Smyth: Our company started out in 1995 buying multi-tenant industrial properties, and a few years later started acquiring office assets. We're strictly buyers of industrial—usually multi-tenant—and multi-tenant and multi-story office assets. In the office sector, we're traditionally value-added buyers. In industrial, we definitely pursue value-add opportunities and can do more core-plus with our business partners.

Our product range is broader in industrial than in office. We like Southern California to buy, although we bought our first asset up in the Bay area and want to buy more industrial assets in Northern California. We sold a lot of our Las Vegas portfolio, and we're looking to buy both office and industrial in Vegas. We have been aggressive in Arizona, and we're looking in the Carolinas and on the East Coast. We want to expand in areas such as the Carolinas, Nashville, Atlanta and Dallas—primarily industrial. We've stayed pretty close to product type, but we're more flexible in geography.

GlobeSt.com: Which markets are you looking to invest in during 2018, and why?

Smyth: We've had the same investment criteria since our inception: we like to acquire assets well below replacement costs, generally those for which we can do something physically or rebrand or put in place better management practices. We've acquired bank REO assets, and we don't mind taking on difficult assets. We like to acquire below replacement cost in markets where it's difficult to buy in those asset types in those markets.

GlobeSt.com: Which markets are you looking to dispose of properties in this year and why?

Smyth: With some notable exceptions where we've owned property long-term, we acquire it with our institutional partners, and the business plan is typically three to seven years in term. When we reach the end of our business term, we tend to sell. So, it has more to do with our business plan than the market itself. We can be a buyer and a seller in the same market depending on the businesses.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about office investment for 2018?

Smyth: We are very bullish on the markets and product types I mentioned in industrial. From a macro and a micro business plan, it's very difficult to reproduce industrial in a lot of markets. In office, we are a little more selective; we want to be in markets where it's difficult to reproduce the office product, and we want to be competitively priced against other office assets. We are not retail buyers in office. In Charlotte and Raleigh, we want to be office buyers—the dynamics of those markets leave us with a lot of rental growth.