GlobeSt.com: What types of centers do you sell the most?

It's mostly strip retail. We started last year going heavy with the special servicers and the institutions. Those were our client base. As far as sellers go, it was the most distressed property that they had in their portfolio, like the unanchored strip retail. That was one with a dark Borders or Circuit City or anything along those lines. You might have seen a mall in a tertiary area that was over levered or a mall that lost a lot of its major anchors. We also do sell surplus corporate retail estate, so Home Depot, Target, AT&T and Verizon will sell their dark surplus real estate. Based on your sellers, that has been the most on-balance-sheet property that most people were willing to trade. Grocery or drug-anchored centers are probably that most buyers would call their bread and butter. You don't see a whole lot of that come around unless it was just so over levered on a CMBS-type of loan. You don't see a lot of those, and you don't see a lot on the open market.

GlobeSt.com: Are you seeing less retail distress or will that always be a norm in auctions?

If anybody is selling today, there is some form or element of distress. It may be the real estate or it may just be the owner, or the type of owner. If I have a retail center that is 95% leased with great sales volumes, it was taken back because it was just over levered, and my seller is a bank, a bank would be considered a distressed seller because they are not operators of real estate. That's the element of distress. I would argue that anything on the market today, which is an absolutely perfect trophy, which is a rarity, but otherwise why would you sell in this market unless you are going to get top dollar. We have distress on our platform, but the asset might not be labeled as distress. For example, we have five institutional quality assets that we're taking to market for Eastdil that aren't distressed but are owned by a special servicer. They should garner a tremendous amount of institutional interest. Our platform will disperse it out to a broad market. If these weren't owned by a special servicer they would be owned by a REIT or a pension fund, they wouldn't be distressed at all.

GlobeSt.com: What kinds of buyers are you seeing out there for retail? Are there any changes?

We've had our initial group of clients. But we're getting more and more product and more publicity, and you're seeing more people following to where the product is sold. The number of people is increasing, and some of our initial buyers have said that we are too popular. We have had mom and pops all the way to the largest institutional buyers in the world pursuing assets. The buyer pool has increased and every auction we have about 50,000 new people coming in.

GlobeSt.com: How do you convince retailer selling space to use the platform?

To convince a Target to use us or a Best Buy, we reach out through the brokerage community. We're actively trying to engage the brokers to work with us. There is always initial skepticism to something know. I was at CB Richard Ellis for 12 years, and I speak broker. J spend on average $500,000 on every auction I run. That's a lot of marketing dollars, and I put the brokers in that. So the broker's name is publicized, and calls get funneled directly to him. I am not screening any calls away from him. I am trying to say "I am on your side, am going to spend a lot of marketing dollars and make your life easier." Brokers go off to the Targets and their clients, and see if they have anything. Most of them do that are just dark spots on the balance sheets that are costing the firms money. We really are trying to do a huge net to capture anyone who has interest.

And it's the perfect storm. Everyone is very comfortable about buying things on the Internet right now. You can now bid from anywhere. I had a guy on safari in Zimbabwe bidding on a multifamily asset. He found an Internet café and was trying to bid tens of millions of dollars while he was on safari.

GlobeSt.com: Does the ICSC RECon show ramp up your business in any way?

Obviously ICSC is the central place for people trying to do business in the retail industry.What we're hoping to do is reach out to the service providers to the brokerage firms, from the attorneys to the landscapers. Everybody knows somebody, and everybody could have the potential to be a buyer on the platform. ICSC is a place to get in front of people and do business.