights have been featured in reports and events by KPMG, Urban Land Institute, JLL, PERE, NYU, Savills, Estates Gazette, and EPRA. Read more here: https://www.rethinking.re/dror-poleg/

David Friedlander is the founder of Hothouse.co, a marketing communications, public relations, and trend consultancy with a narrow focus on the future of real estate. Hothouse work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Dwell, CNN, and many other outlets. Read more here: http://hothouse.co/about/

Dislocation — Real Estate Tech, Proptech, CRETech

Dislocation — Real Estate Tech, Proptech, CRETech

Get Started

Download the App