On the Road with Steve Felix

Friday, November 7, 2014

An open letter to CRE Tech Intersect founder Pierce Neinken.

Hello Pierce.

I am still feeling energized today…the morning after your terrific CRE Tech Intersect event in New York last night. I truly appreciate you inviting me to attend.

Walking off the elevator brought me back to the first CRE Technology Event in 1996. Peter Pike, one of the earliest industry champions of technology and ‘bloggers’, organized it. At that event, there were only 6 exhibitors (I was one of them) – vs. the 52 present last night.

The electricity in the room was evident, from the start until the end. I had such a great time, learning about so many brand new - just out of the garage - as it were, CRE tech firms. And seeing some companies that have been around much longer.

While most of your attendees were under 40 (dare I guess under 30??) there was a nice sprinkling of industry veterans. Unexpectedly running into Larry Sousa, who is an advisor to Monetarex; chatting with Doug Curry of Xceliegnt; hanging out with Bob White of RCA and Demetrios Louziotis of Pavonis Group (who were exhibiting two of their companies, PIX and RealNex) added to my experience.

Just like CREOL (Commercial Real Estate Online), the start-up shopping center data company I worked for, a number of the exhibitors have launched in the New York City market, with plans to go nationwide and even global. For an industry that, in the opinion of many, has been the slowest to adopt technology, commercial real estate professionals now have access to dozens technology services to choose from (with a few more, who have been confidentially speaking with me, coming out of the garage within the next six months).

Pierce, your vision - along with the support of your corporate sponsors - is providing a much-needed opportunity for entrepreneurs and firms that have put their hearts and souls (and of course - cold hard cash) into a dream – it’s a beautiful thing!

Here’s a quote which means a lot to me, directed personally to you and all those technology pioneers at CRE Tech Intersect:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena – whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion – and spends himself in a worth cause; who at best if he wins know the thrills of high achievement – and if he fails at least fails while daring greatly – so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”

Being the founder of a two-year old Behavioral Presentation Coaching business (‘It’s not just WHAT you say, but HOW you say it that makes the difference'), and having launched other entrepreneurial ventures during my life, this quote means a lot to me – it’s been on my fridge door for years! If Teddy Roosevelt had written this today, I think he may have said ‘The credit belongs to the man and woman who is actually in the arena!’

One of the special things about your event was hearing various firms give me their ‘elevator pitch’ – some more concise and clear that others but all with passion – and getting to chat with a number of the engineers and product development people behind many of these businesses. It’s typically the marketing and sales people that attend the tech and other industry events so it was a pleasure to hear the enthusiasm of the technical people who actually designed the product.

I look forward to catching up with you in the near future to hear your plans for CRE Tech Intersect going forward. I admire your truly ‘grass roots’ approach, as you put it in your opening remarks, and altruistic spirit – that this event is not about making money, but about raising awareness of new technology and other tools to help those in the commercial real estate industry do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. It’s about learning, making connections and growing. As someone who was around during the 1960’s, this theme resonates with me.

Pierce, I hope you won’t mind me sharing the list of the companies that exhibited, for the benefit of those who missed the event last night (I also love many of the names):

Actovia

Agorafy

AnySizeDeals.com

Apto

Fast Office

Asset Dynamics

Auction.com

CBRE

ClientLook

CoAssets

Compstack

Create

DMG: Information

Durst Organization

EDR

EMPOWER NY

EZBuildingEHS

FForward

Floored

Hightower, Inc.

HonestBuildings

KISI

LeaseMatrix

Monetarex

Obie

OfficeSpace

Pivotdesk

PIX

Property Capsule

PropertyFuse

Railyard

Real Capital Analytics

Real Data Management

Realconnex

RealcoreApplications

RealMasive

RealNex

RentalValue.eu

Reonomy

ReisModel

Robin

SiteCompli

SourceRE

SpiderSuite

Standard Access

Technical Innovation

TenantRex

TenSource

TheNewsFunnel

TheSquareFoot

Trepp

TriNet

Valuate

Voyanta

VTS

WiredScore

Xceligent

Congratulations and thanks again.

