Joel Montaniel

How QSR Real Estate Strategy Is Changing in 2025 🏢 Drive-thru land grabs are OVER. In 2025, the best QSR sites won’t even NEED drive-thrus to dominate. The real estate playbook is being rewritten — fast. If your brand is still chasing corner pads with 1+ acre lots… You’re about to get crushed by smaller, smarter operators. Here’s what’s REALLY happening: • Urban infill is king. • Inline spaces are the new trophy locations. • Ghost kitchens are quietly eating market share. • Food halls are the new “prime real estate.” • 1,200–1,800 sq ft is the new sweet spot — not 3,000+. Brands that cling to the “big box + big drive-thru” dream are going to drown in overhead. Meanwhile, scrappy brands that can fit into 800–1,200 sq ft inline spaces? They’ll steal your customers and your lunch money. Flexibility > Visibility. Foot traffic > Car traffic. Speed to open > Size of footprint. You don’t need the biggest box in 2025. You need the FASTEST, MOST FLEXIBLE box. The old real estate strategy isn’t just broken — it’s a liability. Are you ready for this shift, or are you still fighting the wrong war? Tell me in the comments: Are big drive-thru pads DEAD? Or is there still a future for them? Let’s hear it — no holding back. #QSR #FranchiseDevelopment #RestaurantRealEstate #QuickServiceRestaurants #FranchiseGrowth #FranchiseExpansion #FoodBusiness #RetailRealEstate

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Scaling isn't hard. Scaling without culture is. Most founders obsess over growth metrics. ARR. Headcount. Funding rounds. But they forget the invisible foundation that holds everything together. Culture isn't ping pong tables and free snacks. Culture is belonging. And belonging comes from one thing: Cadence. The Monday email you send to your team. The weekly culture call where someone shares a book they love. The consistent appreciation you show for the janitor and the COO equally. Every Monday. Every week. Every interaction. When systems break (and they will), culture forgives. When you write that email on a bad day... Culture gives you the benefit of the doubt. When market conditions shift... Culture rallies around the vision. Here's the truth most leadership gurus won't tell you: You can't define culture before it happens. You can only build it through the daily cadence of communication and care. I write my top 10 wins every Friday. We used to have 30-minute culture calls every week. Someone would share one thing they loved. Could be a book, a story, a Wikipedia page. Simple? Yes. Easy? No. Transformative? Absolutely. While your competitors chase vanity metrics... You're building something that scales infinitely: People who believe in the mission more than the paycheck.

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In Bisnow, Camber Creek portfolio company HappyCo CEO Jindou Lee describes how his team is helping building owners save money and stay ahead of the competition with AI. “'I think the fast will eat the slow, but the slow will die very slowly,’ said HappyCo CEO Jindou Lee, whose firm utilizes AI to assist with apartment maintenance. ‘Real estate adopts tech very slowly, so attrition will stretch out for the slower players.’” #AI #realestatetechnology https://lnkd.in/e9giF3wb

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PropTech’s winter might finally be over. After a tough two years, we’re seeing signs of a vibe shift in the industry. ServiceTitan’s IPO and CBRE’s acquisition of Industrious are strong indicators that capital and confidence are returning to the space. My thoughts: • Market sentiment shifts before the data does. Just like in past cycles, the first signals of a rebound often start as a feeling before the numbers fully reflect it. • New asset classes are emerging. AI-driven demand for data centers, cold storage, and energy infrastructure is reshaping how investors think about real estate. • The next phase of PropTech will look different. Companies that survived the downturn are more durable, disciplined, and better positioned for long-term growth. At Fifth Wall, we’ve seen these cycles before—and while the past two years were difficult, it feels like the first green shoots of spring are here. https://lnkd.in/eZVk4AXn

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Taylor Avakian and I held a dinner with some of LA's largest real estate investors. The takeaway? Running a profitable real estate operation is harder than ever. The squeeze comes from rising interest rates and a scarcity of talent across all functions: property management, accounting, and maintenance techs. Existing management systems fall short, but operators are wary of adding more fragmented point solutions. They need efficiency, not complexity. So, what does this mean for the future of property operations? 1️⃣ AI agents will become indispensable, they will play a meaningful role in addressing the workforce shortages we see everywhere. 2️⃣ Owners will need to assert their rights over their own data, moving beyond the constraints of incumbent property management systems. Data ownership will be key to future flexibility. 3️⃣ The market is poised for convergence on a new operating system for real estate, one that integrates capabilities far beyond any single point solution available today. Thanks again to Taylor for putting the group together. And if you aren’t listening to No Vacancy by Taylor, you're falling behind.

