Perspective
We have all heard people promising amazing returns in commercial real estate. “Earn 15 or 20% if you invest with me.” What can you realistically expect to earn in a commercial real estate investment? (more…)
I was born and raised in Kansas City. While I have had many opportunities to travel and visit other cities, it’s always great to come back to KC. I grew up in Kansas City, MO, one block from Kansas. For all of my married life, I have owned 3 houses in Kansas, all just a few blocks from Missouri.
I saw Overland Park when it ended at 75th & I35 or at 95th & Metcalf. To get to our first house, I had to go down a 2 lane road (119th Street), and when I stopped at 119th & Roe, it was fun to see a horse farm where the Apple store and Crate & Barrel are now. For the last 30 years I have been involved in commercial brokerage, where I have leased, sold, built and owned numerous properties, mostly in Johnson County.
And our children had grown up and moved out of our house, my wife and I decided that maybe it was time to move closer into the City. So we bought a house in Old Leawood, and moved closer into “town”.
I am very fortunate to be serving as the Chair of the National Association of REALTORS , Real Property Operations Committee. They are the committee that oversees the leasing and management of NAR’s buildings. Our association owns four buildings – our Headquarters on Michigan Avenue in Chicago along with the adjacent restaurant building on Rush Street, our DC Headquarters, and a bulk distribution center in Cincinnati that houses NAR’s lockbox company, Sentrilock. It’s a small committee of ten people, of which three of my committee are past NAR Presidents, two are past Treasurers, and the current Treasurer of NAR.
What has been interesting for me has been the exposure to other commercial real estate markets. It has been a great education and has helped me gain a better perspective on commercial real estate in Kansas City. For the past five years I have been extremely jealous of the Washington, DC office market. They had very low vacancy while also maintaining high rents. This was at a time that the rest of the country was in a commercial real estate recession.
I teach a class in developing and building commercial real estate. It is neither a fast nor an easy process, but in certain cases, it makes a lot of sense to build versus buy.