blog
Field notes
Notes on marketing, growth, real estate technology, and the occasional poem, from Nick McElmurry.
BTR Slows, Blackstone Rotates to Bonds: What Institutional Capital's Retreat Signals for Housing
BTR deal flow is cooling, Blackstone is rotating into bonds, and a housing capital structure fix is hiding in plain sight. Here's what it means.
Atomic Habits: Why Motivation Is the Wrong Thing to Fix
James Clear's core claim isn't about willpower. It's about systems. Here's what I actually use from the book, and where the framework runs out.
The K-Shaped Housing Market: Wealth Concentration Is Rewriting Real Estate's Rules
From Napa Valley to Seoul, capital is chasing the ultra-wealthy while entire market segments stagnate. Here's what that split means for operators.
SPIN Selling: Why the Best Salespeople Ask Before They Pitch
Neil Rackham's research on 35,000 sales calls found top performers barely pitch. Here's the core idea, what I use, and where it falls apart.
Cracked Beams and Cooling Demand: What This Week's Data Says About the Real Supply Crisis
Stop-work orders on NYC conversions, a slowing Nationwide report, and AI data centers competing for construction labor reveal a housing market straining under contradictory pressures.
The Lean Startup, Reconsidered: What Actually Holds Up
Eric Ries's Build-Measure-Learn loop changed how startups operate. Here's the one idea worth keeping, and where it quietly falls apart.
Industrial's Next Cycle, Dubai's Cooling Boom, and What Capital Rotation Really Tells Us
Industrial real estate looks poised for a new cycle while Dubai's boom cools. The pattern reveals how capital actually moves.
Zero to One: Peter Thiel's Case That Competition Is for Losers
Peter Thiel's Zero to One argues monopolies build value and competition destroys it. Here's the core idea, what I use, and where it breaks.
The Two-Speed Housing Market: Why Some Listings Sit While Others Sell in Days
Asheville listings now sit 88 days. Peoria is booming. The real divide isn't sentiment, it's supply elasticity, and the data proves it.
What Robert Cialdini's Influence Taught Me About Marketing (and Where It Breaks)
Cialdini's Influence explains why people say yes on autopilot. Here's how I actually use it in marketing, and where it stops working.
The Great Reshuffling: Why Migration Is Outrunning Housing Supply From Nashville to Bangalore
NY-to-Sun-Belt migration, Middle Tennessee's affordability crunch, and Gen Z's shifting preferences all point to the same structural problem: supply.
The Market Is a Fiction: What Baltimore, Broome County, and St. John's Are Really Telling Us
National housing headlines say slowdown. Baltimore, Broome County, and St. John's say otherwise. Here's why averaging markets misleads everyone.
Book a Day: SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham (Why Big Sales Break the Rules You Learned Selling Small Ones)
Rackham's research shows why closing techniques that win small sales actively kill large ones, and what to ask instead.
Foreign Buyers, Wall Street, and the Villain Problem in Housing Policy
Switzerland wants to restrict foreign buyers. Washington wants to evict Wall Street from housing. Meanwhile Denver and Rim Country show softening demand has nothing to do with either.
Atomic Habits and the Case Against Motivation
James Clear's real argument isn't about willpower. It's that motivation is an unreliable input, and systems are the fix. Here's what I actually use.
The Portal Wars Escalate Again, and Agents Are the Collateral
Another week, another skirmish in the listing-portal arms race. Here is what actually changed, and who quietly won.
Book a Day: $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi
Make an offer so good people feel stupid saying no. Here is how, and where it breaks.