The Real Finds Podcast connects global trends to real estate decisions across Chicago and the Midwest. Hosted by Gordon Lamphere, a fourth-generation commercial real estate broker at Van Vlissingen & Co., each weekly episode explores how macroeconomic shifts in supply chains, interest rates, automation, public policy, and culture drive commercial real estate outcomes. Moreover, Gordon and his guests take high-level insights and apply them to better understand high-transaction markets, including:
Chicago (downtown office, adaptive reuse), Elk Grove and O’Hare (industrial/logistics), Kenosha (SE Wisconsin distribution), Oak Brook and Schaumburg (suburban office), Naperville and the I-88 Corridor (flex and R&D), Bolingbrook and the I-55 Corridor (warehouse/fulfillment), and the collar counties: Lake, DuPage, Will, Kane, and McHenry.
Guests include developers, investors, operators, and public-sector leaders shaping the built environment across the Greater Chicagoland Area and the Globe.
🎧 New episodes every Wednesday at 3 PM CT.
The Industrial Real Estate Risk Playbook With Daniel S. North – RFP 101
The Industrial Real Estate Risk Playbook With Daniel S. North For most of the last decade, the legal language buried in industrial and data center contracts was an afterthought. Buyers and developers fought over price, timing, and tenant credit, then signed off on standard clauses they assumed would never come up....
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Hydrogen, Data Centers, And The End Of Energy Poverty With Whitaker Irvin Jr. — RFP 100
When Power Becomes the Site Constraint: Hydrogen, Data Centers, and the New Math of Industrial Development For most of the last century, the first questions in industrial site selection were about land, labor, and logistics. Is the parcel big enough? Can we staff it? How close is the interstate? Power was...
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How Regional Brokers Beat The National Flags With Kurt & Stewart Jensen – RFP 99
Kansas City vs. Chicago: How Two Midwest Industrial Markets Compare in 2026 The Midwest industrial market is often discussed as a single block, anchored by Chicago and rounded out by secondary metros with broadly similar fundamentals. The reality on the ground is more nuanced. Two of the strongest industrial markets in...
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Brownfields to Billions: The Hidden CRE Opportunity With Sam Haydock – RFP 98
Brownfields to Billions: Unlocking CRE's Most Overlooked Opportunity Drive through almost any older industrial corridor in the Midwest and you will find them: shuttered factories, vacant lots, weeds growing through cracked asphalt, smokestacks standing against the skyline with nothing left to do. These are brownfields, and for most people, they register...
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Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion With Josh Bandoch – RFP 97
The Persuasion Framework Every Commercial Real Estate Professional Needs Most commercial real estate professionals spend enormous energy on market knowledge, financial modeling, and deal structure. Far fewer invest the same rigor in the skill that determines whether any of that preparation converts into a signed lease, a closed acquisition, or a...
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Chicago Industrial Space Manufacturing multifamily Office Space Quantum & Data Centers Real Estate Real Finds Podcast Retail Warehouse
State Of The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market 2026 – Q2 – RFP 96
State Of The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate market stopped waiting. Here is what that actually looks like in quarter 2 of 2026. About 18 months ago, everyone in this market was in a holding pattern. Investors, occupiers, lenders, developers. Waiting on rates. Waiting on the...
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The Battery Real Estate Play & Return Of Main Street With Aaron Shavel – RFP 95
The Battery Real Estate Play & Return Of Main Street With Aaron Shavel - RFP 95 Aaron Shavel is a professional engineer who spent most of his career in heavy civil construction, including years on the MTA subway projects in New York. He now advises on battery energy storage facilities being...
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The Density or Growth: Building a $400M Small Bay Industrial Portfolio With Frank Forte – RFP 94
Building a $400M Small Bay Industrial Portfolio With Frank Forte Frank Forte did not take the conventional path into commercial real estate. He came out of school during the financial crisis, pivoted from Wall Street ambitions into distressed debt consulting at the U.S. Treasury, moved into a senior housing debt and...
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This MIT Startup Is Rewriting The Rules Of Commercial Real Estate With Honghao Deng – RFP 93
Most commercial real estate decisions about office space are built on occupancy data that is, at best, incomplete. Badge swipe systems tell building operators that someone entered a floor. They do not capture dwell time, conference room utilization, which collaborative zones are actually generating activity, or whether thermal comfort conditions in...
