When Nancy Batchelor arrived in Miami in 1982, the city was a far cry from today’s global luxury destination. Ocean Drive featured rocking chairs instead of five-star hotels, and the iconic South of Fifth neighborhood was home to a simple marina rather than ultra-luxury condominiums. Over four decades later, Batchelor has not only witnessed Miami’s ...
In an industry where timing is everything, Craig Merlin knows a thing or two about reading the course. The former PGA professional turned commercial real estate broker has transitioned from analyzing golf swings to market swings, bringing a unique perspective to South Florida’s rapidly evolving real estate landscape. His path to real estate wasn’t conventional ...
The intersection of housing affordability, displacement, and market dynamics is creating unprecedented pressures across the American housing landscape, according to Dr. Tim Thomas, Research Training Lead at Berkeley’s Urban Displacement Project. His research paints a concerning picture of mounting challenges that real estate professionals and investors should be watching closely. “We’re seeing a fundamental shift ...
When a fraudulent workplace injury claim hit one of Stefano Braganti’s construction sites, the resulting years-long legal battle exposed a critical gap in the industry. As a structural engineer turned construction company manager, Braganti found himself digging through boxes of paper records trying to prove proper safety protocols had been followed. Despite the worker walking ...
When Lindsay Liu found herself serving on three different condo association boards while pursuing her real estate investment strategy, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “This cannot be how it’s done,” Liu recalls thinking about the management of multi-million dollar assets. That frustration, combined with her technology background, would eventually lead her to co-found ...
Twenty-five thousand new affordable housing units since 2015 tell the story of New Jersey’s success in tackling one of real estate’s most pressing challenges. The state’s Mount Laurel Doctrine, which requires each municipality to allow for its fair share of affordable housing, is marking its 50th anniversary this year, New Jersey’s comprehensive approach to affordable ...
Fernando Olloqui’s path from Wall Street to Latin American construction technology exemplifies how deep industry pain points often spark innovation. A 2007 graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute with degrees in mathematics and industrial engineering, Olloqui started his career at JP Morgan in New York during the financial crisis before pursuing an MBA at Columbia University. ...
When Patricia Bastidas, a veteran REALTOR® at Fortune Christies, began her real estate career in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood in 1990, the area was predominantly Latin American, catering to wealthy buyers from Ecuador, Colombia, and other South American nations seeking a foothold in what was then an emerging market. Today, as she approaches her 34th year ...
“I was telling them, ‘This is going to put us on the map, and people are going to start noticing us,’” recalls Sebastian Tobon, one of the visionary entrepreneurs behind Ícaro (on Airbnb here), Colombia’s most unique luxury accommodation. “A week later, like magic, you came knocking on our door.” Just 90 minutes outside of ...
“For every 50 contractors that retire, only seven enter the workforce,” explains Shanna Greathouse, Founder and CEO of Pigybak, a startup at the intersection of social impact and home services. “In 2025, we were already facing a 50,000 employee labor shortage across the US for contractors – and that was before recent policy changes that ...
Sean Landsberg’s journey from property management executive to PropTech founder illustrates the power of solving real operational challenges. As the CEO of AppWork, Landsberg has evolved what began as an internal solution for a mid-sized property management company into a rapidly growing maintenance operations platform serving some of the largest property management companies in the ...
When Kasper Rune Sogaard looks at the property management software landscape, he sees an industry stuck in the past. As a former Amazon engineering manager who helped build the ingestion pipeline for Prime Video and later Disney+, Sogaard has spent his career developing sophisticated systems to automate complex workflows. Now, as the founder of MagicDoor, ...
“I like to say I’m two degrees of separation from every broker and buyer in Manhattan,” says Mike Fabbri, who was recently named The Agency‘s top-producing agent in New York City for 2024 by sales volume. This extensive network, built through years of working behind the scenes at some of New York’s most prestigious brokerages, ...
With over 50% of outstanding mortgages below 3.5%, the traditional resale market has stalled. In this challenging environment, Jome CEO Dan Hnatkovskyy has identified and capitalized on a crucial market opportunity in new construction sales, building a platform that’s reshaping how builders connect with qualified buyers across 17 markets. “Builders have land investments, construction loans, ...
Former U.S. Congressman Kwanza Hall has built a career in public service focused on delivering concrete results. Now, as the new chairman of Develop Fulton, one of the Southeast’s preeminent development authorities, Hall is bringing fifteen years of public service experience to shape the region’s economic future. “It’s a really unique opportunity to make a ...
