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One of the top D/E brokers in the country brought a hand gun into his office (blue state gateway market like NYC/LA/SF) a few years ago bc he thought it was cool to show off.
thats hilarious. did he end up getting in trouble?
Desk pop?
Had a similar story. Walked into a meeting with a Top Tier broker who ran the office in a Tertiary market with said broker pointing the gun at me. Never met this person in my life. Then went on a driving tour of buildings where he goes on to tell me he is a volunteer police officer. Then went on to make some very uncomfortable racist remarks.
Also knew a broker who'd concealed carry daily. One day he casually mentions it like of course he has a gun why wouldn't he. Perhaps he is wise
The one about one of the brokers bawling his eyes out for leaking confidential information about a NexPoint deal going thru bankruptcy is good.
Nexpoint those guys are screwed! UBS is suing dondero for violation of the RICO act. Those guys are turds I work in the crescent and run into them at Moxies what a bunch of tools.
I know someone who worked at Highland Capital and that place sounds like a disaster lol... Although some funny stories
A broker at Colliers Atlanta led a multi-year scheme bribing Mattress Firm executives to open unnecessary stores at above-market rents.
This one was good. The locations of some of the stores were hilarious. In some cases, you could walk out of one Mattress Firm and look down the street approx 150 yards and see another location
I remember the cover story being it prevents competitors opening up nearby. Was having trouble understanding how a location at all four corners of an intersection made economic sense, the fraud explained alot
It was nuts they were opening stores directly across from each other. And they also acquired or merged with another company. This increases their footprint.
I was touring a property and asked the broker some questions about plumbing and how much of the building had been replaced, how much was galvanized steel, etc. He assured me the property had been 100% replaced. We then went and interviewed the maintenance guy and asked him the same questions, to which he responded that at most 50% had been replaced, and only as necessary.
I turned to the broker to see what he would say and he just smiled and shrugged.
That's pretty much my typical experience with brokers on smaller assets.
You mean, they lie through their teeth to make a sale, and then turn around and act as if you've kicked their dog face when you point out their leeches who add no value, have no skills, and will soon be out of a job altogether?
Brokers are, by the very nature of their business, sleazy and untrustworthy. They take no risk, add no value, and have no fiduciary or legal duty to be honest. And so they aren't, or only by accident.
Did a broker kill your first born?
Why should there even be an expectation of fiduciary duty? They don't manage any assets on your behalf, and any in-place leases have to be confirmed with estoppels anyway.
I had a broker show up to a listing for a $150MM office building... in a suit that had cargo pockets on the pants. Like quite literally a charcoal pin stripe suit that looked normal in every way -- except the pants had full-size cargo pockets on the side. Wild.
This would be an incredible "I Think You Should Leave" bit
Also heard brokers calling deals cap rate plays (oh it's an x cap rate they're buying for cash flow) when they're so subjective and not the metrics investors are going to look at first. Also, you really need to look at the cash flow and compare it to market. They just are generally unsophisticated especially at these smaller shops, know guys who no offense I would consider not very intelligent selling multiple $50mm+ deals it's crazy.
What metrics do you look at first? Would vacancy or psf value come before?
Return metrics, cap rates are important for stabilized deals. Value-add/ground up (so any real construction happening) you look at yield on cost (YoC) spread between that and exit cap rate assumption. You can look at equity multiple as well, but the first would be YoC. Going in cap rate is so subjective and YoC will tell you what you're really getting on the costs you're putting in and if there's enough margin/spread to do the deal for the risk associated.
I just generally wouldn’t refer to something as a “cap rate play”. You’re buying for yield, cash flow, etc. Cap rate play is just such a dumb term.
One of the brokers I was having a conversation with didn’t know what mark to market meant
It's amazing how some of these brokers sell anything, it's like I used to hear these middle markets brokers just say it's an x% going in cap rate and that's all the info you need. Plus they wouldn't have information you need like leases, site plans, etc and push back saying why do you need that. It's like I need that to verify your info and look at the deal, just straight morons some of these guys that get insane opportunities.
Yeah. And then you realize that it's a 8 cap because they assumed 99% collections, no building staff or R&M, and insurance numbers from 2003 instead of 2023.
Brokers lie. That is their job. It is a competitive advantage for these guys to be unsophisticated morons because it makes it easier to lie with a straight face if they actually believe the bullshit their peddling.
You pop up in nearly every thread and always seem like such a miserable know-it-all, not to mention a dumbass. Like you’re always waging some personal crusade lol.
Yes, some brokers are sleazy - that’s why guys who are consistently buying and selling property tend to gravitate towards the competent ones/those who have brought them good deals consistently.
