Ernie Jarvis
WASHINGTON, DC—Ernie Jarvis is well known in the Washington, DC area commercial real estate industry. He was with First Potomac Realty as a senior vice president for five years and a managing director at CBRE for nine years before that. He co-founded The Jarvis Co. with his cousin in 1999 and returned to it after he left First Potomac last year. That company's current status is unclear; the website has not been kept current.
Now Jarvis is launching another firm: Jarvis Commercial Real Estate, a full-service brokerage company that will open its doors on Feb. 17, 2016.
However, based on Jarvis' description of his latest endeavor, it will be nothing like any of the entities where he has been to date.
It's Small And It Will Stay Small
For starters, it is a small company and Jarvis is positioning that as an advantage.
“The proposition that bigger firms are better simply isn't true – we submit that excellence is better,” he said in a prepared statement.
And Jarvis Commercial Real Estate will stay small. Jarvis said he plans to hire just a few brokerage professionals, which he qualified as “those who make waves in the industry.”
It's Structuring Itself to Focus on Millennials
Jarvis Commercial Real Estate appears intent on targeting the younger end of the workforce, noting that by 2020, nearly half of the workforce will be under the age of 30, “most of whom who will use their mobile devices as their primarily method of communication.”
For this group, the role of service provider needs to be re-imagined, he said, “by combining significant relationships with hyperlocal market knowledge…” as well the use of technology, data collection, and analysis.”
And That Includes Its Corporate Culture
It also sounds as though Jarvis wants to hire out of this generation as well, at least based on the description of the corporate culture he is seeking to establish. Jarvis described the company's corporate culture as one that will treat its brokers like “clients not just producers” and will “promote collaboration and communication in a smaller, more collegial environment — free of internal competition and politics.”
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
