When it comes to the “five factors of awesome” in commercial real estate, San Antonio is behind many other cities. But trying to be something it’s not is the worst thing the city could do to improve its ranking.

That was the advice of Spencer Levy, CBRE‘s senior economic advisor and chairman of Americas research for the commercial real estate firm, who spoke to a crowd of real estate investors, developers, and city leaders at the Urban Land Institute of San Antonio’s annual luncheon Wednesday.

DOWNLOAD SPENCER LEVY’S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION HERE.

Levy talked about broad trends shaping the future of commercial real estate investment such as the explosion of short-term leases, looming inflation, economic growth, and tumbling interest rates.

“How do you compete in a world with all these crazy changes?” he said. “When I look at any city in the world, I use the same basic method to say this city or place is one I can recommend for investment.”

That method involves a list he calls the “five factors of awesome:” talent, foreign money, live-work-play, ease of doing business, and infrastructure.

As for tech talent, San Antonio may be ranked 47th on a list created by CBRE – San Francisco is first – but that just means the city needs to work harder on bringing that talent here. In the meantime, San Antonio is doing well, he said, in adding back-office and manufacturing jobs and talent. “This is not Spencer throwing San Antonio under the bus,” he said. “I’m coming here with love, maybe a little tough love. A lot of people in this room think San Antonio’s competitive advantage is low-cost, and it is a competitive advantage. The problem is, it’s not durable and it’s a race to the bottom.”

Read the remainder of the Rivard Report article by Shari Biediger here.