ATLANTA—Gary Saykaly is reading to make his mark on Franklin Street. The former Cushman & Wakefield retail investment sales executive hit the ground running when he joined the firm as senior director in October. Now, he’s looking into 2015.
GlobeSt.com caught up with Saykaly to get his take on three trends he’s seeing in relation to retail real estate sellers, investors, and cap rates, in part one of this series. Be sure to come back to this afternoon’s Southeast edition to read part two, in which he will discuss why it’s so difficult for investors to find shopping centers to purchase in the current climate.
GlobeSt.com: You recently joined Franklin Street. Why did you feel like this was the company for you, and how are you helping to ramp up its retail platform?
Saykaly: Franklin Street and I both felt I could be very accretive to the firm’s growing retail investment sales and joint venture platform. The majority of my career as a retail investment broker has been spent with two of the largest global real estate service platforms, which was great from a relationship-building standpoint with institutions, REITs, and national private operators and developers, and in increasing my experience in executing on and structuring larger and more complex transactions.
Joining one of the fastest growing full-service brokerage firms that offers a great vision, value proposition, culture and cross-service-line collaboration was the right move. Franklin Street provides me the flexibility, resources and collaborative team members to truly be an aligned investment advisor with my clients, helping them first determine the optimal monetization strategy, and then providing best-in-class execution.
GlobeSt.com: What trends are you seeing in the retail real estate sector in Atlanta and the Southeast?
Saykaly: The retail investment market continues to be demand-heavy and short on supply, fueled by low interest rates. With the era of the non-fit asset sales by REITs significantly decreasing, the primary sellers for the next year will change, which could alter the profile of retail assets being offered to the market.
GlobeSt.com: What about investors?
Saykaly: We expect to see investors continue to move up the risk curve and pursue riskier investment strategies to deploy their investment capital. Also, we are seeing an increasing number of equity capital sources and investors that are willing to purchase a partial interest in a stabilized asset, allowing the owner to monetize a portion of the asset value while maintaining property management and leasing.
