Polsinelli bolsters Marcus & Millichap growth plans

Real Estate Weekly, August 6, 2008 by Linda Barr O'Flanagan

Adelaide Polsinelli spent the past year-and-a-half doing her homework on which New York City firm could help elevate her business to the next level.

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Her dogged approach to her career trajectory is testament to the resolve that has helped the 24-year veteran of the industry amass over $2 billion in sales during her career, first under the umbrella of Michael Besen's Manhattan firm and latterly with her own Platinum Team.

The prolific Polsinelli has carved out a niche as an investment sales specialist but she has also built a solid reputation for helping her clients take a value-added approach to their in vestments while building them very lucrative portfolios.

It was that personal service and relationship-based approach she was loath to give up with a move to a multidisciplinary real estate services firm.

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That's why, she says, her announcement last week that she was joining the ranks of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services in Manhattan should have come as no surprise to anyone.

"Their focus is on the whole process," she said, referring to the firm's stated purpose of specializing in helping investors in the sale of their income-producing properties, from premarketing to post disposition. An innovative business plan when founders George Marcus and William Millichap first formed it in 1971, it's a strategy that's led the firm to steadily prosper, swelling its ranks to 1,400 brokerage staff in 74 offices around the country. In the past 10 years, its sales volume has risen commensurately to over $20 billion in deals involving proportionately bigger clients, from major private investors to REITs and institutions.

In New York, the firm now has 50 brokers with as many support staff that last year clocked up over $1 billion in sales.

It's a path Polsinelli has literally taken with them. "I remember having lunch with Mitch LeBar when there was just him and three brokers in the office," she recalled of her earliest meeting with the former managing director flown in from Marcus & Millichap's California base in 1998 to establish an office in Manhattan.

"Over the past 10 years, they have slowly but steadily increased their market share by being unique in their approach to real estate, and that's what drew me to them."

That track record, and the research machine that powers the operation, will give Polsinelli the opportunity to deliver more, better and faster for her roster of clients that range from pension funds to high-net worth individuals and entrepreneurs.

"This is a collaborative, transparent operation which gives me the ability to tap into the specialist services and research Marcus & Millichap has built to drive its own success and bring that to my clients," said Polsinelli.

"Their all-encompassing approach to the whole process of real estate investment is really my ambition magnified and that's why I'm looking forward to working in this collaborative environment to perform the functions best suited to my clients needs."

As an associate vice president investments, Polsinelli will continue to handle a variety of property types, including land developments, multi-family, retail, office, loft buildings, user-owner properties, hotels and parking garages and she says she's looking forward to being part of the firm as it continues to strengthen its market presence in the city.

Indeed, Polsinelli's move to Marcus & Millichap is viewed by many as an endorsement of LeBar and his successor, Edward Jordan's ability to not just execute the firm's market strategy but solidify the company's place in the Manhattan market.

And, as the turbulence in the global real estate markets continues, there's speculation that she won't be the only new name to hang her licence on the Marcus & Millichap door.

Jordan himself said he's just happy Polsinelli is finally joining his firm. "We are well aware Adelaide had some attractive offers from other firms and are thrilled she chose to join us."

Jordan said he was "always interested" in talking with talented brokers looking to grow their business, adding, "In that respect, yes, we are expanding in that direction."

He said, "Our culture is different from that of other Manhattan firms which are led by an active senior broker. At Marcus & Millichap, managers are recruited from the ranks of the most successful agents and their roles become that of partner, mentor and coach, so they are not actively competing with the brokers we bring in.

"Like Adelaide, they are free to grow their business as passionately as they choose, working in a collaborative environment and utilizing a national platform without running into the risk that they are competing with a senior broker."

In a climate that has seen a sound resilience in middle market dispositions (assets valued from $1-$10 million), Jordan said Marcus & Millichap has not been as dramatically affected as some of its competitors. He attributes that to the firm's relationship-driven approach to brokerage. "We're not transaction driven," he explained. "We have relationships through the good times and the bad with active investors that go well beyond the typical transactions."