The market for net lease retail has been steady in 2018, largely due to the robust demand from investors.
CHICAGO—Net lease properties remain quite popular with investors, and many firms in the sector feel a Chicago presence is one of the keys to success. B+E, the first tech-driven brokerage and trading platform for net lease real estate, just opened a Chicago office and hired Tim Hain as a director and founding senior member. It has also signed off on an exclusive partnership which may give it a leg up on the competition.
“Chicago has such a rich, industrial market,” Camille Renshaw, B+E's chief executive officer, tells GlobeSt.com, and many investors find it quite appealing. And as a 13-year veteran of Duke Realty, Hain has garnered significant leasing and development experience in the sector, as well as with office properties.
B+E also has a new partnership with Inland Real Estate and RCX Capital Group, its DST trading platform. Some of their prospective clients decide they prefer investing in individual net lease properties rather than DSTs, and B+E will now get first crack at this group. “We're excited to be able to catch these leads,” Renshaw says.
And the B+E trading platform is designed to help virtually anyone trade net lease properties. It consists of user-friendly dashboards, real-time predictive pricing and an AI-driven exchange – all leveraging a data set that sweeps in the national NNN market. Much like internet stock trading platforms, buyers and sellers can conduct entire transactions online, reviewing real-time credit, news and tenant data.
Renshaw had been eyeing a possible move into Chicago for some time, but “we are very protective of our culture, and really wanted to make sure the first hire was right.” She and other company officials know Hain well, “and there is a lot of trust there.”
Chicago office will be located at 980 N. Michigan Ave., and joins existing B+E offices in New York, San Francisco and Tampa.
Other future offices are a possibility, perhaps in Los Angeles, Orange County, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, she adds. But any new locations will, above all, need the right person. “I don't need to be in those markets as much as I need great people at our company.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
