WASHINGTON, DC–Urban Pace has made a name for itself in condo projects of a certain size — 20 to 60 units — in the Washington DC area. It has no intention of losing that cache, but as recent hires have suggested, it is also positioning itself for expansion not only in the US but also internationally. The springboard it is using, not surprisingly, is the many resources of Long and Foster, which acquired the company this time last year.
“Long and Foster has given Urban Pace access to a number of different resources we didn't have before — Christie's International Real Estate and Long & Foster's domestic network of 11,000 agents,” the recently-hired co-president, Clint Mann, tells GlobeSt.com. “Leveraging those assets has given us a competitive advantage.
Mann has been charged with driving Urban Pace's expansion. Within a year, he says, the company expects to have a presence in three or four market including its DC footprint and its emerging profile in Philadelphia. The company is also taking its act international, marketing some of the properties it has in the pipeline in the DC area to Chinese buyers. After the acquisition, it began using Long and Foster's partnership with Juwai.com, China's largest international real estate portal to that end.
Then, in December 2016 Urban Pace brought two Washington DC condo projects currently under construction — The Adele, a project by Ellisdale Construction and RED Multifamily at 16th and K streets, NW, and The Memphis, a Rooney Properties project in Petworth — to the Luxury Properties Show in Shanghai, China.
Urban Pace co-president Matt Dewey, is coordinating with Mann on the expansion but his primary task is to keep Urban Pace on track in the District. Here too, though, it appears that Urban Pace is expanding. “We are on track to hire a few more great people right now, so stay tuned,” he told GlobeSt.com.
GlobeSt.com sat down with Mann and Dewey to talk about the company's expansion plans in greater depth. Following are excerpts from the interview.
GlobeSt.com: Tell me more about marketing your properties in China please. That is a genius move by the way.
Mann: We agree! DC historically has not seen much marketing of new home sales to foreign buyers, by that I mean companies actively trying to build those kinds of relationships or using an international network of brokers. Miami and New York and San Francisco to a certain extent do that kind of marketing to foreign buyers well, but DC hasn't.
Dewey: Chinese buyers specifically focus on new construction, so it is a big asset to our clients to have a presence there. For the Luxury Properties Show we had Chinese buyers flying in to look at what we were marketing.
GlobeSt.com: So did you make any sales?
Dewey: In general, yes we have sold finished properties to Chinese buyers through Long and Foster. The projects we took to the Shanghai show are still under development, so it remains to be seen if we found buyers there.
GlobeSt.com: Tell me what you are doing in Philadelphia.
Dewey: We have one project we are actively selling in south Philly, Southwark on Reed, and it is 50% sold. We also have two other large sites in the pipeline for which we will start sales in the next six months. All together those projects account for about 200 units. What we did was facilitate the deal through market research with a DC developer. [Southwark on Reed is being developed by a joint venture between D3 Real Estate Development, The Concordia Group and The Resmark Cos.]
GlobeSt.com: Is this the model you will be using to expand elsewhere?
Mann: Yes, any urban marketplace where Long and Foster has a footprint, that is where we will be focused. Right now we are working on Baltimore, Md., Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., Charleston, S.C., Philly, and Richmond.
GlobeSt.com: With all these changes underway, how would you describe Urban Pace's mission now?
Mann: We are the only new home sales and marketing firm in the Mid-Atlantic with a global reach.
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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.
