Urban Real Estate Success_ Insights from Don Peebles

Summary

Earn Your Leisure Podcast: Urban Real Estate Success – Insights from Don Peebles

Aired: July 13, 2026
Hosts: Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings (iHeartPodcasts)
Featured Guest: Don Peebles (Urban Development Expert)

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Don Peebles, a renowned real estate developer with a prolific career in major American cities like D.C., New York, and Miami. The discussion dives into the dynamics of urban real estate, examining what differentiates successful developments from failures, the current and future state of commercial and residential markets post-pandemic, and how policies and incentives are shaping the sector’s transformation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Success in Urban Real Estate Development

• Supply and Demand Fundamentals

  • Real estate is fundamentally a supply and demand business. Cities like New York City, which are supply-constrained, maintain higher prices and stronger markets due to limited land for new development.
  • Cities with abundant, underdeveloped land face different challenges, such as LA, which suffers from sprawl and difficult approval processes.
  • Quote – Don Peebles (03:00):

    “Real estate's a very straightforward business. It's a supply and demand business. If the supply is abundant, prices are down. If supply is tight, then prices are up, especially with, if demand is strong.”

• Geography and Core Economic Centers

  • Successful urban areas generally have dense, centralized employment and economic activity (NYC, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco).
  • Los Angeles is more dispersed, making urban vibrancy and comeback more challenging compared to cities with a “core.”

2. Impact of Remote Work and COVID-19

• Major urban office markets have faced significant vacancies post-pandemic (e.g., over 100 million square feet of empty office space in NYC).
• Markets like New York are seeing strong demand for residential units instead, creating opportunities for conversion.
• Quote – Don Peebles (03:46):

  "While there's less demand for office space, there's significant demand for housing. And so converting those buildings, or tearing them down and rebuilding with housing—there's a use for the land and the product.”

3. Where to Invest: Long-term Markets and Growth Cities

• Focus on investing in supply-constrained, globally relevant cities (NYC, D.C., San Francisco) that are likely to rebound.
• High-growth, business-friendly markets (Dallas, Austin, Houston, Nashville) also present opportunities due to favorable policies and lack of state income tax.
• Quote – Don Peebles (05:22):

  “So you either want to invest in places where there's significant growth because the fundamentals like tax policy and business policy are sound, or that there's an opportunity to play a market cycle because they've been artificially depressed.”

4. Challenges and Solutions in Office-to-Residential Conversions

• Not all office buildings are suitable for conversion; factors like building structure, size, and economic feasibility are crucial.

• Large-scale, older buildings can be especially challenging to convert efficiently or profitably.

• Cities and local governments are starting to offer new incentives (tax breaks, zoning changes) to accelerate conversions and revitalize urban centers.

• Quote – Don Peebles (06:31):

  “Not every building's right for conversion, regardless of its location. They're just structurally not able to make that conversion.”

• Cities like LA have loosened restrictions (e.g., allowing conversion of buildings built before 1975 without a complicated entitlement process).

5. Expected Policy Changes and Future Outlook

• Local incentives are already increasing; major federal incentives are likely after the presidential election (early-mid 2027).
• Anticipate significant tax relief measures to spur activity in redevelopment and adaptive reuse.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Urban Markets and Resilience

  "New York City, America’s largest city, financial capital ... is going to bounce back. Washington D.C., nation’s capital, the most powerful nation in the world, will bounce back. San Francisco, Tech and Innovation center, will bounce back.”
  — Don Peebles (04:16)

• On the Realities for New Developers

  “We've been converting office buildings for two and a half decades. ... That's going to help us identify the buildings that are actually, you know, economically efficient to actually convert.”
  — Don Peebles (06:31)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:00] – The basics of urban real estate: supply and demand, challenges for different city types
• [03:45] – COVID-19’s impact: office vacancies, the rise in residential demand
• [04:15] – Which cities will bounce back and why
• [05:40] – Advice for investors: growth markets vs. mature, cyclical cities
• [06:31] – The complexity of office-residential conversions; policy changes to watch

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Episode Tone & Style

Don Peebles delivers insights with confidence and clarity, drawing from decades of direct experience in the nation’s most competitive real estate markets. The hosts maintain a conversational, engaging style, inviting listeners to see the financial world from an insider’s perspective while providing actionable intelligence for aspiring investors and developers.

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In Summary

This episode offers a clear-eyed look at the evolving world of urban real estate post-COVID, with honest assessments of challenges, market differences, and policy changes ahead. Listeners get rare, expert insight into where to focus investments, how to evaluate urban development opportunities, and which cities are poised for resurgence or continued growth.

