How's Biz with Todd Hubbard

Amber Brandhagen is a Principal and Chief Operating Officer of NAI Global Wireless (Wireless), an NAI Global member and one of several specialized commercial real estate service providers operating under the NAI Global umbrella of offices. Her business represents property owners and landlords to establish cellular tower infrastructure that is subsequently leased to cell phone carriers throughout the U.S. In fact, approximately 80% of their business comes from NAI Global offices in the continental U.S. and broker referrals, making Wireless one of the most opportunistic fee-sharing and revenue generating members with NAI Global. 

Amber also chairs the NAI Global Women’s Alliance, and recently traveled to the CREW Convention in Atlanta (with 1,700 attendees!) and also to the Commercial Real Estate Influencers Summit (CREi) meeting in Orlando, where guest speaker Rod Santomassimo, CCIM (and founder of The Massimo Group) wowed the audience on his take of AI’s impact on the CRE industry.

Like most of us in the CRE industry, her career path to commercial real estate was indirect. She grew up in a small gold mining town in Nevada and moved to Southern California immediately upon graduating from high school, and eventually met her mentor and business partner, commercial real estate broker and veteran David Moore. At the time, he was with NAI Capital and based in its Inland Empire office. 

In her 30s and the mother of two young children, Amber is a fine example of the Next Generation of leadership at NAI Global. She can be reached at 760.902.9592.

Gisella Haidar and her family emigrated from Bueno Aires, Argentina to the U.S. when she was 16—originally to a small town near Dallas, TX, where she finished high school, and then went on to Texas Christian University in nearby Ft. Worth. She earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics with a concentration in Mathematics. In 2012, she was hired by C-III Realty Services in Dallas as an analyst. 

It was a challenging period for the commercial real estate industry and C-III Realty Services was active at the time with the disposition of CMBS loans that had defaulted. It was also around the time that C-III Capital Partners acquired NAI Global, and shortly afterward, the two entities merged its Capital Markets sales divisions. In 2015, Gisella was transferred to New York to work with the NAI Global Capital Markets team, and she still does, reporting to Arthur Milston and Alex Waddey. 

As a team, the group specializes in asset and portfolio investment sales and dispositions, Gisella is instrumental in preparing financial modeling and underwriting commercial properties before the group takes them to market. 

Like many in the CRE industry, Gisella had not planned for a career in the business, yet shortly after starting with C-III Realty Services, instantly loved what she did. Her learning curve, however, has been quite intentional. During the podcast, she named some of her mentors as well as some of the groups she has gone through mentorship programs with, including ULI (Urban Land Institute and ICSC (formerly International Council of Shopping Centers). 

Gisella recently earned a Master’s Degree in Real Estate Development from New York University, and most of her courses were taught by Adjunct Professors, where she learned real-world lessons on the development process. Her formal education, she said during the podcast, can only enhance her performance with NAI Global. 

Reach Gisella Haidar:  +1 (212) 705 5146

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com 

Chase Miller of NAI Robert Lynn is a Dallas native and his industrial brokerage practice (with teammates, Robert Blankinship and Anna Pierce) focuses on the Brookhollow/Trinity submarket, which is the closest infill submarket to downtown Dallas. Not surprisingly, the submarket has a significant amount of showroom warehouses that want close proximity to customers, as well redevelopment projects – particularly with product from the late 50’s to early 60’s. 

In just four years in commercial real estate, Chase has become one of the company’s top producers and also became a partner at the firm – the youngest ever for NAI Robert Lynn. 

Chase played four years of college hoops at a D1 school – Middle Tennessee State University, and transferred his collegiate college career straight into commercial real estate, and namely, the competitive spirit. 

Even though his father is historically one of the top producing industrial real estate brokers in Dallas and at NAI Robert Lynn (as well as NAI Global), Chase didn’t think about a career in commercial real estate until he was mid-way through college. He did, however, get a great deal of inspiration from his father growing up, even when it was “passive” learning such as going to a Texas Ranger game and hearing his dad take a cell call from a client on the way to games. 

Chase lists his partner Robert Blankinship as well as a number of clients that have served as a mentor thus far in his career. 

He talked about the state of the industrial market in Dallas/Ft. Worth and how it is beginning to ‘normalize’ after years of being over-heated. 