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Shift From Location To Power In Commercial Real Estate With Britt Burt – RFP 92
The New Site Selection Calculus: Why Power Is Replacing Location as the Defining Variable in Commercial Real Estate For decades, the core logic of commercial real estate was geography. Location determined value, absorption, and long-term viability. That logic is being rewritten, and the force doing the rewriting is electricity. https://youtu.be/gbuLXT-dhkE In...
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AI, Commercial Real Estate, and the Future of Work with Elatia Abate – RFP 91
AI, Commercial Real Estate, and the Future of Work with Elatia Abate What does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for commercial real estate, the workforce inside those buildings, and the companies leasing the space? On episode 91 of the podcast, Gordon Lamphere sat down with Elatia Abate, a futurist, former...
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Insurance, Development Risk & The Hidden Economics Of Real Estate With Lisa Holt – RFP 90
For most of the past century, commercial real estate operators treated insurance the way they treated utility bills: an unavoidable cost that crept up a little each year but never seriously threatened the math on a deal. That era is over. https://youtu.be/9hqYsos2JDg In Episode 90 of The Real Finds Podcast, Gordon...
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Caregiving, Building For A Longevity Society, And The Future Of Work With Marisa Toldo — RFP 89
Caregiving, Building For A Longevity Society, And The Future Of Work With Marisa Toldo — RFP 89 The office vacancy conversation has been stuck on the same set of explanations for four years. Remote work. Hybrid schedules. Interest rates. Oversupply. These are real forces, and they have genuinely reshaped demand. But...
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From Mötley Crüe to Multi-Million Dollar Commercial Real Estate Deals With Mike Herl SIOR – RFP 88
On this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, I sat down with Mike Herl, SIOR and partner at Madison Commercial Real Estate, to unpack one of the more unconventional paths into commercial real estate and, more importantly, what his experience reveals about the Wisconsin market today. https://youtu.be/HAF9khJMLkA Yes, Mike spent 17...
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State of the Commercial Real Estate Market – 2026 Q1 – RFP 87
Chicago's Commercial Real Estate Market – 2026 Q1 – RFP 87 As we move through the first quarter of 2026, the commercial real estate market in Chicagoland is no longer dominated by shock, speculation, or emergency decision-making. Instead, it is entering a phase defined by reallocation. Capital, tenants, and municipalities are...
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Investing In Data Center Development With Anita Verma-Lallian – RFP 86
Data centers have quietly become one of the most strategically important asset classes in commercial real estate. They sit at the intersection of technology, energy infrastructure, capital markets, and land use planning, requiring a very different mindset than traditional industrial, office, or residential development. In this episode of The Real Finds...
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Is Mass Timber Is the Future of Commercial Buildings with Justin Den Herder – RFP 85
Mass timber has moved from architectural eye candy to a serious contender in commercial development. On this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, I sat down with Justin Den Herder, structural engineer, professor at The Cooper Union, and principal at global engineering firm TYLin, to talk through what mass timber really...
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The Office Crisis & Why Work Feels Broken With Cali Williams Yost – RFP 84
For nearly five years, boardrooms across America have been stuck in the same argument: How do we get people back to the office?Policies have been written, rewritten, enforced, rolled back, and reworked. Incentives have been tried. Mandates have been pushed. Threats have been made. Yet many companies are seeing the same...
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What’s Fueling Industrial Outdoor Storage Deals With Andrew Wiesemann – RFP 83
The Real Finds Podcast: Why Industrial Outdoor Storage Is Becoming the Most Misunderstood Opportunity in Commercial Real Estate Every so often, The Real Finds Podcast brings on a guest who reframes the way we look at a corner of commercial real estate. This week, that guest was Andrew Wiesemann, an operator...
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How To Right-Size Your Office Without Crushing Culture With Prof. Alana Dunoff – RFP 82
What Kindergarten Can Teach Us About Office Design When you think about the modern workplace, kindergarten probably isn’t the first model that comes to mind. Yet according to Alana F. Dunoff, a facilities strategist, Temple University adjunct professor, and principal of AFD Professional Services, it might just be the perfect blueprint...
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