This is how like 90% of transactions work in the 20-100mm range work, and why the most successful brokers are typically known for 1) trustworthiness and 2) knowing deal boxes of possible buyers so they don’t waste time. Trustworthiness doesn’t mean they’ll never make a mistake (getting one detail wrong between the 5-10 properties they’re marketing at a given time) but that you trust them to find out the answer for you without leading you on.
I swear, every time ozy comments he seems more and more like he’s a back office ESG strategist for some institutional leasing company.
Is there a reason why Brokers exist if they provide little to no value?
Just curious.
Well, in the past they may have had more value, because having a "rolodex" of clients was actually useful. In an age where all a broker does is send out an email blast, you basically provide no value over an MLS.
It is also a CYA kind of thing, the same as companies that hire expensive consultants to tell them obvious things. You can also argue that brokers relieve some time commitments, as a Seller doesn't want to be arranging site tours and answering diligence questions all the time.
I sense they are more of a middle person who just sells and arranges for the owners/buyers in the transaction of the residential unit.
How would one become a valuable broker if starting out from scratch?
What do you typically look for in a good broker?
Honestly as a lender I immediately think less of a project and sponsor if there is a debt broker involved. Basically an immediate pass whereas I’ll probably dig it a little if it comes from a sponsor directly. Even at big allegedly reputable companies these guys are just lazy used car salesmen. But they get paid. A lot.
This is trash. Stop posting.
What if it's a sponsor you really admire and have called on before with little luck? Couldn't chasing the deal through the debt broker lead into a long and prosperous relationship with a sponsor?
Is this a safe place to complain about resi-Mercial brokers? They’re the worst.
Went to view a potential lending opportunity against a large mixed use asset in London. This was quite a sizeable building with big floor plates and around 8-10 floors. The developer is showing us around.
We're touring around one floor and need to go to a different floor. Well the developer representative calls an elevator for us, and then proceeds to walk to a different part of the building where the stairs are because he "doesn't use elevators". Like this person decided to go into real estate, and isn't comfortable using the elevators in his own building?
So we ride to whatever floor we're going to and then just stand around there for a while until the elevator phobic developer finally makes his way to us.
Agency debt brokers routinely add spread and don’t tell their client. That’s really all you need to know.
Wasn’t a broker but this has to count: Touring a multi deal with the Asset Manager and the broker and we past a good size dog turd in the middle of the internal courtyard and the dude bends over and picks it up with HIS BARE HAND and squeezes it then says “I knew it! This is hard. It must have been here a while. I will make sure the on-site pm hears about this. They better know they can’t leave st laying all over the place.” Like he’s Stlock Holmes or something.
Have to imagine that place is sparkling since he told the pm what happened verbatim… Never turned my back on the guy since. CRE has some funky characters.
Shitlock Holmes
Broker at a major agent fucking what was rumoured to be an intern (never confirmed) outside a bar two buildings (not blocks) from the office. Act was caught on video and ultimately made it to a national newspapers
Said agent was made to walk the day after.
I had our listing broker with me for a ground up development we were doing, and a multifamily team flew in to see about taking down some land. We walked the property and talked with their team for about half hour forty five minutes, and it became clear they weren't going to let the deal get away. Our broker and I ask for 5 and step aside. We had done a lot of homework on pricing this piece of land, and from my point of view, we had nearly gotten to price/terms that were acceptable. I was just thinking about my proforma and the return bogie we needed to hit. Broker felt there was plenty of room for price to go up. He looks me dead in the eye and something along the lines of "watch me squeeze and see what you think after." We go back to the group and said something that let the MF guys know the offer needs to be better. They go back and forth and some days later he sends me an offer for like 30% above the initial LOI (well above market offer). We saw it as evidence for this being a greater MF site than we had anticipated. Broker ended up putting a few MF teams into a bidding war that ultimately led to this group losing out. All in all pretty memorable experience because it was a bit funny but also excellent broker work in my opinion. Also a good lesson in that valuation is sometimes more than just caps and comps.
Ozy will now tell you that this broker is a lying good for nothing scum of the earth douche bag because he made the land too expensive for the first party
No question.
If you think brokerage is easy and brokers are overpaid, go be a broker
A top 10 leasing broker at a large shop was sleeping with the front desk girl. Turns out the front desk girl had a boyfriend and had had an abortion that he paid for. He somehow figured out that this broker was sleeping with his girlfriend, so he found a email list for the entire office and sent a nasty email about how he had paid for this said brokers abortion...the company deleted the email off the sever immediately but other brokers in the office had already forwarded it out to other shops in the market, so pretty much everyone in the industry heard about it (or saw the email). The guy was married with kids.
He still works for the same shop and is still a top broker.
smart thing for the bf would have been to at least try the blackmail route.
Also, I always say (not that its right), but there's probably a large amount of people who make big money who mess around like that. Not saying big money or large salary equates to a cheater.
Yeah no doubt - most don’t get their dirty laundry aired out to everyone in spectacular fashion like that though.
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