Reach Chase Miller:  (214) 256-7100

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com 

On the first day of February in 2023, Bhagyesha Darji left her job as an assistant controller at NAI Chase Commercial in Huntsville, Alabama, to become a commercial real estate sales professional. Three days later she was on an airplane bound for Las Vegas to attend the annual NAI Global convention. Her journey as a rookie broker had begun. 

This podcast was recording just five months after she started working in brokerage. She has already closed a restaurant lease and an industrial sale, and is leaning toward focusing her career in investment sales. Yet as a tertiary market (the population of Huntsville is about 216,000 and the metro area is comprised of 500,000 people), Bhagyesha is likely to serve clients in a variety of property types and assets. In fact, she is helping a client with a search to acquire an operating hotel anywhere in the U.S. and priced between $4M and $7M.

Douglas McCullough, VP and CCIM at NAI Chase Commercial, is her mentor. Some of the time she works on a team with 3 or 4 other agents yet otherwise is building her own book of business. 

Huntsville -- rich in engineering talent, is a rapidly growing community, and Bhagyesha, who grew up there, is one of its biggest fans. Two of the major corporate draws in the area are Redstone Arsenal and Cummings Research Park. Redstone Arsenal is a United States Army post and a census-designated place adjacent to Huntsville in Madison County. The Arsenal is a garrison for various tenants across the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and NASA.

Cummings Research Park, located primarily in the city of Huntsville, is the second largest research park in the United States and the fourth largest in the world. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, IBM, Lockheed, Northrop, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville all soon located within the park, all of which grew tremendously.

A pair of the better-known tenants with a presence in Huntsville are Blue Origin, the rocket manufacturing company owned by Jeff Bezos, and SpaceX, the rocket company owned by Elon Musk.

To accelerate her learning curve in brokerage, Bhagyesha started a Rookie’s ‘club’ as part of the North Alabama Commercial Realtors Association, or NALCOM, and helps organize regular and informal lunch-and-learns with other commercial real estate agents with fewer than five years in the business. 

One of her short-term goals is to close a really big deal and buy a pearl-white Corvette.

Bhagyesha Darji earned a B.S. in Accounting from The University of Alabama in Birmingham, and is a licensed broker in Alabama. After college she worked in public (tax) accounting and financial planning, and some of the executives at NAI Chase Commercial were her clients. She was recruited in March 2021 to work in the company’s financial administration department. 

Reach Bhagyesha Darji: (256) 529 1995

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com

Gael Zongazo started his commercial brokerage career in early 2021 by joining NAI Elliott’s Retail Advisors Northwest team, led by George McCoubray and teammates Nick Stanton and Emmy Johnston. 

Based in Portland, Zongazo focuses his retail brokerage practice in the region’s suburbs (the metro market has some 2.6 million residents), preferring to represent tenants, though he does some landlord work as well. He uses a product called Retail Lease Trac to identify tenants in the market for nationwide expansion space, but he also uses good old fashion cold calling by walking into local retail stores and asking to talk to the management or proprietors. 

Among other projects, he is currently working on a big assignment with an NAI colleague out of Charlotte, North Carolina, on behalf of the Veterans Administration.

Formerly of the San Francisco Bay Area, his brother-in-law is NAI Elliott President Jordan Elliott, who had recruited Zongazo for a number of years, and finally got him to relocate to the Portland area. Zongazo’s entrepreneurial background is perfectly suited for retail brokerage, having founded Bay Area Fit, a business supplying fitness classes for corporations and multifamily residential properties that is now an online fitness-training tool. That business ended up providing him with passive income that allowed him to transition into commissioned-based brokerage services. An accountant by training, he also worked in residential real estate in California. 

Reach Gael Zongazo: (503) 972-5403

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com

“Everything I did leading up to starting in commercial real estate prepared me for this moment.”

This podcast shifted gears to host one of NAI Global’s rising stars and an excellent representation of the Next Generation, Marcus Daniels, a Vice President with NAI Michael based in Prince George County, Maryland. A region that borders the eastern portion of Washington, D.C., Daniels works in a market with about 1 million people.  

It’s a diverse marketplace of property types, and Daniels is involved with a variety of commercial real estate assets, including assorted business properties, churches, commercial office and retail, and most recently, land that is being marketed for industrial developers and occupiers.  

Hyper focused on developing and nurturing relationships, Daniels’ practice has evolved after six years as a broker with NAI Michael to the point that many of his clients have become personal friends.  

