PALO ALTO, CA - Ten brokers and additional support staff have jumped to the Palo Alto office of NAI BT Commercial from rival Marcus and Millichap Real Estate Investment Services. The move marks one of the larger defections in Silicon Valley from one brokerage house to another. Such changes are more common during difficult economic times, when brokers often look to reposition themselves for the next real estate cycle. Among those making the change are Justin Bautista, Jamie D'Alessandro and Scott Kilpatrick. Bautista and D'Alessandro join BT as partners. Kilpatrick joins as a senior vice president.
The 10 brokers bring with them extensive investment sales experience, particularly of apartments, in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. As a group, they have sold more than $500 million worth of property in the last year and more than $1 billion in the last three years, NAI BT said. Stan Jones, an executive vice president of investments specializing in apartment sales at Marcus, is not among those who switched. Jones is a well known multifamily broker in the Bay Area. He typically works with large institutional buyers and sellers such as Wall Street investment banks and publicly traded real estate companies.
The brokers joining NAI BT specialize in so called "private-client" transactions generally worth no more than $20 million and often worth $10 million or less, said Ric Russell, a BT managing partner. The additions push NAI BT's broker count in it multifamily division to 30, he said. "When I came over here five years ago, the division consisted of only me," Russell said.
Steven J. Seligman, vice president and regional manager for Marcus and Millichap overseeing its Palo Alto mortgage and real estate brokerage, said, "As part of this business, people make changes from time to time, and we have people who come to our company from time to time. Of the people who left, three were senior agents, but the rest are developing agents or support staff. We wish them all well." Seligman said his firm has the largest sales force in real-estate property sales in the Bay Area. Through August, the company has worked with 6,500 buyers and sellers of real property nationwide.
The sale of commercial real estate has slowed dramatically in the last year as credit markets have become increasingly dysfunctional. But of the four main property types, office, industrial, retail and multifamily apartments have arguably held up the best. "The key is that there is still debt to finance these smaller transactions," Russell said.
Apartment fundamentals, vacancy and rental rates, remain solid in Silicon Valley. Preliminary third-quarter numbers from New York consultant Reis Inc. put the valley's apartment vacancy rate at 3.2 percent, down slightly from the second quarter. Effective rents, or rent after the costs of move-in specials or other tenants inducements are factored in, are up 5.4 percent in the last 12 months to $1,527, Reis said.
The other brokers making the move are Neel Bhatia, who joins as a vice president; Brian Henry, vice president; Ryan Lee, senior associate; Bryan Danforth, associate; Alec Gustafson, associate; Matthew Lemos, associate; and Ander Vazquez, associate.
Source: San Jose Business Journal