Jack Ross, principal and co-founder of Waterfall, tells GlobeSt.com that the company considered several key ingredients for the acquisition, and chose to work with the CBC based on three things: its nationally recognized brand, established footprint in the marketplace and a strong balance sheet.

“From our perspective, the goals are to establish ourselves in important markets to our franchise, meaning the investing franchise, and certainly getting started in the New York market and in Southern California are two very important markets on that side,” he says. “It is the intention to build out a more significant footprint nationally.”

With its Manhattan headquarters and the California office set to open next week, the CBC Alliance is planning to expand over the next 12 to 18 months into other major metros, according to Obie Walli, CEO of Coldwell Banker Commercial Alliance, who tells GlobeSt.com that the market for small investors and small businesses are “underserved,” and opportunities exist.

“Technically for us, we looked at the overall commercial real estate industry, and in our eyes, it is really bifurcated into two segments, the segment being the institutional arena, which would be the larger deals and larger transactions, and then the smaller deals, which we define as anything below $10 million in value, and we consider that to be more of the small business owner and the small- to mid-size investor,” he says, noting that the arena is currently underrepresented on a national basis. “There’s a lot of tenant firms in the market that really served those clients, but there’s nobody that’s providing a full-service solution on a large scale, and what I mean by large scale is multiple markets under a uniform brand that has the platform, the resources an the tools and the brokers to allow them to deliver a high level of service to that specific group of clients.”

And the market is quietly an active one. According to figures collected from the CBC Alliance, the small balance commercial property market totals $3.6 trillion in market value, and small-sized investors, users and owners of real estate make up 35% of commercial real estate business transacted annually – accounting for approximately $25 billion of gross commission on an annual basis. In addition, the US Census Bureau estimates that 99% of the six million firms currently active in the US fall into the small business category.

In addition to the three elements mentioned by Ross, Walli says having the backing of Waterfall will also help expand its reach directly on the ground. “You can get out there and bring the strong leadership team at the local markets that understands their business locally and realizes the value of providing services to the local market, and that translates to the quality of the professionals that they are going to be bringing on to serve our clients,” he says, noting that the CBC Alliance will target areas like Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston and Miami for future growth.

Peter Sabesan and Richard Selig will remain on the team as principals and will be responsible for the growth of the NYC operation. Additionally, Bruce Weissberg will serve as president of CBC Alliance's national operations.