Somewhat ironically – given that he specializes in investment sales during a period of rapidly rising interest rates and high inflation, his phone has been ringing off the hook the past year. Business and property owners want more information in the current market, and Daniels recognizes his opportunity to be a resource to investors.  

His early career work was in public policy fields and community development; it was a background perfectly suited for commercial real estate and the potential to create sustainable communities. Accordingly, he approaches his work in CRE as one big eco-system and recognizes the role and importance of all stakeholders associated with the process. He serves small business owners, non-profits, entrepreneurs and increasingly leverages the NAI Global platform to work across state lines.  

Now in his early 30s and an astute networker, Daniels is a proud Morehouse College graduate, and he embraces and epitomizes the iconic HBCU’s slogan: “We are a brotherhood of men on a mission to lead lives of consequence.”

Click here to listen to the half-hour podcast with Marcus Daniels.  

Reach Marcus Daniels: +1 301 918 2954

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com 

Arie Salomon, CCIM, SIOR, is (once again) one of NAI Global’s Top 10 Producers for 2022. A highly accomplished industrial broker, Arie is also one of the top producers in the Pacific Northwest as recognized by the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. 

He leads a five-person team with the core group having been together for over two decades! Arie’s teammates are: Jeff Forsberg (28 years), Patty Bell (26 years), Connor Powell and Bret Matysik, the last two of which were added to the team within the past few years. They divide their duties and use each other’s strengths to complement each other. Originally from Israel, Arie served as an officer and tank commander in the Israeli Defense Forces after finishing high school. He attributes much of his success to the discipline learned and the merit-based promotional structure of the Israeli army that he experienced as a young man.

For brokerage houses and managers interested in hiring and training new brokers, listen to how Arie and Jeff started Connor and Bret out to get their careers launched. By comparison, when Arie started commercial real estate brokerage 32 years ago, he received a $600 draw for the first few months and then was straight commission. 

Here are some of the highlights of the NAI How’s Biz Podcast with Arie Salomon. 

Arie first moved to Washington State to attend college in 1984 at the University of Washington in Seattle, and at first wanted to be an architect, yet decided on a business degree instead. He started his career with Norris, Beggs & Simpson in 1990.

Fast forward to the more recent past, Arie and Jeff’s team client list reads like a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 Companies and some of the most recognized developer names in the industry: Boeing Realty Corp., DHL Worldwide Express, Formica Corp., Steelcase, Invesco, Prologis, Industrial Property Trust, Lowe’s, RREEF, and LBA Realty.

Listen to how the team acquired those accounts and largely managed to retain them through the years.

NAI Puget Sound Properties is one of the top exporters of referral transactions within the NAI Global platform, and has recently completed deals in Dallas, Portland, Atlanta, Chicago, North Virginia and Detroit – all with other NAI Offices and professionals. 

Arie loves the business—the competition, the knowledge, client service and particularly creativity. One of his team’s biggest deals last year exemplified his creative approach to brokerage, as well as his persistence, and by his own acknowledgement, the transactions (yes, plural) came about by a bit of luck. That part of his story is about 28 minutes into the podcast. It involved a 1.2-million-square-foot lease followed by a sale to an institution. 

A European football fan, Arie has attended World Cup Tournaments in more than one country, even seeing a ‘hat trick’ from the most recent World Cup hero, Argentina’s Lionel Messi. 

Reach Arie Salomon: +1 (425) 586 5636

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com

On excellent service: “Before you get something, be prepared to give something.”

A high performing broker of many years and Executive Vice President with the Industrial Services Group at NAI Hiffman in Chicago, Kelly Disser III was one of NAI Global’s Top Producers in 2022. Early in the year, the How’s Biz, Gary Marsh, host spoke with Kelly about his career path and history, some of the work he and his team have been doing and what are some of the contributing factors to his success. Here’s a brief recap of the podcast.  

The Fort Wayne, IN-native has a near-perfect background to thrive in the commercial real estate industry – especially brokerage, because he is both competitive and collaborative in nature and is a self-described people pleaser, meaning he likes to make people happy, and that often translates in business as helping his clients make money. A high school standout in (American) football (QB), after interviewing with a number of Big 10 schools (+ the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy) Kelly opted to attend and play for Butler University, which is in Indianapolis. However, because he wanted to be a starter on the Butler team and just before the 2-a-day workouts ended, Kelly switched to cornerback – a decision he said in the podcast was a youthful exhibit of impatience, and something he learned from that has been helpful in his career development. For his last two seasons of collegiate football, he switched to wide receiver on the offensive side.  

