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Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Five Questions With...
CREF: How did you get into the real estate business? RW: I actually started out of high school. When I turned 18, I got into the California real estate business in 1973 on the residential side. Within a couple of years, I started getting involved in investment properties. In between residential and investment properties, I did some development and then got into the financial side. I owned two different commercial mortgage banking companies, one of which was a nationwide lending platform. I sold those to a bank and got back into the investment side. So, I transitioned from residential all the way through investments to finance and then back into investment properties. CREF: What notable deals have you been involved with? RW: Our largest deal at this point is a 386,000 square foot retail portfolio in Hawaii. It contains seven properties on four islands and is the largest privately held retail portfolio in Hawaii. I've also worked on the Puente Hills Mall -- a one million square foot portfolio. It was the largest Tenant-in-Common acquisition in history at the time at $148 million. Another notable deal would be Torrance Crossroads, which was the largest break up of a power center ever done in history. We took one project and broke it up into eight deals and sold it out at $138 million. CREF: In what commercial real estate industry do you specialize? RW: Our specialization at Faris Lee is in retail investment sales, mainly working with shopping centers and malls. My background has been both in the brokerage side and the financial side. But currently, we focus 99 percent of our activities on retail because we felt that of all the different product types, it was the most complex because it involves relationships with tenants. We felt we could make a difference there, as opposed to office and industrial, where there's a lot of traffic. And we felt retail is a sexy business to be in. CREF: How has the industry changed since you've been involved? RW: I think the biggest change is on the finance side. When I got into the business, financing was limited to just a few outlets. The biggest change is how we finance deals and the securitization of commercial real estate. Of course, we're now dealing with some of the pain of that. Also, the sophistication of the deals -- technology, the programs we use, how we exchange information. It's much more vibrant than it used to be. The properties are more globally traded rather than regionally traded, and because of technology, we can open up these investments to virtually anyone in the world. CREF: How does the market look over the next 12 months? RW: I think the market in the retail sector will continue to be strong, relative to sales. The tenants are still doing well, so I think the real question will be on the consumer confidence side. I don't think we've seen the toughest ramifications of the sub-prime situation and financing is going to be difficult in the next 12 months. We've changed that platform in the last five to seven years. Securitized loans will probably not be available over the course of the next 12 months, but hopefully after that, that market will come back. In the meantime, it's going to be a little tougher to get deals done. In some sectors around the nation, there will probably be some pressure to move the prices down. Filed Under: Five Questions With... E-mail this article to a friend | Printer friendly format| DIGG this| Post to del.icio.us Comments on this article
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