Day in the Life: Retail Investment Sales Broker

Hi all - although I haven't posted much, I've been lurking in the shadows for a while now. After mooching off of all the amazing posts, I figured it was time to give back as there have not been any posts related to a Day in the Life of a net lease investment sales broker.

I've been in the business for two years now and work as a retail net lease investment sales broker at a boutique firm (about 30 agents) in a major market. The team of four brokers (including me) do on average $100M per year in transactions.

5:45 AM: I do my best to be in the gym by 6:15 AM three times per week. Although I'm not a morning person I found in this business getting a workout out of the way in the morning is much easier - you never know what will come up.

7:30 AM: Out the door to the office.

8:00-8:30 AM: Arrive to the office. Get coffee. Respond to any emails that came in since the night before. Listen to rants from other brokers as they walk past my office on the way to their desks - on any given day, the topics vary from the weather to clients who owe the firm six figure commission checks for leases our tenant rep/leasing department completed.

8:30 - 9:00 AM: I try to get a to-do list for the most important tasks that need to be completed and I catch up on any market news for the few tenants that I focus on. There has been a major merger pending for two of the companies that I focus on, so I have to on top of the latest news as it comes up in conversation a handful of times everyday.

9:15 AM: Time to hit the phone and reach out to owners of auto part stores. I recently closed a deal with a 1031 exchange client at a record cap rate in our market. The buyer I represented in the deal has expressed interest in purchasing additional auto part stores and asked if I could dig up any off-market deals.

10:00 AM: I make between 10-15 calls before I receive a call from a the owner of a new listing our team just got - he wants a copy of the offering memorandum of his property before he leaves for his trip to Europe tomorrow night. My morning of soliciting new listings just took a turn. I begin working on finishing the content for the OM so I can turn it over to the marketing team.

11:45 AM: Finally finish the outline for the offering memorandum and get it to our marketing coordinator. I’ve sent a few proposals and marketing pieces already this week and I can tell they are jammed up, so it was more like full-on groveling to have the OM completed by the following day.

12:00 PM: I meet up with a partner from our Tenant Rep group for lunch with a mutual client. I recently sold the client a property and he has asked me to list and sell a drug store he owns, but I’ve yet to meet him in person (he spends the majority of his time in Florida). Lunch goes well - we discuss a few possible deals but spend the majority of the time talking golf.

1:30 PM: Back in the office. In the last month and half, I’ve added two new drug store listings to our inventory. In addition to selling these particular properties, I’m hoping to leverage these listings into one or two more over the next two months, so I’ve been marketing these properties to drug store owners in the area. So far today, I’ve been getting mostly negative responses and admins that claim the principals are “out of the office”. Who knows, it’s summer, maybe they are sitting on the beach somewhere. I did get lucky when following up with an owner that showed an interest previously - he put in a verbal offer that will not be acceptable to the Seller, but hey, an offer is an offer. It’s actually not a bad first offer. I call the Seller but only get his voicemail.

3:00 PM: Meet with a broker on my team I’ve partnered with on a low price point net lease listing on marketing strategy. He’s new to the business and I want to make sure that all everything is being done on his end so we get multiple. The owner of this property is a merchant developer that builds and sells approximately five deals per year. This is the first deal we are doing with him, so we need to do well to win his other business.

3:30 PM: I get a call from a broker in New York that I know from college. He has a client that will be in a 1031 exchange and was seeing if I had any off-market properties I can put in front of him. I have one or two that may work, but I’m not going to hold out hope. He seemed to call mainly just to brag about the deal he’s selling for them. Good for him - I hope it goes through for his sake.

4:00 PM: I received an abbreviated draft OM back from the marketing team that I submitted earlier that day. After a few changes that I picked up on right away, I sent it to the Seller and followed up with a call. Other than minor changes, it was good to go. I went back to the marketing team for changes.

**4:45 PM: ** Although I have my hands full with the listings I currently have, I’m always looking to add to our inventory. I went through my current pipeline and followed up to two owners that have presented with proposals in the previous weeks. I was only able to get one on the phone and he still was not ready to pull the trigger, claiming his accountant was reviewing the numbers.

**5:30 PM: ** Printed off a standard letter that I send to owners that I can’t find a phone number. This time around, I print approximately 65 letters for AutoZone owners. Although the response rate isn’t very high, I’ve sourced a $7.5M listing through this method already, so I’m going to keep going with it.

6:15 PM: Out the door and heading home.. Hopefully checking out for the night.

9:00 PM: Get a call on my cell phone from the Seller that I called earlier in the day regarding the offer. He keeps me on the phone for 45 minutes going through every possible sale scenario (he is older and just likes to talk). He asks if I can send him an analysis of the sale at a few different price points by tomorrow afternoon, so he can decide on a counteroffer. I’ve done this twice already for him, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I have a meeting tomorrow morning, so I’ll have to spend some time doing it tonight.

11:00 PM: Finish the analysis and send it off. Respond to an email that came in regarding a conference call for tomorrow and shut my computer for the night.