The Walker Webcast — Episode Summary

Episode: Tom Gilbane, Managing Member and Co-President of Rockpoint
Host: Willy Walker (Walker & Dunlop Chairman & CEO)
Date: September 18, 2025
Location: Zelman Housing Conference

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features an engaging, high-level conversation between Willy Walker and Tom Gilbane, exploring leadership, investment strategy, and market insights in commercial real estate. Gilbane draws on his dual vantage point at Rockpoint (a leading real estate investment management firm) and his family’s namesake construction company, Gilbane, offering unique perspectives on trends in housing, office, industrial, data centers, and the impact of technology and public policy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal Wellness & Changing Lifestyles

• Tom Gilbane discusses the impact of prioritizing health and wellness, such as using fitness trackers (WHOOP), and how these trends may influence broader societal shifts like declining alcohol consumption.
• Memorable Quote:
  • "I'm a WHOOP vis anti. So alcohol and my WHOOP don't coexist. It's been amazing on that front. I've eliminated drinking almost because I want to have that score." – Tom Gilbane [02:18]

Margaritaville & 55+ Housing as a "Lifestyle Brand"

• Overview: Rockpoint’s investment in Margaritaville highlights their strategy to tap into lifestyle-driven real estate, especially targeting the 55+ demographic.
• The brand’s success is seen not as a “retirement” product, but as an aspirational community for those seeking vacation-style living, removing the stigma of “age-restricted” development.
• Impact: Fast sellouts and cult-like demand—Daytona sold 4,000 homes in seven years, with buyers camping out overnight.
• Quote:
  • "He took the 55 and older business and made it a place that you want to be... once you get in the gates, you don't want to leave. You can live there your whole life and you're on vacation. He calls it 55 and better." – Tom Gilbane [04:48]

Rockpoint’s Investment Philosophy: Middle Market & Data-Driven Approach

• Self-Positioning: Despite $30 billion raised, Rockpoint identifies as a “middle market” player—intentionally keeping fund sizes manageable to maintain agility and maintainable returns.
• Strategy:
  • Focus is not on specific asset classes, but rather, on geography and the strength of operating partners.
  • Rockpoint emphasizes proprietary, real-time “on the ground” data—sometimes months ahead of news cycles—gathered from diverse sources, including migration trends and postal data.
• Quote:
  • "We want to understand the whole picture... where things are coming, have all sorts of unbelievable on the ground data that we can use that never hits this, you know, eventually hit CNBC a month, two months, six months later..." – Tom Gilbane [08:07]

Geographic & Asset-Class Focus: Office, Residential, and Industrial

• Bullishness on New York: Offices in NYC, particularly high-quality assets, are a focus, while Gilbane notes sector and submarket specifics in cities like D.C.
• Market Nuance: Cities like Austin and Dallas have great long-term drivers but currently see high vacancies, especially in multifamily. Gilbane’s investment approach times entries based on when markets regain “pricing power” (e.g., when occupancy levels reach 92–94%).
• On Multifamily:
  • "Multifamily has pricing power. The greatest correlation on every downturn... is when you get to 92 or 94% [occupancy]... we're 96 nationally right now." – Tom Gilbane [13:15]
• Jersey City as a Case Study: Affordability and wage benefit relative to Manhattan, plus strong rent growth, are driving investment.
• Quote:
  • "If I live on the island of Manhattan and take home $150,000... I take home $30,000. I get on a PATH train to Jersey City... that same math is $60,000 after." [14:51]

The Role of Taxes & Policy in Migration

• High-tax cities are seeing residents and companies migrate to lower-tax areas (Austin, Nashville, Charlotte).
• However, strong market fundamentals and lifestyle offerings can make even high-tax locales attractive, provided product and environment quality are exceptional.
• Quote:
  • "If you produce a great product and New York City is producing a great product, San Francisco's getting back to producing a great product for their, for their consumer. People will choose to live there and pay more taxes and there are people who won't." – Tom Gilbane [18:12]

Impact of AI & Technology in Real Estate

• The conversation dives into the disruptive potential of AI—loss of back-office jobs, the importance of continuously evaluating its impact, and the long-term prospects for trades versus knowledge work.
• Rockpoint is building their own real estate “data lake” using AI for analysis of proprietary and alternative data, such as postal records, for migration tracking.
• Quote:
  • "Our joke on AI is: Like, what we're really working on is actual intelligence... because that gives you a competitive advantage." – Tom Gilbane [38:05]

