048. The Current State of Retail Real Estate with Adam Williams

The Current State of Retail Real Estate with Adam Williams

Retail Redeveloped Adam Williams specializes in helping dynamic brands grow and destination retail projects thrive. Based in Uptown Charlotte, with a regional reach throughout the Southeast, Adam has the proven ability to successfully drive retail and restaurant projects for top tier brands and Landlord/Developers. As a Principal and top-producing agent at Legacy Real Estate Advisors since 2006, Adam focuses on retail and restaurant commercial brokerage services. After graduating from Elon University, with a degree in Marketing and Economics, he immediately started pursing his passion for real estate and is a licensed broker in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. As a Charlotte native, Adam has seen the Charlotte market transform from a small city to an international business and financial hub. Outside of retail brokerage, Adam is as an owner of Charlotte hot spot, 10 Park Lanes, and founder of Charlotte’s #1 restaurant blog Restauranttraffic.com, a local source for restaurant news and reviews. This experience as a restaurateur and digital marketer enables him to be a true strategic partner with his retail clients. Outside of work Adam has a passion for cars and track driving, exploring the best chefs and restaurants in the Southeast, and spending time with his family. Adam and his wife Genevieve have two sons and live in the Chantilly neighborhood of Charlotte.

The Current State of Retail Real Estate with Adam Williams
The Commercial Real Estate Investor Podcast
Subscribe to the Podcast
Featured
404. Why You Can’t Find A Deal Anymore
404. Why You Can’t Find A Deal Anymore

How to find off-market commercial real estate deals without a platform, a broker network, or a big budget. The four edges that still work now that everyone has the same data, including the direct mail letter that turned a $435,000 building into a $650,000 appraisal in 45 days.

There has never been more data in commercial real estate. More platforms, more deal alerts, more AI underwriting tools. And it has never been harder to find a deal that actually pencils.

That isn’t a cycle. That’s cause and effect. When a listing hits Crexi, the same alert lands in hundreds of inboxes at the same second, and every one of those investors runs the same underwriting on the same pro forma against the same comp set.

Read more →
403. Your Buildout Budget Is Off by Six Figures
403. Your Buildout Budget Is Off by Six Figures

One of the easiest ways I see investors underestimate a deal is the buildout. In this episode, I’m taking a real 6,000 SF retail property and showing you how I estimate buildout costs using the CRE Central Cost Estimator — then take those numbers directly into the Deal Analyzer to see what happens to my returns. There’s a 1,500 SF vacant suite in this deal.

Read more →
402. Your Loan Matures in 18 Months. Now What?
402. Your Loan Matures in 18 Months. Now What?

Your commercial real estate loan matures in 18 months. Now what?

Unlike a residential mortgage, most commercial loans don’t give me 30 years to pay them off. I’m typically working with a five-year term, which means at some point I have to refinance, sell, recapitalize, or figure out another way to handle that remaining balance.

And I’m actually going through this process on one of my own deals right now.

Read more →
401. How to Buy Your First Trailer Park
401. How to Buy Your First Trailer Park

Everybody in commercial real estate is fighting over the same apartment buildings at 5 caps. Frank Rolfe went the other direction and built one of the largest mobile home park portfolios in the country out of the one asset class most investors won't touch.

Everybody in commercial real estate is fighting over the same apartment buildings at 5 caps. Frank Rolfe went the other direction and built one of the largest mobile home park portfolios in the country out of the one asset class most investors won't touch. The mechanics are nothing like apartments. You own the land, the tenant owns the home, and moving that home costs more than the home is worth, so almost nobody leaves. Average tenancy in a park is 14 years. That one detail is why investors love this asset class, and it's exactly what critics point at. We get into both sides, including the Waffle House quote that landed Frank on John Oliver.

Read more →
400. The Seller’s Numbers Are Lying to You
400. The Seller’s Numbers Are Lying to You

The seller’s numbers are only the starting point. In this Office Hours, I'll break down how to pressure-test a commercial real estate deal, spot missing expenses, and uncover what a property is actually worth.

We’ll cover management, reserves, vacancy, and the underwriting mistakes that can make an average deal look like a great one. Three missing line items can change the price by six figures. If you’re buying or underwriting commercial real estate, this is one you don’t want to miss.

Read more →
399. The Retail Apocalypse Is A Lie
399. The Retail Apocalypse Is A Lie

Retail vacancy just hit 4.4% (almost as low as industrial) and nobody's built meaningful supply since 2008.

So why does everyone still believe Amazon killed retail? James Cook, who runs retail research for the Americas at JLL, brings the actual data: the barbell economy hollowing out the middle, the tenants that should scare you on a rent roll (and the ones that should make you pay more), Chick-fil-A's site-selection playbook, and the one number that tells us in 12 months who was right.

Read more →
398. What $250,000 Actually Buys in Commercial Real Estate (2026)
398. What $250,000 Actually Buys in Commercial Real Estate (2026)

Six months ago my team started testing a piece of software inside the Accelerator Mastermind to kill the spreadsheet for good. This week I turned the cameras on and ran it live, on air, to find and underwrite a real commercial deal for under $250,000.

Read more →
397. 13 Years of Commercial Real Estate in One Livestream
397. 13 Years of Commercial Real Estate in One Livestream

Thirteen years ago I was leasing space for a landlord who paid me almost nothing.

This week there are a hundred thousand of you in here. So instead of another deal breakdown, I'm compressing everything those thirteen years taught me into five lessons, one from each hat I've worn: broker, property manager, investor and developer. Real deals behind every lesson.

Read more →
396. Analyzing Commercial Deals Isn't As Hard As You Think
396. Analyzing Commercial Deals Isn't As Hard As You Think

For decades, if you wanted to analyze a commercial real estate deal, you needed Excel. Hours of formulas.

Tabs on top of tabs.

A model you probably didn't even build yourself and definitely don't fully trust.

That era is over.

Read more →
395. That 8% Cap Rate Is A Trap
395. That 8% Cap Rate Is A Trap

Everyone wants the highest cap rate. But what if that 8% cap rate is actually a warning sign? In this live session, we break down why experienced commercial real estate investors don't simply chase yield. Instead, they focus on understanding the risk behind the return and that's where most buyers get it wrong.

Read more →