Ten Most-Listened Episodes from the Regenerative Real Estate Podcast
Six years ago, in February 2020, the Regenerative Real Estate Podcast was launched to create space for conversations about real estate that weren’t happening elsewhere.
In this decision to step off the well-worn path, our co-founder, Neal Collins, began following his curiosity, seeking out conversations that weren’t centered on speed, scale, or short-term outcomes, but on how land, housing, and development actually function over time. He started talking with people who were already working differently: experimenting with new ownership models, designing for community, protecting farmland, building for performance, and rethinking what responsibility in real estate really looks like.
Those early conversations opened access to a much wider network of thinkers and practitioners. Architects, developers, farmers, organizers, builders, and systems thinkers entered the dialogue, each approaching the work from a distinct vantage point, yet united by a serious commitment to long-term impact. Listening to how they worked, what they had tried, and what they had learned revealed patterns that don’t always show up in case studies or conference panels.
Over the past six years, the Regenerative Real Estate Podcast has grown into a living archive of those conversations. Together, they reflect not only how regenerative real estate has evolved, but how engaging with this work can change the way people think about land, home, and their own role within it. For many of the guests—and for Neal himself—this curiosity-driven approach has led to a richer, more grounded way of working and living.
The episodes below are the most listened-to conversations from that journey. They offer perspectives drawn from real experience rather than theory, and they show the range of ways regenerative principles can take shape across different contexts.
If you’re wondering how to “do real estate differently,” whether that’s in your professional life or at home, we encourage you to start here:
The Top 10 Most-Listened Podcast Episodes
1. Creating Cohousing
with Katie McCamant
February 19, 2023
Katie McCamant, who helped introduce cohousing to the United States and co-authored one of the first books on the subject, discusses cohousing as an intentional community model of private homes clustered around shared spaces and how that approach supports social connection and collective life.
2. Community Land Trusts
with Julie Brunner
January 18, 2023
Julie Brunner explains how community land trusts work, drawing on her experience at OPAL on Orcas Island, and describes how holding land in trust has been used to maintain long-term affordability and housing stability across real estate market cycles.
3. Building Life-Centered Organizations
with Tre' Cates
September 19, 2024
Tre’ Cates examines how regenerative design principles can be applied to organizations beyond agriculture, drawing on his work with nRhythm to explore what it means to place life at the center of economic and institutional systems.
4. The Regenerative Real Estate Story
with Neal Collins and Alissa Collins
April 13, 2023
Neal and Alissa Collins reflect on their personal journeys and how those experiences shaped their approach to regenerative real estate, tracing the evolution of the work through stories of practice, values, and the blending of ecological, human, and community-centered considerations.
5. Agrivillage Co-Housing Through Farmland Conservation
with Katie McCamant and Dave Boehnlein
March 25, 2025
McCamant and Boehnlein discuss developing Rooted Northwest — a project transforming a former dairy farm into an agrivillage where farmland conservation and intentional community living are everyday realities.
6. Agrihoods and Field Building
with Daron Joffe
January 31, 2023
Daron “Farmer D” Joffe describes how agrihoods advance the integration of housing and agriculture, drawing on the “village” model in which clustered homes sit nestled within conserved land and working farms, and he shares insights on building a field around these practices.
7. ReGen Villages
with James Ehrlich
August 15, 2023
James Ehrlich discusses how his company, ReGen Villages, uses technology and design to support regenerative communities that integrate food, water, energy, and circular waste systems, and how tools like machine learning can shape neighborhood development.
8. Charrettes and the Edge of the Frontier
with Steve Beshara
March 30, 2023
Steve Beshara reflects on his path as a developer and designer, sharing how his experience with charrettes shaped his belief that creative, inclusive planning processes can unlock innovation in community design.
9. Big Change Through Not-So-Big Actions
with Sarah Susanka
August 9, 2022
Sarah Susanka, credited with expanding the tiny house movement, discusses how meaningful change in design and living practices often comes from small, thoughtful decisions rather than large, sweeping interventions.
10. Zero Net Energy Affordable Housing
with Sean Armstrong
January 4, 2022
Sean Armstrong discusses designing all-electric, zero-net-energy homes, including many affordable units, and explains how combining solar-powered design with electrification can improve performance, indoor air quality, and economic feasibility for low-income housing.
Why These Conversations Endure
What unites these episodes is a willingness to engage complexity without shortcuts. Each guest speaks from experience rather than abstraction, acknowledging both progress and limitation.
For listeners new to regenerative real estate, these conversations offer orientation. For those already working in the field, they provide reflection and continuity. And for anyone questioning how land, housing, and development might evolve in a time of ecological and social strain, they offer something increasingly rare: space to think carefully before acting.
That, more than anything, is why these conversations matter—and why we’re excited to see where the next ones lead.
