đ§ #028: Joe Gaspardone on the business case for smart buildings in CRE
âNot being able to use that word in a sales pitch is a mistake, because when you can use that word and throw it in, youâre able to tell the receiving audience: I know your business. â
âJoe Gaspardone
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technologyâhosted by James Dice. If youâre new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industryâtogether. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 28 is another conversation with Joe Gaspardone, COO of Montgomery Technologies.

Summary
This time, Joe and I dove deep into commercial real estate finance. If you're interested in smart buildings, the business case for that solution or technology needs to be made at some point. In this episode, we show you what it takes to actually do that for one type of building: the commercial office building.
Mentions and Links
You can find Joe Gaspardone on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
Music credit: The Garden State by Audiobinger
THE ABOVE AUDIO, VIDEO, SUMMARY, AND LINKS WILL ALWAYS BE FREE. PODCAST DEEP DIVES WITH MY REACTIONS, MY TOP HIGHLIGHTS, AND THE FULL TRANSCRIPT ARE EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS OF NEXUS PRO.
Hereâs this weekâs deep dive outline:
- My reaction, including highlights:
- Identifying and defining the two markets within CRE: transactional and non-transactional
- Cap rate - âthe least-used, most important term in the technology spaceâ
- The power of leverage Â
- The big picture of the ROI - bank return, appreciation return, and the depreciation return
- Reframing the split incentive as the dark side of common area maintenance (cam) charges
- The pressure to keep operating expenses flat
- Defining NOI
- A word of caution on making fluffy claims to operations folks about increasing rent per square foot, tenant salaries, etc.
- Climbing the disaggregated decision tree of CRE
- The impact of climate commitments
- Full transcript
âNot being able to use that word in a sales pitch is a mistake, because when you can use that word and throw it in, youâre able to tell the receiving audience: I know your business. â
âJoe Gaspardone
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technologyâhosted by James Dice. If youâre new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industryâtogether. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 28 is another conversation with Joe Gaspardone, COO of Montgomery Technologies.

Summary
This time, Joe and I dove deep into commercial real estate finance. If you're interested in smart buildings, the business case for that solution or technology needs to be made at some point. In this episode, we show you what it takes to actually do that for one type of building: the commercial office building.
Mentions and Links
You can find Joe Gaspardone on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
Music credit: The Garden State by Audiobinger
THE ABOVE AUDIO, VIDEO, SUMMARY, AND LINKS WILL ALWAYS BE FREE. PODCAST DEEP DIVES WITH MY REACTIONS, MY TOP HIGHLIGHTS, AND THE FULL TRANSCRIPT ARE EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS OF NEXUS PRO.
Hereâs this weekâs deep dive outline:
- My reaction, including highlights:
- Identifying and defining the two markets within CRE: transactional and non-transactional
- Cap rate - âthe least-used, most important term in the technology spaceâ
- The power of leverage Â
- The big picture of the ROI - bank return, appreciation return, and the depreciation return
- Reframing the split incentive as the dark side of common area maintenance (cam) charges
- The pressure to keep operating expenses flat
- Defining NOI
- A word of caution on making fluffy claims to operations folks about increasing rent per square foot, tenant salaries, etc.
- Climbing the disaggregated decision tree of CRE
- The impact of climate commitments
- Full transcript



This is a great piece!
I agree.