During college, Kelly did a two-year internship with Indy-based Duke Realty Corporation, which hired him out of college in 2002. With Duke, he was responsible for financial and operational management of a 22 million square foot portfolio. After four years (professionally) with Duke, Kelly was recruited to Dallas, TX, where he worked for Tabani Group, where he helped facilitate the growth of the company’s existing real estate portfolio through investments and new development. In 2008 he moved to Chicago – in part lured by his fiancé and later wife, Audra, who he credits as being a big part of his success early and currently with his career. In Chicago, he started in brokerage with NAI Hiffman – just as the Great Financial Crisis began and without any contacts in the Windy City. By 2015, he was a shareholder of NAI Hiffman and today, runs point on a team of four people – two other brokers and a senior administrator.  

Kelly’s team divides duties but in some instances, overlaps on work when the deals demand it. His strengths are with business development and some of the underwriting as part of the overall development process. The team typically is involved in two or three new development deals per year. However, the team balances its activity and revenue by working closely with tenants about the half the time and landlord/developers for the other half of their transaction volume. They do a lot of work with Prologis and Link Logistics yet also work with middle-market investment companies that often do not have directors of real estate, so Kelly and his team effectively become an outsourced real estate department.  

Kelly described two of the team’s bigger deals in 2022, including a 450,000-square-foot, build-to-suit on behalf of Atlantic Packaging and another project (which he called equally complex) – a 150,000-square-foot deal, for a 100-year-old company, Clyde’s Donuts. One of the takeaways on those start-to-finish projects (site selection and entitlement process through construction completion) is how much service and the amount of detail associated with information gathering with each transaction and how that information goes into analysis and decision making by Kelly’s team and their clients.  

The team also had just closed on a land sale that was indicative of the current market in Chicago. A client/developer has been doing a land assemblage project and started purchasing property a couple years ago when land was being sold at $15 a foot. During the interim land values shot up to $40 a foot and the last parcel – 7 acres, closed at $32 per-square-foot in December. When the project started there was a target audience of 40 developers and by the time it got closer there were only six or seven developers that had the capital and ability to close and build the project.  

Currently, there is approximately 37 million square feet of industrial property under development in the Chicago market that is expected to finish this year. Kelly said on the podcast that he thinks there will be fewer starts on speculative industrial projects in 2023, and largely associated with the higher cost of money and change in Cap Rates in the investment markets as well as the threat of an economic slowdown.  

Kelly described his commitment to service as a large contributor to his success, and he recognizes that without excellent service a broker can become nothing more than a commodity. For someone new in the brokerage business, there’s a really strong message to be heard in Kelly’s comments on service.

Reach Kelly Disser III: +1 630 317 0721

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com

Todd Hubbard, SIOR is a player-coach with NAI Robert Lynn Fort Worth office and one of NAI Global’s Top Producers in 2021. He opened the Fort Worth office for NAI Robert Lynn several years ago. The company now has over 100 employees and 65 agents between Dallas and Fort Worth, the latter of which has 16 agents. NAI Robert Lynn’s core businesses include office, industrial, retail and capital markets brokerage services, as well as property management. 

The offices are led by George Dutter, CEO, and player-coaches Mark Miller and Todd Hubbard.  There is also a group of about a dozen principals that participate in company guidance, strategy, initiatives and management. 

NAI Robert Lynn is one of the biggest names in the Dallas-Ft. Worth market and consistently a top 3 company in the market based on transaction volume. 

A Brownwood, TX native, Todd earned an MBA from Texas Tech and went back home after college and started his career in accounting, yet left for an opportunity with Robert Lynn Company to launch his career in commercial real estate.

Todd’s main practice is in industrial real estate and runs a team of four. Some of the deals the team did in 2022 (over 240 transactions!) included working with an investor that acquired an older industrial park comprised of crane-served metal buildings with 980,000 square feet and upgrading the condition of the buildings and park overall, which led to getting 8 lease transactions completed in the year and over 500,000 square feet. He mentioned some other deals his team closed last year as well as a reference to the off-market work that they do. 

For listeners unfamiliar with the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, both markets have become more institutional. While there has been some blending of the two communities, they each have their own unique qualities. Fort Worth itself has grown substantially and is now the 12th largest city in the U.S. One of the biggest reasons the DFW Metroplex has grown in recent years can be attributed to the collaboration of the economic development groups from Dallas and Forth Worth, compared with earlier years when the two municipalities competed with each other for business. 

