Bay Area Commercial Real Estate Developer
Hi Bigger Pockets community! I am a commercial real estate developer / investor / GP that acquires and renovates underperforming and mismanaged properties in the Bay Area. Over 4 years ago, I left my job working for larger institutional private equity firms to start working on the type of projects I truly cared about, in locations where I was most interested in. So I founded my company to go out on my own, to revitalize buildings, but also to positively impact the communities where my projects are. It’s been a blast since then, re-positioning several buildings. I truly believe that dedication, doing what's right, transparency, communication, and simply staying true to my word got me where I am today.
My background is in institutional real estate that includes over $1 billion in transactions experience in multifamily, office, retail and hospitality property types. I focus on adaptive reuse strategies, particularly with historic buildings, and I led the repositioning of assets throughout the Western United States. While I worked at institutional real estate firms, I was responsible for the asset management of value-add funds totaling over $400 million. I was also responsible for a value-add portfolio totaling 5.2 million square feet of office assets, over 1,300 apartment units and 4.5 million square feet of retail centers.
The acquisition of my first project in 2015 was a 21 unit live-work loft residential building, and it was such a stressful push to piece together the investors and negotiate with the seller. It was near the holidays, and the seller imposed a deadline by the end of the year. But I made it through and it closed just a few days before the new year of 2016. I successfully renovated it and it was a great exit for my investors in 2017.
Two weeks ago, I completed the sale of another project, an office and R&D building in Fremont, California, next to Tesla’s main manufacturing facility. It was completed renovated and sold to a technology company who liked the improvements and is moving in their operations.
Earlier this year I closed the purchase of a 120 unit student housing project, just a block away from the UC Berkeley campus. I’ve uploaded a picture of it below – it’s been such a fun project to work on, and it still has much more work to be done over the next couple years.
If you're in the Bay Area and want to grab coffee, let me know and message me. I'm glad to talk about any real estate related questions you may have.
Best to all of you! Look forward to being a part of this community!
Eric
