GARY CARR
Gary Carr is vice chairman of CBRE’s investment properties-institutional group in Dallas. He has more than 30 years of experience in commercial real estate, specializing in the sale of office investment properties for institutional and private clients, and is consistently a top national producer in investment sales.
RANDY FLEISHER
Randy Fleisher has been involved with commercial real estate since 1993, and now serves as managing director of JLL Dallas’ debt and equity platform. Before this, he was the founding managing partner of Quadrant Realty Finance, a boutique real estate investment banking firm located in Dallas, which JLL acquired in 2013.
TREY MORSBACH
Senior managing director Trey Morsbach coleads the Dallas office of HFF. He’s primarily responsible for originating debt and equity transactions throughout the United States, with particular focus on construction, portfolio, and equity/joint venture deals. Before joining HFF, he worked in real estate lending at Guaranty Bank.
BRIAN O’BOYLE
Brian is founder and vice chairman of the Dallas office of ARA, a Newmark Co., and a partner in the company’s national senior housing group and its operations in Austin and Washington, D.C. He has more than 30 years of industry experience, specializing exclusively in the brokerage of multihousing projects and land.
BILL VANDERSTRAATEN
Bill Vanderstraaten founded Chief Partners LP in 2007 with oil and gas executive Trevor Rees-Jones. The commercial real estate investment company invests in the retail, industrial, multifamily, medical office, and office sectors. He previously held top leadership posts at Thackery Partners and CarrAmerica. WINTER 2015
R ROUNDTABLE In its highly respected annual Emerging Trends report, the Urban Land Institute and PWC identified Dallas-Fort Worth as the No. 1 real estate market for 2016. The report cited DFW’s impressive employment growth, supported by a business-friendly environment, an attractive cost of doing business, and low cost of living. The findings supported what investors all over the world are discovering: Dallas is the place to be. The outlook is strong across all property types, in both acquisition and development potential. To get more details on capital markets activity in the region, we recently gathered a panel of some of the top minds in the business. The discussion was moderated by Christine Perez, editor-in-chief of the Dallas-Fort Worth Real Estate Review. CHRISTINE PEREZ: Let’s get your take on commercial real estate investment activity across North Texas in 2015. Were things better, worse, or about what you expected?
GARY CARR: I think it was about what we expected. We knew going into 2015 there was a lot of momentum. Leasing activity was so strong in 2014, and we had a lot of liquidity in the market, both debt and equity. In transactional volume, we’ll probably be up in the office sector by 8 to 10 percent in 2015, and probably hit about $4 billion in transactions. BILL VANDERSTRAATEN: For us, it was a slightly better year than we were expecting. The interest rate environment and cap rate environment kept a pretty open window on the sales side, and I think there were still some opportunities on the buy side as well. RANDY FLEISHER: It has been good across all the property types. Apartments showed a 22-percent increase, year over year; office was up 19 percent; industrial was at 28 percent. Retail lagged at 3 percent. But overall, good growth over 2014. TREY MORSBACH: I guess we’d have to say it was as expected, because we’re optimists. We go into every year suggesting that next year is going to be great. But in all honesty, I would say we’re probably a little bit surprised. Through the third quarter, the trailing 12 months, Dallas eclipsed its largest transactional volume in commercial real estate ever, at just over $18.5
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