Podcast: Why Industrial Leasing Is Broken & How to Fix It, Warehub CEO James Holbrook

James Holbrook is an industrial real estate entrepreneur and technology innovator, and the founder of Payson Smith Holbrook and Warehub, where he serves as Executive Chairman. Over the past 5+ years, he and his team have led more than $500 million in industrial leasing transactions, representing landlords and tenants across millions of square feet of short-term warehouse space nationwide. Seeing early that industrial real estate was overdue for modernization, he founded Warehub, an AI-enabled platform built to digitize and accelerate the way warehouse space is discovered, leased, and activated. Today, his work focuses on reducing friction in industrial transactions and helping the logistics economy operate more efficiently through smarter use of data and technology.

(02:24) 2,500 transactions and one infrastructure gap
(03:57) What industrial real estate covers
(05:39) Why short-term leasing demand is surging
(07:11) Tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty
(08:42) The hidden cost of vacancy
(10:11) What to standardize vs. negotiate
(11:38) What Warehub is & who it serves
(13:42) Transactions from 12 weeks to one day
(15:50) Early pushback and first transaction reality
(17:03) AI-enabled vs. AI-native
(19:43) The most underestimated force: volatility
(22:22) Columbus, Kansas City, and the inland shift
(24:00) AI-powered supply chain optimization
(25:49) Self-driving trucks & underwriting for optionality
(27:20) Power as the new site selection constraint
(28:11) How the broker’s role shifts with AI
(29:59) Collaboration superpower: Aristotle

🏙️ Learn more:
–Visit Warehub
–James Holbrook on LinkedIn