# Commercial Real Estate Influencers Worth Following in 2026 Blog | LeasePilot [Blog](/blog)Industry Insights # Commercial Real Estate Influencers Worth Following in 2026 A verified, category-by-category guide to the economists, investors, operators, and writers worth following in commercial real estate this year. ![LeasePilot Team](/logo-pilcrow.svg?dpl=dpl_DCLYQhNPd3GNPNYxbbiBBmuuBWjA) LeasePilot Team Editorial Team June 6, 20267 min readCopy link TL;DR Economists like Peter Linneman and Kevin Thorpe. Operators like Moses Kagan. Writers like Dror Poleg and Hiten Samtani. Where to find the CRE voices worth your attention in 2026, grouped by what they actually cover. The best way to read a market is to read the people who read it for a living. Commercial real estate moves on rate decisions, cap-rate shifts, and leasing fundamentals that rarely reach the general news cycle. The people below track those signals in public. This is a working list, not a popularity contest. We checked that each person is real, active, and doing what we say they do as of 2026. Follower counts change by the week, so we skip them and point you to what each voice actually covers instead. The list favors people who publish consistently and reason in the open. Plenty of sharp operators keep their best thinking off the timeline. These are the ones worth a follow because they show their work. § 01 ## [Economists who set the frame](#economists-who-set-the-frame) Start here if your job is to underwrite, forecast, or defend a number to a committee. **Peter Linneman.** Founder of the Linneman Letter and principal of Linneman Associates, he spent decades at Wharton before going independent. His quarterly letter and his recurring hour on the Walker Webcast read the macro picture, interest rates, cap rates (a property's yield relative to its price), sector by sector, without hedging. Follow him for a numbers-first take that names what it expects and why. **Kevin Thorpe.** Global Chief Economist at Cushman & Wakefield, where he leads the firm's research team. He turns GDP, rates, and leasing demand into a quarterly house view across office, industrial, and retail. His outlooks are a clean read on where fundamentals actually sit. Find his commentary through Cushman & Wakefield's research and on LinkedIn. **Ryan Severino.** Chief Economist at BGO (BentallGreenOak) and an adjunct professor at Columbia and NYU. He writes the firm's global outlook and shows up regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg. His forecasts come with a specific number and a stated reason, which makes them easy to grade later. Follow him on LinkedIn and through BGO's research. **Jay Parsons.** A rental-housing economist who advises multifamily and single-family-rental investors, and formerly Chief Economist at RealPage. He hosts The Rent Roll podcast and writes a newsletter focused on apartments and rental demand. If your portfolio touches multifamily, he's the clearest read on rents and occupancy, with the numbers to back it. Find him at jayparsons.com and on LinkedIn. § 02 ## [Capital markets and the money behind the deal](#capital-markets-and-the-money-behind-the-deal) These two connect the macro story to how deals get financed. **Willy Walker.** Chairman and CEO of Walker & Dunlop, one of the larger CRE finance firms in the country. His Walker Webcast runs weekly and gives economists, investors, and operators a full hour rather than a soundbite. Follow it for long conversations with the people moving capital. It lives on walkerdunlop.com and the major podcast apps. **Spencer Levy.** Senior Economic Advisor and Global Client Strategist at CBRE, and host of The Weekly Take. He came up as a lawyer and a capital-markets banker, so he reads deals and financing with equal ease. His show ties the macro picture to what it means for a specific asset class. Find it through CBRE and wherever you listen to podcasts. § 03 ## [Operators and brokers who work the ground](#operators-and-brokers-who-work-the-ground) For the view from inside the transaction, not the research desk. **Michael Bull.** Founder of Bull Realty in Atlanta and host of America's Commercial Real Estate Show, which he has produced weekly since 2010. The show covers financing, cap rates, and sector outlooks with working brokers and analysts. It's a broker's-eye view of the market, practical and transaction-minded. Available on YouTube and the podcast apps. **Moses Kagan.