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Apartment and SFR turnover remains remarkably low. There are several reasons for this, but one in particular that doesn't get enough credit -- property managers. Here's why: At every industry conference since the COVID era, there's been a heightened focus on resident service. If you commit to doing something better, you should see results, right? Just like if you commit to working out every day, you're going to see results. Let me give some examples: 1) The pandemic accelerated the focus on how to serve your residents when you can't see them face to face. That era taught us that a big share of residents DON'T want to talk to you in the leasing office, DON'T want to talk over the phone, and DON'T want you knocking on their door for what they consider an awkward conversation. But they still DO want to their concerns (i.e. maintenance tickets) resolved quickly and they still do want to feel plugged in. So that accelerated the adoption of resident engagement tech that simplified the resident experience. And the surprise, perhaps: The tech helped on-site teams do their jobs BETTER -- allowing them to better focus on high-touch tasks and customers. 2) "Back to the basics." We've heard this a ton since the supply wave started. In a competitive leasing environment, you gotta focus on the basics that can sometimes get overlooked in a boom market: i.e. response times to resolving maintenance tickets, lead-to-lease conversion rates and even "little things" like your property landscaping. Property managers built (and actually used!) KPIs to measure such things; and often, results followed. 3) Centralization of renewals This is a bigger one than most people realize. I noticed EQR exec and operational guru Michael Manelis gave it a lot of credit for EQR's record-low turnover on their recent earnings call. Others could say the same, and it makes sense. Think about it. In the old days, you dropped off a thick lease renewal packet at the resident's unit, and followed up with a call or a door knock. Some property managers were good at it; others not. Today's process is far MORE STREAMLINED and far LESS FRICTIONAL. You get a renewal offer via app or email or text. There's a cadence of follow-ups from specialists. And you can sign the renewal digitally without walking down to the leasing office. So when renewal increases are fairly modest (like they are now), I suspect a lot of residents will just sign without shopping around much. Why? Because it's easy. Of course, other factors play a role, too, in low turnover. Notably: Fewer people are leaving to buy homes because of high rates. That's the one everyone talks about. BUT ... That doesn't mean renters don't have options! They could still leave for another rental-- and moves to other rentals are the No. 1 reason for move-outs. But they're not. And I think property managers are a big reason why. https://lnkd.in/g992ci73

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A tenant-rep broker friend, who's involved in their firm’s tech initiatives, called me last night to congratulate us on the raise. "I didn’t expect to see a capital raise in proptech right now. Seems like everyone else is selling. Heard the other day another platform is winding down." He’s not wrong. No doubt the market has shifted. Valuations today look nothing like 2021. And the metrics needed to raise are night and day different. So why are we doubling down? Because the past 24 months clearly show we’re in the early innings of a tech refresh cycle in lease management software. - Legacy tools are being replaced at 3x the rate they were just a year ago - Teams are being asked to do more with less across finance, real estate, and ops - With most teams 842 or IFRS 16 compliant and monthly processes in place, the focus has shifted to day-to-day real estate and facilities operations. That’s the opportunity. Not just to build better software, but to reshape how teams across the org leverage the same lease data, in one platform, to do their jobs better. Is there still an opportunity to innovate in proptech? 100%! Especially when the data continues to reaffirm how ripe this market is for change.

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Rent Manager quietly powers 5.5 million rental units across the US. But here's another open secret - they've also built one of the most founder-friendly integration programs in multifamily proptech. While many of their competitors have approval processes that can take months and cost tens of thousands of dollars, Rent Manager gets you live in 48 hours. Total cost? Under $5K for full API access. One of our customers contacted Rent Manager, was approved for API access, and had a working integration live in 3 days. And they don't require mutual clients for API access. Mutual client policies present startups with a Catch-22: the startup needs a customer for API access, but the customer demands a functional integration in order for the startup to win the deal. With Rent Manager, no clients is no problem. Start building immediately. Leading proptechs like Flex, EliseAI, and HappyCo all have integrations with Rent Manager. And I'm seeing an increasing number of new AI startups start building their first integrations on the Rent Manager platform, especially because the annual fee provides access to all of the APIs. That makes it easy for companies to expand into new use cases quickly and for no additional cost. Rent Manager is encouraging proptech innovation by making integrations cheap, fast, and comprehensive. And that's worth celebrating. #PropTech #PropertyManagementSoftware #PropertyManagement #RealEstateTech #ApiIntegration

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We've created an AI solution that evaluates hundreds of real estate PropTech companies for an actual project. The results are amazing: 1. $35.5M implementation cost 2. $141M in verified savings 3. 397% ROI across 20 tools 4. 25% faster delivery timeline We fed it companies we've evaluated over the years, validated their case studies, and mapped ROI into hard dollars by category for our specific project. We turned it into a web page with sortable categories for supply chain, operations, management, logistics, monitoring. The biggest shock was interior finishes, a $70.6M budget line, delivered $21M in savings just by optimizing tile, millwork, fixtures, and procurement with AI guided vendor selection. People ask how we are working on net zero and beyond projects yet keeping our costs in line with traditional projects. Real estate can move from “sustainable but expensive” to sustainable AND more profitable than conventional builds. AI has the power to evaluate savings, shorten timelines, find low carbon solutions, and drive the cost of construction down. Combine that with incentives, highly efficient buildings, and offsite construction, and you have the future of construction. #AI #PropTech #RealEstateDevelopment #Sustainability #TripleNetZero #ConstructionTech #FutureOfWork #SmartBuilding #NetZero #ClimateTech

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