"Retired?" Doyle asked rhetorically. "No. I still enjoy real estate too much."But he did note that Hope for the City, the charity he helps run with his wife, does take up a lot of time. "It's an organization that distributes corporate surpluses to fight disease, poverty and hunger. When it started, we thought it would be great if we distributed $1 million of goods. But it's much bigger than that now. In 2003, Hope for the City distributed $100 million worth of food, medical equipment and so forth."

Charity work aside, Doyle keeps active in the company he bought from founder George Welsh after working for him for 15 years. Currently, the Welsh Cos. owns some 5 million sf of commercial real estate valued in excess of $400 million, manages some 23 million sf of property in the Midwest, and does about 2,000 leasing deals a year. For a few years, there was a minority owner of part of the company, but Doyle revealed at RealShare Minneapolis that the senior management of the company recently re-purchased that interest. "The company is now wholly owned by its directors," he said, adding that he was glad that nothing ever came of the interest expressed by the former Insignia in buying the company.

Regarding the Twin Cities real estate market, Doyle offered the observation that "this is the second-toughest market I've seen in my career. Vacancies are high, and there's still sublease space. But the Welsh Cos. is having a good year."

The biggest issue in Minneapolis/St. Paul real estate, he noted, is jobs. "We haven't seen the job counts," he said. "They will come. Everyone hopes soon, but no one knows when. But with the in-migration in the Twin Cities, they will come."

The key to survival in any market, Doyle said, is to not be too excited when the market is up, and not too down when the market is down. "That's been my approach," he noted. "A lot in this business changes, but some things never do. It's a local business--people forget that--and it's a cyclical business. And it's a competitive business. Either the deal is done or you lose it. There's no changing that."

RealShare Minneapolis, which drew some 200 local real estate experts, was hosted by Real Estate Media, parent firm of GlobeSt.com.

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RealShare EXCLUSIVE: Jobs Remains Twin Cities' Biggest Burden, says Welsh CEO Doyle.

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