Texas Real Estate Business magazine covers the multifamily, retail, office, healthcare, industrial and hospitality sectors in Texas.
Issue link: https://texasrealestatebusiness.epubxp.com/i/591312
52 • November 2015 • Texas Real Estate Business www.REBusinessOnline.com to hear what you all are seeing, is the demographics, not just of the resi- dential population, but the working population. We've got a lot of people that are upscale workers that are part of that mix as well. When you add those two together, it's a pretty strong market. We're trying to put the pieces in place for long-term redevelopment. That's our focus. Luther: I oversee the Houston ofce and The Woodlands ofce for Marcus & Millichap along with our Fort Worth ofce, so I do spend some time in Dal- las. I grew up in Houston, so this place is near and dear to my heart. The as- sets that we go after are the $20 mil- lion deals, which is the private party market, or the hybrid market because you have a lot of major private inves- tors acting in their space. Being a na- tional company based in California, a lot of our capital is out of area; a lot of the guys that tend to take the more aggressive pricing. At the same time as investment sales advisors, that's exactly what we're doing; we're ad- vising our clients. We have to work through the oil objections. We have to demonstrate to the out of area and for- eign investors why Houston is a great place to be parking money. Stephen Cooney: Deals I've worked on lately, we're doing 1031s on some Walgreens stores. We're doing a retail transaction on Washington Avenue, which is hot. Retail in Bastrop, got several lots there we're selling, and they're going. We've been busy; it's been good. Gilliam: Waterman Steele RE Advi- sors is probably the youngest frm in the room. We've had a lot of fun with this young frm; we've really tried to connect with our clients in a diferent way, though we've maintained our re- lationships with this group. We try to focus on clients based on the geogra- phy of where they want to be in Hous- ton. Our clients who want to serve those communities and want to cel- ebrate Houston's diversity. Our com- munity looks a little bit diferent now. Our frm has reached out and worked beyond just traditional real estate and helped, for example, the frst grocery store opened in a food desert in Hous- ton just a few months ago. It wouldn't have happened without the support of the real estate community and gov- ernment and the community itself. Gaines: With Hunington Properties, we're in a number of pools. We've de- veloped 22 shopping centers, most of which are in the Houston area. A few are in the Austin area. We're a multi- tenant developer. We run a manage- ment-leasing platform with 147 prop- erties, and over 3 million square feet. To date, we've sold 36 largely multi- tenant deals this calendar year and a few single-tenant deals. We have our hands in a number of pots, and have an interesting view of things. We work in the more entrepreneurial, guy with a mortgage realm of the industry. Gardner: Scott Gardner, Streetwise. We're a general brokerage frm that specializes in retail, project leasing and tenant rep. I'm a broker with the company, and primarily focus on ten- ant rep with a little bit of project leas- ing. Axelrad: Mike Axelrad, I run the Texas portfolio for Brixmor Property Group. Currently, what we're seeing is trying to harvest the pent up growth within our portfolio, beginning with leases to market as they come to, and also improving the tenant mix across the spectrum at the same time and creating demand with new develop- ments, so it's been pretty hectic. Katz: Kenneth Katz, Baker Katz. We really have two lines of business, we're primarily a retail tenant rep brokerage frm here in Houston, rep- resent a handful of regional and na- tional retailers and helping with their expansion strategies, fnding sites and negotiating deals. We also acquire real estate for ground up development and renovation. Vondrak: Mark Vondrak, Inven- Trust Properties. We have 128 shop- ping centers in 24 states; we have a strong focus in Texas. We've just opened regional ofces both here in Houston, and in Dallas, and another one in Atlanta. Our focus is improv- ing our portfolio that we have here in Texas and expanding it. Lestin: We talked about the pres- sure on rents and tenant improve- ment allowances from landlords and credit. One thing we've seen some of, particularly representing restaurants, is that also there's pressure on term, where some landlords have said we're not doing any more than 10 years for restaurants. Have any of you experi- Society of Industrial & Offce R altors Visit sior.com to locate an SIOR broker or become a member. The best real estate idea you have ever had. Society of Industrial & Offce Realtors THE AHA MOMENT.