Steve

Congratulations

Jeff Havsy soon to join CBRE as Chief Economist – Americas

Pizza / Drink Thing

My almost annual holiday season ' Pizza / Drink Thing' (as it's come to be known) will take place on Tuesday evening, November 11. These events have typically attracted a collegial and diverse group of commercial real estate professionals - some who know each other; others meeting for the first time.

Where: Joe-G Restaurant

244 W. 56th Street, NYC (Columbus Circle neighborhood)

(between Broadway and 8th Avenue and downstairs in the DaVinci Hotel).

When: Tuesday, November 11 / 6pm - 9ish

What: I supply the famous Joe-G pizza;

You buy your own drinks.

I look forward to seeing you there! Bring a friend.

On the Road...

Nov. 11: Steve's Almost Annual Pizza / Drink Thing, New York, NY (please see above for details)

Nov. 14: James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate / Wisconsin School of Business Global Real Estate Markets Conference, New York, NY

Dec. 3: Women's Leadership Workshop, Felix / Weiner Consulting Group, Chicago, IL

Dec. 3 - 4: NAREIM Capital Raising and Investor Relations Meeting, Chicago, IL

Jan. 15 -16, 2015: NAREIM Asset Management and Acquisitions Meeting, San Francisco, CA

Jan. 21 - 23: IMN's Winter Forum on Real Estate Opportunity and Private Fund Investing, Laguna Beach, CA

Feb. 17 – 18: NAREIM Research & Investment Management Meeting, Chicago, IL

Feb. 19 - 20: University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Real Estate Challenge, Chapel Hill, NC

Mar. 10 - 11: National Association of Real Estate Research Professionals (ARERP) meeting, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Mar. 17 - 18, 2015: NAREIM Executive Officers Spring Meeting, Miami, FL

Disclaimer

All content in this blog is created for informational purposes only. Content, which includes all text, photos, video and graphics is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. Steve Felix makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or other information as a result of following any featured link to or from this site. The intention of this blog is to do no harm in regards to injury, defamation or libel. What is written or shown is not to be taken as fact or absolute. Steve Felix will hold himself harmless for any errors or omissions in this blog’s information; including but not limited to external link information, translation or interpretation of content or incorrect grammar or punctuation.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Johns Hopkins - Careers in Real Estate / Vacant storefronts on the streets of NYC / Jack Bruce - Farewell / My almost annual, holiday season Pizza & Drink Thing

Careers in Real Estate – ‘Connecting the Dots’ at Johns Hopkins University

The Masters of Real Estate and Infrastructure students at JHU will soon be entering the job market. Last week the school brought us down to Washington, DC to conduct our third annual ‘Careers in Real Estate’ coaching workshop, something we look forward to every year. We spent a productive day on job search and career development, specifically working on networking and interview skills with this next generation of real estate professionals.

Communication exercises and role-plays were incorporated into our program. I played ‘myself’ - a rock and roll keyboard-playing commercial real estate executive with more than 30 years of industry experience. I described some of my own networking history, going back to the early days when I hardly knew anyone at industry events. My partner, Liz Weiner – with her Zydeco and swing dance repertoire - shared 20 years of Human Resources experience and enlightened participants to the HR perspective, and the dramatically different interview experiences one can anticipate between a real estate hiring manager and a corporate HR team. I mention our interests in music and dance as both topics came up during the course of the day, providing immediate evidence that networking is not all about business!

To help students overcome their initial trepidations about networking, we did an exercise to show the differences between ‘open-ended’ and ‘closed-ended’ questions. Students witnessed firsthand how the dynamics of a conversation often shift – for the better – when introducing open-ended questions. Asking someone, “Have you been in the real estate business for a long time?” (closed) and getting the answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or a simple, ‘10 years’ versus …. “What got you into commercial real estate?” (open) invites a more animated dialogue. This type of exercise is easily practiced in business and personal interactions. How effective is your own networking and communication style?

With the commercial real estate industry job market so competitive, students from graduate real estate programs may discover that there are simply not enough jobs to go around. It’s important that they learn to deliver clear, crisp and concise answers to questions in networking and interview situations – just one way to differentiate themselves. In the workshop evaluation forms, students told us that preparing for both the expected – and the unexpected questions - was great advice.

