It was easy to read the room at Connect Orange County 2025, where a sold out crowd came to the Hyatt Regency in Irvine to hear what the experts had to say regarding the Southern California and OC markets. Celebrating Connect’s 10-year anniversary as a company and a CRE conference leader, the one-day event included five panels discussing the local and national markets, trends, predictions and the current political and economic climate. The event concluded with the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was given to Guy Johnson of Johnson Capital Advisors.
While uncertainty predominated with both panelist and attendees, there were still other voices that urged calm. In light of tariffs and what the White House will do, it was anyone’s guess. “For anyone who thinks they have this all figured out, well, that’s just a bunch of… Nobody has this figured out right now. It’s going to take time to get out of this but we will and regenerate,” said Joe Vargas, of Wonderful Real Estate. Vargas, along with moderator Julian Freeman of Cox, Castle & Nicholson, Adam Candler of BKM Capital Partners and Paul Jones of Bridge Logistics Properties, made up the second panel on the SoCal Industrial market.
“People are waiting to see what the tariffs are going to look like,” said Jones, noting that all tariffs do is create uncertainty. With uncertainty comes stagnation. “It’s the same thing with consumer spending. So, with the stock markets down because of the turbulence and the news, it puts everything on pause and pause isn’t good for us.”
On another panel, Berkeley Davis and Kent Elliott of RETS Associates, a Newport Beach-based company that is one of the nation’s leading real estate executive search firms, gave an update on the talent pool and how to attract and retain them once you have them. Interestingly, it was an impromptu survey of the crowd when asked about returning to the office, which was telling. When asked about returning to the office or not, the return to office hands far outnumbered those who voted no. However, the clear winner was those who didn’t put their hand up. Rather, they’re not certain how they feel about returning to the office.
The last panel of the event, Getting Deals Done in Today’s Market and Beyond, was moderated by Mark Grace of Walker & Dunlop and included Andy Bratt of Gantry and Eddie Prosser of Thorofare Capital.
“For regional banks, I believe there’s still too much capacity and exposure on commercial real estate. As a result, I believed banks will be sidelined,” said Bratt, noting that there might be a gravitation toward life insurance companies. “Where I play in the life insurance company space, there has been a consistent and reliable capital source over the last couple of years,” he said.
Prosser of Thorofare used baseball as a way to describe where we are now. “We’re at the first inning of a major trade war, which I think is going to continue to put downward pressure on the stock market and on the economy. But I do believe we will see rate relief within the next three to four quarters, and I think commercial real estate will benefit from that.”
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