Todd spoke of his SIOR designation and how it really is a prerequisite to success in industrial and office brokers.

When asked why he is a successful broker and business man, Todd gave an excellent and extended answer that is very much worth a listen. He started by talking about mindset and managing one’s emotions, then shifted to responsiveness, listening more than talking, having systems in place and other elements, such as being a professional at all times. Being prepared, being nice and loving what you do are the keys to success, as simple as it sounds. 

In terms of developing careers in commercial real estate, Todd would tell a high school senior or college student that commercial real estate is not for everyone, and the most important thing for young people is to find something they love. He encouraged people to get internships and talk with as many people as possible before fully committing to a career in CRE. 

For 2023, his company is setting goals and doesn’t expect the year to be as good as the last few. However, Dallas-Ft. Worth is a little more insulated compared with other U.S. markets because of ongoing population growth and business expansion in the Longhorn State. Todd also mentioned that DFW’s office market is relatively strong and more and more companies are bringing employees back to the office, which should strengthen that sector of their business. They do expect some challenges in the capital markets but are optimistic based on the strength of owner-user sales. 

Todd reminded us that even in a down market there are tons of opportunities and you just have to find them. 

In early January, the announcement was made that NAI Robert Lynn has taken over the Houston territory in 2023 and backfilled a vacated spot in the NAI Global platform.

As a company, the NAI Robert Lynn leadership team is very excited to expand into America’s 4th largest city. He expects a seamless integration between the three offices and the move will be beneficial to their corporate clients, tenants and investor relationships. 

A group of seven principals have been tasked with identifying and recruiting a leadership team for the Houston office. NAI Robert Lynn does business a little differently than many brokerages, by assigning brokers and brokerage teams to specific submarkets within a wider marketplace. Cultural integration is one of the cornerstones of its business. They plan to take that same territorial, market-knowledge approach to the new operation in Houston.

Reach Todd Hubbard: 817-501-2012

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com

“We exceed the level of professionalism that I had with my former organization (the largest real estate company in the world).”

Doug Sharpe is one of NAI Global’s Top Producing Brokers in 2022. Based in Silicon Valley and specializing in tenant representation and corporate services with NAI NorCal, Doug has leveraged his 30-year career and relationships to become one of the leading experts on real estate requirements for Electric Vehicle (EV) car companies and more recently, a rocket (ship) manufacturing company. He is also working with Vietnamese-based VinFast with site selection and location requirements associated with the company’s first batch of Electric Vehicles that were recently shipped to the U.S.

Sharpe said during the podcast that he is actively seeking retail and automotive showroom space in numerous U.S. cities and encouraged NAI Global brokers that work in these areas to contact him. 

There are numerous challenges to getting EV car dealerships and manufacturing plants opened. In the first instance, many cities and municipalities require that cars be sold through dealerships, whereas many of the EV car makers’ business models are manufacturer-to-consumer direct sales. As for manufacturing, auto manufacturing plants require significant power supplies and not all states or regions have sufficient energy and power capabilities to supply both industry and residential energy requirements. Labor, proximity to ports and rail services are other issues associated with opening any type of manufacturing facility, Sharpe said on the podcast. 

Sharpe has sent numerous referrals to NAI Offices in many markets, including a number of deals in South Korea, Hawaii, Alaska. In Florida, Sharpe and NAI colleagues helped facilitate several transactions including logistics, flex industrial and retail space. He has also coordinated some of the work he does with NAI Global’s Elite Corporate Services team. 

Remarkably – and after work with Grubb & Ellis, CBRE and NAI BT (before the latter merged into one of the national companies) about 10 years ago Doug was caught in the cross-hairs of the Grubb merger with Newmark Knight Frank and in his own words, “needed a life boat.” He called a friend with NAI Global and that has led to his status as one of the company’s top producers! 

Sharpe was recently in New York and in a meeting with iconic investor Sam Zell, the latter shared his opinion about what to expect in the CRE industry in the next 24 months. 

Listen to the podcast to hear those thoughts as well as other insights from Doug Sharpe. His story and journey to success will resonate with hundreds of professionals throughout the NAI Global platform. 

Reach Doug Sharpe: 408-740-7224

Find out more about NAI Global: www.naiglobal.com