Construction & Supply Chain: Gilbane Company Insights

• Tom discusses the family’s philosophy of keeping the construction company private and professionally managed.
• Construction context: Tariffs have had minimal impact on single-family building costs and large-scale procurement allows cost mitigation.
• Data centers are now the major cost drivers and “switchgear” supply is heavily consumed by booming data center development.
• Quote:
  • "The business, the biggest issue in that business today... is the data center... the amount of construction that's going into this is enormous. If you are in the way of goods that are needed for these data centers... they don't really care what they pay. It's more speed to market." – Tom Gilbane [27:29]

Life Sciences: From Boom to Oversupply

• Pre-COVID, life sciences was a small (~25M SF) but rapidly growing sector, then dramatically overbuilt to ~50M+ SF in Boston.
• Result: 40–50% vacancy, especially in lab-office mixes; AI's impact on lab/office demand is under reevaluation.
• Quote:
  • "We kind of do our math and our bottoms up... and we thought we had a big supply problem and we didn't really understand demand... it was gone to 50% vacant." – Tom Gilbane [29:00]

ESG and Green Building

• Demand for green building remains, though cost pressures are forcing value engineering.
• Data center tenants (hyperscalers) are still requiring renewable energy, even if federal policy relaxes.
• Quote:
  • "It's good business and it's long term. Right. Because it's the globe. At the end of the day, we have a, we have a, we have a heat problem for now. Right. Maybe it is cyclical, who knows? But we have a heat problem. So if you can have greener energy, why not?" – Tom Gilbane [34:55]

Data, Decision Making, and AI Limitations

• Direct access to proprietary and alternative data (postal, internal) is key for front-running markets.
• Rockpoint is skeptical of traditional survey-based datasets (e.g. BLS, CoStar), often finding them 15% off actuals.
• The biggest challenge moving forward is owning and leveraging truly proprietary data amid complex legal environments.
• Quote:
  • "People take data and just take it for gospel but you know, you don't really know how they thought about it. And a lot of it is pretty crazy when you really dig into it." – Tom Gilbane [48:10]

Housing Outlook: Single Family, SFR, Multi & Policy

• Single-family land: Only invest when there’s clear runway, as values are highly leveraged to market downturns and possible policy changes on land entitlements.
• SFR (“scattered”): Institutional penetration is low; mom-and-pops create ballast and don't push rents, despite favorable supply-demand math.
• BFR/Build-to-Rent: Attracts institutional buyers, quickly hitting target yields, and offering rapid "velocity" of returns.
• Apartments/Multifamily: Market tightness and return hurdles mean Rockpoint targets value-add and niche developments.
• Quote:
  • "We're really, that's the focus. But it's a space we like a lot. We've had 18% net IRRs and that's both in existing and in development and we love the development space there... we're a little greedy honestly on that. But we've had great returns in it." – Tom Gilbane [55:12]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Healthy Competition:
  • "It's just the world's so competitive. Right. And I'm not as good at work, I'm not as good an athlete... so for me, it was pretty easy to prioritize" – Tom Gilbane [03:17]
• On Investment Flexibility:
  • "We're asset type agnostic... decide, do we want to buy apartments, do we want to buy office, do we want to buy a hotel, do we want to buy industrial?" [09:11]
• On Data Center Construction:
  • "The data center, the amount of construction that's going into this is enormous. So if you are in the way of goods that are needed for these data centers... they don't really care what they pay. It's more speed to market." [27:29]
• On AI versus “Actual Intelligence”:
  • "Our joke on AI is: Like, what we're really working on is actual intelligence." [38:05]

Timestamps of Important Segments

• 00:43 – Introduction to guest, Tom Gilbane; preview of discussion topics
• 02:18 – Discussion on WHOOP, wellness, and lifestyle-driven choices
• 04:48 – Margaritaville and the rise of 55+ lifestyle housing as aspirational living
• 08:07 – Rockpoint’s “middle market” philosophy and focus on data-driven location selection
• 13:15 – Investment research approach and multifamily occupancy/power thresholds
• 14:51 – Jersey City vs. Manhattan affordability
• 18:12 – Taxes, migration, and product quality
• 20:45 – The role of AI in office/Labor markets
• 27:29 – Data centers’ impact on construction costs and supply chain
• 29:00 – Life sciences market cycle and the risk of oversupply
• 34:55 – Green/ESG demand in construction and data centers
• 38:05 – The pursuit of “actual intelligence” and skepticism of survey data
• 55:12 – Housing, SFR/BFR, and multifamily strategic outlook

Conclusion

Tom Gilbane provided candid, data-rich, and strategic perspectives on real estate investment, construction, and the technological and policy factors shaping the industry. The conversation is invaluable for investors, operators, and anyone interested in how leading industry minds interpret market shifts, risks, and opportunities.