IRVINE, CA-Faris Lee Investments has opened new offices in Phoenix and Las Vegas and has plans for at least five other new locations in a growth strategy that reflects how this is an ideal time for the company to expand, Faris Lee president Rich Walter tells GlobeSt.com. In addition to its Phoenix and Las Vegas offices, which are up and running, the Irvine-based company has its sights set on more new offices in Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas, Chicago and Miami, and is on the lookout for talent in all of those markets, Walter says.

Faris Lee's Phoenix office is operating with a four-person team, the senior member of which is managing director David A. Wetta, a 25-year veteran of Marcus & Millichap, where he was most recently a director with the National Retail Group. The other members of the Phoenix team are Joseph R. Compagno, Paul Salinas and Nathan Hubbell, all formerly with Marcus & Millichap. In Las Vegas, Faris Lee is operating under the direction of managing director Robert L. Moore, a third-generation Las Vegas native with 20 years of commercial real estate experience. Moore recently served as president of Gatski Commercial Real Estate Services and previously was a senior director of the asset consulting group at Cushman & Wakefield and before that president of sales and leasing for Realty Holdings Group.

Walter, whose firm focuses solely on retail investment sales, tells GlobeSt.com that a primary reason this is a good time to expand is that, "There are some really top people available who are looking for a retail-focused platform like ours." He explains that those same people would not have been available when the market was booming because the top producers were busy doing deals and were well-positioned within their firms. "That's not typically a time when people move around," he said.

Now, however, circumstances have changed for many top retail investment sales brokers. "A lot of the national firms have had to severely cut back their overhead, which affects service level," Walter says. Many national firms also are now focusing less on investment sales and are on corporate services and contractual services that provide them with an ongoing income stream.

Nonetheless, Walter says, the top retail investment sales producers at those firms "still have great clients and a need to provide a high level of service," so they are looking around for opportunities to do that. At the same time Faris Lee, which was not thinking of expansion during the boom years because it was too busy doing deals, now sees an opportunity to grow.

Although the company has transacted business in every market in the country from its two existing offices, Walter says, the firm until now has been operating from its headquarters in Irvine and from a New York City office that it opened about 18 months ago. The company decided that "having people on the ground in major markets" would benefit both Faris Lee and its clients as well as top producers who are looking for a platform that is strictly retail oriented.

"We spent the last year and a half focusing on what would be the right way to expand, into what markets, with what type of people and how to maintain our culture," Walter says. In terms of markets, the company already has new offices in Atlanta and Orlando but has yet to staff them permanently, with brokers from other Faris Lee offices operating them for now. "The goal is to find market leaders in those areas to staff the offices," Walter says.

In terms of the types of people the company is looking for, Walter says, "We are going after market leaders who really want to be working with like-minded people and to have an opportunity to expand their business." The phrase "working with like-minded people" is important, Walter explains, because it refers to the fact that the company is entirely retail-oriented and it relates to the third goal in the company's expansion plans: maintaining its culture. "Our culture is very collaborative, with a lot of sharing of information and an open data base approach," the Faris Lee president says.

Faris Lee's expansion comes at a time when, Walter says, "More than at any time in our firm's history, clients are really asking for advice. They're looking at their portfolios and asking, 'What do I do?'

For example, Faris Lee recently analyzed a portfolio of 33 properties to advise the owner on which ones to hold, which ones to sell and other facets of strategy in today's market. And it isn't just a question of buy or sell, according to Walter. Any large portfolio is likely to have a mix of properties, ranging from stabilized to distressed to those with loans maturing. "A lot of the analysis is very property-specific, so we are doing a lot of street-level work to let our clients know what we think is the right strategy right now on any given property," Walter says.

Identifying the right strategy today means staying current on everything that is happening in a given market because the markets today are ever-changing, Walter says. Opening new offices staffed by leaders in their respective markets will help Faris Lee help its clients by being "on the ground working with their properties and portfolios," the Faris Lee president says.