Jeff DeBoer ’81L is the founding president and chief executive officer of The Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying firm representing the nation’s top 150 privately owned and publicly held real estate ownership, development, lending and management firms, as well as the elected leaders of the 16 major national real estate industry trade associations. He also serves as chairman of the Real Estate Information Sharing and Analysis Center and as co-chairman of the advisory board of the RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, and is a founding member of the steering committee for the Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism (CIAT) and is also on the advisory board of directors for the Smithsonian National Zoo. DeBoer (right) with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.
★ What are you watching this election cycle?
is unemployment. From my perspective, I understand why that is, but the two go hand in hand. Many problems like underwater mortgages have not been fully addressed and digested through the system. Frankly, I think there should be more focus and emphasis on these problems.
The most important thing for the clients I represent is how candidates propose to deal with the economy going forward and what types of initiatives they might put forward regarding job creation, tax reform and deficit reduction. Since I represent real estate owners and financiers, we’re extremely interested in making sure the economy grows and creates jobs.
you think politics have become more partisan ★ Do recently? And if so, how will that impact the government’s ability to address some of the major public policy issues such as the tax code and deficit reduction?
things starting to turn around at all in the real ★ Are estate markets? Are things better or worse in the commercial versus residential?
Partisanship in and of itself is not a bad thing. People should stand up for their points of view and argue for them. What has really happened, in my point of view, is it’s gotten much more personal and much less accommodating for a final solution after you present your point of view. So the flip to the Republican [control of the House of Representatives] in 2010 didn’t change all of that or make it any harder. It was just another chapter in the same book, which is a book of partisanship and difficulty in finding solutions.
The bottom line is that the commercial real estate markets have stabilized pretty much across the country. [They’re] not at an optimum level, but at least the situation is not getting worse anymore. People feel pretty good relative to how they felt a year ago, but looking ahead, people are very concerned about what is going to happen in the euro zone, the policy making in Washington and the uncertainty that surrounds the tax laws, the finance laws and the health-care laws. [In terms of residential, things] continue to trend slightly up in a lot of markets, but there is still a tremendous number of underwater mortgages, and it is still a major problem in the economy.
distinguishes this election from past ones? ★ What What makes it unique? Every election, the people running say, “This is the most important election in our lifetime.” This election, it really maybe is. We are at an inflection point where there are so many different policy directions that Washington can go in. What is this tax policy? How are we going to reduce the deficit? I do feel that more than past elections, this one seems to have a bit more of direction-setting [power] to it.
can or should the government do to help bring ★ What the real estate market back to life? The most important thing for the real estate markets, whether residential or commercial, is job creation. It sounds a little bit corny to say job creation is the key to everything, but it really is. What can Washington do? It’s very simple: provide some level of certainty in policy. We’ve had quite a number of years where whatever direction we’ve gone in, it seems there is a strong push to go in the other direction. People can live with pretty much anything if they know what it is, but going back and forth makes it hard to create jobs.
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roomed with John Timmons, a founding ★ You partner of Washington-based lobbying firm, The
Cormac Group, who was also interviewed for this article, during your first year in Lexington. Are you two still good friends? Did John tell you that I walk with a severe limp because I had to carry him for so long through law school? A lot of times when you are in college, you have these friends and you figure, “Well, they are a friend for now,” and you wonder if you will be friends years from now. It’s really neat to work in a business and a town where 35 years later, we are still good friends.
How much of a factor do you think concerns about the real estate market are going to be in this election?
A lot of people in Washington believe the page has been turned in residential real estate and commercial real estate and underwater mortgages. That was yesterday’s problem, and today’s problem
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