** Co-founder of Adaptive Realty in Los Angeles and co-founder of ReConvene, an un-conference for real estate operators and passive allocators. He is one of the more candid operators writing in public, mostly on X and his blog, about buying, financing, and managing value-add real estate (older buildings bought to be improved and repositioned). Follow him for the mechanics of a deal, told plainly by someone doing them. **Tyler Cauble.** Founder of The Cauble Group, a Nashville commercial brokerage, and author of \_Open for Business\_, a guide to leasing commercial space. His YouTube channel and podcast walk through investing, leasing, and property management for smaller operators and newcomers. Follow him for approachable, practical explanations rather than macro forecasts. At tylercauble.com and on YouTube. § 04 ## [Newsletters and the daily read](#newsletters-and-the-daily-read) Two sources to keep you current without a research subscription. **Hiten Samtani.** Founder of ten31 Media and author of The Promote, a thrice-weekly newsletter. He spent more than a decade at The Real Deal before going independent. Readers describe The Promote as CRE's answer to "Money Stuff", insider, opinionated, and genuinely fun to read. Find it at thepromote.com. **CRE Daily.** A daily newsletter covering deals, capital markets, and sector news for a broad CRE audience. It's a fast morning scan rather than deep analysis, built to keep you current in a few minutes. Sign up at credaily.com. § 05 ## [The future of the asset](#the-future-of-the-asset) If you think about where the industry is heading, these two writers connect real estate to the forces reshaping it, work patterns, capital, and technology. Our own take on that arc lives in [The Next 10 Years of Commercial Leasing](/blog/next-10-years-commercial-leasing). **Dror Poleg.** Economic historian, author of \_Rethinking Real Estate\_, and co-chair of the Urban Land Institute's Technology and Innovation Council in New York. His weekly newsletter connects the future of work and cities to what happens to buildings and their value. Read him for the long view, at drorpoleg.com. **Brad Hargreaves.** Founder of Thesis Driven, a newsletter on innovation in the built world, and previously co-founder of General Assembly and Common. Thesis Driven runs long, researched letters on new investment strategies, proptech, and shifting demand. Read it for depth where capital and technology meet real estate. Many of these voices now spend real airtime on AI, what it changes in underwriting, leasing, and drafting, and what it doesn't. If that's your question, we wrote about [where AI helps and where it doesn't in commercial leasing](/blog/ai-commercial-leasing-what-it-can-cannot-replace). § 06 ## [How to actually use this list](#how-to-actually-use-this-list) Following ten people is easy. Reading them is the work. Pick two or three whose beat maps to your job, an economist if you underwrite, an operator if you buy, a newsletter for the daily scan, and give them a real month. One voice you read closely beats ten you scroll past. * * * We build lease-drafting software for commercial landlords and the attorneys who work with them, so we spend our days close to this industry. Staying current is part of the job for anyone drafting or negotiating leases. Who's writing, who's forecasting, what's shifting. This list is where we'd start. § Adjacent reading ## More from the ledger [§ 01FEB 20, 2026 Industry Insights ### LeasePilot vs PropTech Lease Automation Apps: Feature Comparison LeasePilot Team14 MIN READ Read →](/blog/leasepilot-vs-proptech-lease-automation) [§ 02FEB 20, 2026 Industry Insights ### 2026 Guide to the Top Lease Automation Apps from PropTech Startups LeasePilot Team16 MIN READ Read →](/blog/top-lease-automation-apps-proptech) [§ 03JUL 01, 2026 Industry Insights ### LeasePilot + Harvey and Legora: Where Each One Belongs in Your Lease Workflow David Saltman8 MIN READ Read →](/blog/leasepilot-and-harvey-legora-division-of-labor) § See it in practice ## Reading about it is one thing. Watching it happen is another. See LeasePilot draft a lease in your team’s own templates, with your clauses and your defaults. [Schedule a Demo](/demo)