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Best For:

• Real estate investors
• Urban developers
• Aspiring entrepreneurs
• Anyone interested in city planning or adaptive reuse

Skip to:

• [03:00] for fundamentals and macro trends
• [05:40] for practical investing advice
• [06:30] for insider takes on conversion challenges

Transcript

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[Interviewer]

So you know, you made your career in D.C. new York, Miami, urban areas, right? So urban development. So what is the what? What separates successful urban development from non success? Because we see a lot of like, LA is famous. This abandoned building. I think the guy was from China, but they have graffiti all over it. He never finished construction. So you know, and we hear about so many office buildings in New York City. Right now that's vacant. So. So the urban landscape as far as real estate development is, I guess, you know, you could win or lose, right? So from your illustrious career, what separates the winners from the losers when it comes to urban real estate development?

[Urban Development Expert]

Good question by the way. So first thing is real estate's a very straightforward business. It's a supply and demand business. You know, if the supply is abundant, prices are down. If supply is tight, then prices are up, especially with, if demand is strong. And so places like New York City are supply constrained. It's hard to build, most of the land is developed on. If you look at a place like la, you know, there's a lot of open land to be developed and it's hard to develop in LA in terms of getting approvals and going through their process. Also LA is very spread out, so it doesn't have kind of core employment centers or economic centers and New York does, D.C. does, you know, you look at Charlotte, it does was uptown. You look at Chicago, you know, but, and you look at San Francisco. So what's happened is la, it's been hit like everyone else with you know, a remote working and you know, the other impacts of COVID and the difference is, is that people don't even live near where they generally work in LA and everything stretched out. So it's going to be a bigger lift for LA to come back. New York on the other hand, while office buildings, there's a hundred plus million square feet of office space, it's empty, that's the size of the entire office market in Washington D.C. and however, while there's less demand for office space, there's significant demand for housing. And so converting those buildings or tearing them down and rebuilding with housing. So there's a use for the land and the product. And that's why we like urban development, is because it's where large numbers of people live and large numbers of people work and their economic engines. And so even with, you know, an unprecedented hit, so, so, so I think that one, one of the things that we want to you, you want to focus on is investing in markets that are long term competitive where there's significant supply constraint. My view is that New York City, America's largest city, financial capital of the country and of the world, essentially is going to bounce back. Washington D.C. nation's capital, the most powerful nation in the world, will bounce back. San Francisco Tech and Innovation center will bounce back. So, so those cities are the ones that have been hit the hardest. Then you have places like Dallas, Austin, Houston and Texas for example, where it's a very pro business environment, you'll see growth there. No state income tax. Same thing with Nashville, no state income tax.

[Interviewer]

Pro growth.

[Urban Development Expert]

You'll see more growth there. So you either want to invest in places where there's significant growth because the fundamentals like tax policy and business policy are sound, or that there's a opportunity to play a market cycle because they've been artificially depressed.

[Co-Host or Interviewer]

Yeah. So does it feel like that that's the solution? Right. When you're talking about, you know, we. We've highlighted it in the past when you're talking about commercial real estate and how endangered that was. And we spoke about that at Market Mondays Live at msg. Converting commercial into residential is a process, though, right? There's zoning laws, there's permits. Talk about that. Because does it work in your favor, obviously, because your illustrious career. Whereas a new developer, a new contractor. It wouldn't be as easy going forward with that, right? I would assume.

[Urban Development Expert]

Well, yeah. I mean, not all buildings are ripe for conversion. I mean, we've been converting office buildings for two and a half decades. Right. Into other uses. So we've got a lot more experience in doing that. And so that's going to help us identify the buildings that are actually, you know, economically efficient to actually convert. And so that's one of the key things, is not every building's right for conversion, regardless of its location. They're just structurally not able to make that conversion. And one of the challenges, say New York has, is that the buildings are so big, they would be massive undertakings and that they would have too many units in one place. And so I think that's going to be some of the trouble. What is happening, though, is Chicago, D.C. new York, San Francisco and other cities recognize the hit that they're taking in their marketplaces because workers are not coming back to many of these buildings and they're sitting empty. And so that means that the stores and the other businesses that benefit from the presence of these office buildings, those, you know, businesses are struggling or gone out of business. So they've got to incentivize new uses for those properties. And so they're giving tax policy and they're accelerating zoning changes and making zoning changes. Even Los Angeles, which is very difficult to build in, passed a zoning law that allows conversions for buildings that were built before 1975. You can convert them without going through a land use or entitlement process. They're trying. And that should follow in the coming months. You'll begin to see more financial incentives at the local level and then probably in first quarter, second quarter of next year, once the presidential election is over, you'll end up seeing federal tax policy that will incentivize conversions as well, with some form of tax relief for those types of conversions.

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