This past week I attended IMN's Annual Winter Forum On Real Estate Opportunity & Private Fund Investing in sunny (albeit cold) Laguna Beach. The conference featured myriad panels and attendee discussions on the past, present, and future of real estate, with a focus on how fund managers, investors, owners, developers, and operators currently have an incredible opportunity to reshape the way we consider and integrate various real estate assets into our lives and portfolios. My conclusion? The possibilities are endless. 

Is the future of office a bit cloudy and concerning? Yes. But is the potential for adaptive reuse -- turning offices into hotels or multifamily projects, or malls into Class A office space -- an exciting consequence of that uncertainty? Also yes. In order to get our workers back into the office, to rebuild our workplace cultures and build new relationships between work and home, industry and consumers, we need to think differently about how our new reality influences the future of real estate and lean in hard to solving for the problems before us. Just sitting back and waiting for things to return to "normal" won't cut it.

Overwhelmingly what I heard from the moderated conversations and chatter in the hallways was that the industry must refocus its energy on creative approaches to recontextualizing what typical real estate strategies and structures mean, not just for investment returns but for how we move forward into our reshaped society. My takeaway from the week is that the next best thing may very well be upon us.