One of the great things about American business culture is that it allows people a chance at reinvention. White-collar workers unhappy in their careers often go back to school and change professions. Entrepreneurs that bet on risky ventures and lose are encouraged to try again, having learned from their mistakes. Ousted corporate executives can bid their companies adieu, then go on to be successful elsewhere, or even come back to their original firms having earned greater respect. It’s possible to start anew, as John Bucksbaum, former CEO of mall REIT General Growth Properties (GGP), learned in the past four years.

For more on Bucksbaum, click here.

Having too narrow of a focus can be risky in real estate, according to Richard (Ric) Clark, CEO of Brookfield Property Partners, the real estate investment arm of Brookfield Asset Management. Clark brings up a hypothetical office building owner with a portfolio in the Washington, D.C. region. If the D.C. market was about to experience a drop in demand for office space, such a firm would have limited recourse, short of selling off assets. But if the same firm held stakes in a variety of asset types in a wide range of markets, the impact from the downturn in D.C. would likely be limited, he notes.

That was part of the thinking that spurred Brookfield, which has traditionally been an office landlord, to start entering new property sectors in the past few years, including industrial, hotel and multifamily. The other piece of the puzzle has been the ability to take advantage of tens of thousands of real estate professionals around the world that can predict with a high degree of certainty which assets may offer higher-than-average yields, Clark notes.

For more on Clark, click here.

Microapartments—living spaces of less than 500 sq. ft.—are already popular in gateway cities like New York and Boston, but haven’t quite caught on yet in secondary markets. Developers like Evan Granoff are trying to change that. Granoff has brought new apartments of less than 300 sq. ft. to his native Providence, R.I. And residents are paying top dollar to rent them.

A lifelong entrepreneur, Granoff has been renovating historic landmarks in downtown Providence, including the successful rehabilitation and sale of the Turk’s Head Building, originally built in 1913. His latest Class A redevelopment transformed the Arcade Providence—which, built in 1828, is the oldest indoor shopping mall in the United States—into a mixed-use development that includes 48 apartments, arranged around the Arcade’s giant, sunlit atrium, along with micro retail spaces.

For more on Granoff, click here.

The American healthcare industry is changing and growing exponentially, yet medical office building (MOB) development and investment have lagged due to a lack of basic data about the marketplace. Revista launched in August 2013 with the aim of providing comprehensive data on hospitals, MOBs and other healthcare properties.

Based in Annapolis, Md., Revista was founded by Mike Hargrave, former vice president and chief market and data strategist with the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing Industry (NIC), Elisa Freeman, NIC’s former vice president of events and corporate relations, and Hilda Flower Martin, the former lead business developer for the NIC MAP Data and Analysis Service. Revista’s sponsors include Healthcare Trust of America, Health Care REIT, investment bank Raymond James, property valuator Health Trust and facilities management consultant Surface Logic LLC.

For more on Hargrave and Freeman, click here.

The crowdfunding firm that’s arguably at the head of the class is Realty Mogul, headed by CEO and founder Jilliene Helman. Realty Mogul itself raised $9 million in venture capital. And since its launch it’s been sourcing deals and building its team. “Many of the crowdfunding entities have done one or two deals,” Helman says. “We’ve done 70.”

Another difference is that the company has already delivered returns to its investors. According to Helman, Realty Mogul has also already delivered more than $3 million in returns to investors. At Realty Mogul, the average investment is $20,000, while the minimum investment is as low as $5,000. All investors are vetted and must have either $1 million in assets or $200,000 in annual income.

For more on Helman, click here.

Deutsche Bank’s commercial real estate group had a busy few years. The firm was the leading CMBS issuer in 2011 through 2013, accounting for about 20 percent of the industry’s overall market share. It had a robust start to 2014, taking up 32 percent of the market share with $32.1 billion in issuance. It’s led some trend-setting transactions, including structuring the rental securitization for Blackstone Group’s Invitation Homes.

Deutsche’s foothold in the market is a function of its established relationships with investors and the diversity of its overall product offerings (from bank loans to bridge lending), notes Jonathan Pollack, Deutsche’s global head of commercial real estate and head of risk for its structured finance group. But it’s also a reflection on the optimism that has emerged in the market, with property fundamentals improving, underwriting standards holding up and bond buyers showing an appetite for notes.

For more on Pollack, click here.

Atalanta Realty Investments officially arrived on the scene in 2013 to focus on acquiring and operating a diverse portfolio of commercial real estate properties in overlooked urban sectors of major U.S. markets. Its founding principals collectively have over 90 years combined experience in commercial real estate.

But the firm stands out for a few reasons. For one, unlike many smaller platforms, Atalanta’s principals have both asset and property level management experience. Secondly, the firm is seeking to capitalize on the underserved Asian demographic and looking at markets, namely Hawaii, that are often overlooked by other players. Last but not least, three of the firm’s four founding principals are women and the lone male is Asian-American, making the company stand out in an industry that is heavily dominated by white men.

For more on Taylor, click here.

GE Capital Real Estate was one of the entities that got hit hardest by the Great Recession. At its peak in 2008, GE Capital Real Estate had $91 billion in assets, of which 56 percent was in equity and 44 percent was in debt. What has transpired since has been a rapid repositioning. After taking time to slim down, absorb losses and reconfigure its portfolio, the firm is once again a major force. Today the firm has global assets of $38 billion, with 63 percent in debt and 37 percent in equity.

And helping oversee the giant’s strategy now is Bradley J. Trotter, who was named president of GE Capital Real Estate - North America in May. Trotter now oversees management of the company’s lending and equity activities throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. For the past three years he had led GE Capital Real Estate in Canada. He succeeds Alec Burger, who was named global CEO for GE Capital Real Estate.

For more on Trotter, click here.

The young commercial brokerage and property services firm CBC Alliance has made big strides by focusing on private investors and small to midsize commercial real estate companies in major cities.

Backed by the hedge fund Waterfall Asset Management—an investment manager with approximately $3 billion under management—CBC Alliance was founded in 2012 by Obie Walli, former vice president of operations for parent company Coldwell Banker Commercial in Parsippany, N.J., who is now CBC Alliance’s CEO. The firm, says Walli, provides “full-service solutions, from sales to leasing to property and asset management to financing and advisory services.”

Walli, who joined Coldwell Banker Commercial in 2002 as an analyst and moved up through the ranks, says that while working on mergers and acquisitions he noticed most brokers prefer to deal with “sophisticated investors,” but there was “no one-stop shop for the private investor segment. I realized that if we were able to service and execute in that segment, then the opportunity is huge.”

For more on Walli, click here.