Many participants said that real estate development is the #1 job they’d like to have. Other interests included analyst, project management, investment management and affordable housing. Instructors, like Dan Kohlhepp and Lin Mao have educated the students well about the importance of proficiency in the ‘hard’ skills – analysis, financial modeling and underwriting, to name a few. The students left our workshop with an enhanced level of confidence (they told us this!) and new ideas, tools and resources for their ‘soft’ skills development.

Here are some other things this enthusiastic, bright, focused and globally diverse group reported they would do differently as a result of the workshop:

‘Keep a database of contacts instead of a box of cards’
Always debrief after interviews (and meetings), whether formal or not. And debrief after going to networking events
Boldly reach out to people through LinkedIn and snail mail
‘Make my social media more professional’

Over the years, this type of ‘Connect the Dots’ session has visited schools including Cornell, DePaul, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Stanford, MIT, NYU, North Carolina and Harvard. We are reaching out to my real estate academic friends (as well as the real estate clubs) to schedule other similar workshops for our future real estate leaders. Please feel free to forward this column to anyone you feel may be interested.

Vacant storefronts on the streets of NYC

Walking the streets of New York City I continue to see an increasing number of vacant storefronts, both big and small. To some degree this is related to landlords not extending an existing tenant’s lease so they can increase the rent, sometimes by 300% or more, and lease it to the next retailer. But the fact that some of these spaces have been sitting vacant for many months suggests that the mania which has existed in New York real estate for quite a while may be beginning to wane.

Something I learned in my shopping center days: there is a maximum percentage of gross sales retailers can afford to pay and still make a profit. And, while some ‘Flagship’ retail locations (as it seems every landlord feels they possess) offer stores an image opportunity, from a down to basics business perspective, a retailer paying too much in total occupancy costs may not last long. The stigma of a long-time vacant space is only exceeded by a storefront where there is frequent turnover.

New York City landlords may need to be rethinking their strategy…it’s next to impossible to recapture lost opportunity rent from a vacant space.

Jack Bruce (May 14, 1943 – October 25, 2014)

In a band, sometimes the bass player is the least well-known (or noticed) musician. But Jack Bruce was an exception to that rule. As the bass player, lead singer, and principal songwriter of the band Cream, Mr. Bruce was a superstar in his own right.

The rock ‘n roll bands I was in performed a number of the songs that Jack and his band mates made famous: Sunshine of Your Love, Badge (which came by its name when the word “Bridge” – part of the structure of a song - was mis-read), SWLABR (‘She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow’ - hey, it was the 60’s!) and others. While Cream was short-lived, its impact on music will likely be forever.

I missed my one chance to see Cream at New York’s Madison Square Garden on their ‘farewell’ tour when I made a decision to travel to a friend’s college homecoming weekend. The weekend was a nightmare – AND I missed the concert. Oh well.

For those of us in a certain generation, losing people strikes a particularly resonant chord. And, while we don’t all get a chance to have an impact on as broad an audience as Jack Bruce, we can endeavor to contribute, in some small way, to those around us. It’s from those acts that we will be remembered.

Keep playin’ that rock ‘n roll Jack… in your new concert venue.

Pizza / Drink Thing

Where: Joe-G Restaurant

244 W. 56th Street, NYC (Columbus Circle neighborhood)

(between Broadway and 8th Avenue and downstairs in the DaVinci Hotel).

When: Tuesday, November 11 / 6pm - 9ish

What: I supply the famous Joe-G pizza;

You buy your own drinks.

I look forward to seeing you there! Bring a friend.

Congratulations

Nathan Zinn now Managing Director at CBRE Global Investors

Noah Shales on becoming Chairman of CRE (Counselors of Real Estate)

Incredible new music video

Ok go - 'I Won't Let You Down'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeU

Hotel gem

Topaz Hotel, Washington, DC. First time stay. Great experience. Nice room and even nicer people. Great location right near Dupont Circle. Reasonable rates. Highly recommended. http://www.topazhotel.com

The Walk to End Alzheimers

Lynn Kehoe is a long-time institutional real estate industry friend (and one of the nicest and most supportive people I know). Lynn's mother is one of the more than 5 million Americans suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She is participating in The Walk to End Alzheimers in Philadelphia on November 9. I've donated to her walk and hope you will consider making a donation - any amount helps. Here's the link to make a donation http://act.alz.org/site/TR?px=9164420&fr_id=5375&pg=personal