James Holbrook is an industrial real estate entrepreneur and technology innovator, and the founder of Payson Smith Holbrook and Warehub, where he serves as Executive Chairman. Over the past 5+ years, he and his team have led more than $500 million in industrial leasing transactions, representing landlords and tenants across millions of square feet of short-term warehouse space nationwide. Seeing early that industrial real estate was overdue for modernization, he founded Warehub, an AI-enabled platform built to digitize and accelerate the way warehouse space is discovered, leased, and activated. Today, his work focuses on reducing friction in industrial transactions and helping the logistics economy operate more efficiently through smarter use of data and technology.

(02:24) 2,500 transactions and one infrastructure gap
(03:57) What industrial real estate covers
(05:39) Why short-term leasing demand is surging
(07:11) Tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty
(08:42) The hidden cost of vacancy
(10:11) What to standardize vs. negotiate
(11:38) What Warehub is & who it serves
(13:42) Transactions from 12 weeks to one day
(15:50) Early pushback and first transaction reality
(17:03) AI-enabled vs. AI-native
(19:43) The most underestimated force: volatility
(22:22) Columbus, Kansas City, and the inland shift
(24:00) AI-powered supply chain optimization
(25:49) Self-driving trucks & underwriting for optionality
(27:20) Power as the new site selection constraint
(28:11) How the broker's role shifts with AI
(29:59) Collaboration superpower: Aristotle

🏙️ Learn more:
-Visit Warehub
-James Holbrook on LinkedIn

🏙️ In-person Events:
-South Florida Capital & Development Forum: Miami | 10/15
-Power Tech and AI Forum & Reception: NYC | 10/19
-Finance Forum: NYC | 11/3
-State of Office Forum: NYC | 11/4
-All upcoming Commercial Observer events

🏙️ Virtual Events:

-Spotlight Case Study: Inside the AI Transformation at Cushman & Wakefield: 10/8
-AI & Innovation Forum: 11/18

🏙️ Connect with Tangent:
-Edward Cohen on LinkedIn
-Zach Aarons on LinkedIn
-Tangent on LinkedIn

David Stifter has spent more than two decades at the intersection of real estate, technology, and finance. As Managing Director and functional CTO at Digital Bridge (formerly Colony Capital), he led data architecture, process improvement, and finance transformation initiatives across major acquisitions. In 2020, he co-founded PredictAP with a team of B2B SaaS and AI veterans from Blizzard, Apple, and HubSpot. Since then, the company has grown to serve more than 60 real estate firms and raised an $8 million Series A in 2023. David is based in Lincoln, MA.

(02:20) From Colony Capital to founding PredictAP
(05:11) When a $60B firm couldn't pay bills
(07:23) Why invoice coding is harder than it looks
(09:29) CAM pools, triple net leases, and the permutation problem
(13:43) When institutional knowledge walks out the door
(16:38) How to tell a real solution from a pretty demo
(20:48) PredictAP: From inbox to Yardi in 30 seconds
(24:47) Related Group, Cushman & Wakefield, and what 130 clients taught PredictAP
(27:59) Why integration makes or breaks AP automation
(30:17) Build vs. buy: what CFOs & COOs get wrong
(33:51) Sheriff vs. shepherd: how to manage AI adoption internally
(35:50) AP coding, audit risk, and financial misstatement
(38:44) Collaboration superpower: Richard Feynman

🏙️ Learn more:
-Visit PredictAP
-David Stifter on LinkedIn

🏙️ Virtual Events:
-AI & Innovation Forum: Multifamily: on 9/29

-SFR / BTR Forum: on 10/22

🏙️ In-person Events:
-Institutional Investors & PE Forum: in NYC on 9/16
-South Florida Capital & Development Forum: in Miami on 10/15
-Finance Forum: in NYC on 11/3
-All upcoming Commercial Observer events

🏙️ Connect with Tangent:
-Edward Cohen on LinkedIn
-Zach Aarons on LinkedIn
-Tangent on LinkedIn

Jeffrey Havsy is the commercial real estate industry practice lead at Moody's Analytics, where he focuses on combining property fundamentals with economic, credit, climate, and alternative data to help lenders, investors, and operators make better decisions. He has spent his career at the intersection of economics and real estate, including roles at NCREIF and CBRE. Moody's Analytics covers more than 600 million public and private entities worldwide and generated over $7 billion in revenue in 2025. Jeffrey is based in Needham, Massachusetts.

(02:46) From data scarcity to data curation
(03:39) What lenders and investors miss beyond property fundamentals
(05:34) Tenant credit, crime data, and truck traffic as signals
(09:16) Moody's commercial location score explained
(12:52) Cap rates: overrated, underrated, or misused
(15:39) Moody's MCP launch and what it means for CRE decisions
(18:32) Why Moody's stays AI platform-agnostic
(20:44) Where the human stays in the loop
(23:33) Physical risk vs. ESG
(26:11) The hidden risks in industrial real estate
(30:06) How robotics changes what a warehouse is worth
(31:09) The one macro data point CRE ignores: productivity
(33:10) Collaboration superpower: Abraham Lincoln

🏙️ Learn more:
-Visit Moody's Analytics / Moody's CRE
-Jeffrey Havsy on LinkedIn

🏙️ Virtual Events:
-AI & Innovation Forum: Multifamily: on 9/29

-SFR / BTR Forum: on 10/22

🏙️ In-person Events:
-Institutional Investors & PE Forum: in NYC on 9/16
-South Florida Capital & Development Forum: in Miami on 10/15
-Finance Forum: in NYC on 11/3
-All upcoming Commercial Observer events

🏙️ Connect with Tangent:
-Edward Cohen on LinkedIn
-Zach Aarons on LinkedIn
-Tangent on LinkedIn