NATIONAL: What Hillary Clinton and Steve Forbes Told CREW

This week, Bisnow was on the ground at CREW Network's sold-out national convention in Miami Beach, where yesterday we snapped Hillary Clinton. (To answer the question everyone is asking her: Yes, she thinks 1031 exchanges are cool.) Her take: gender parity makes business sense. Hillary (who says she’s rocking a new grandmother glow, but doesn’t know what Charlotte will call her) says studies predict we could grow our national GDP 10% by 2030 if we could close the gender gap. The numbers: 43% of CRE pros are women, with a far lower percentage at leadership levels; fewer than than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and they make up less than 17% of corporate board seats. 

Yesterday, we also snapped Forbes chairman Steve Forbes (here with CREW Network prez Judy Nitsch), who says US monetary policy is holding back our economy, and even straining social trust. He’s a strong advocate for a return to the gold standard, which the US abandoned in the ‘70s. He’s got mixed feelings on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, calling it a “high-tech cry for help” but admits it could pioneer processing payments to be cheaper and seamless. Steve felt right at home at CREW—he and his wife of 43 years have five daughters, and even the dogs are female.

Another featured speaker in Miami Beach, Rosen Consulting Group chairman Ken Rosen said some CRE markets and sectors are already in bubbles. Ken—here with HFF’s Susan Hill and Butler Burgher Group’s Diane Butler—thinks investors should steer clear of DC (it's "done") and San Francisco (things might not get ugly for two more years, but pricing is already too high). Where he'd invest: seniors housing and adaptive reuse in urban areas. Geographically: He’d put his money into secondary markets like Houston, Dallas, Denver, Madison, Wisc., and Cleveland. For more coverage from CREW, see today's Real Estate Bisnow South Florida.