This is an HTML version of an article that ran in Real Estate Forum. To see the story in its original format click here.

When looking into some of the up-and-coming markets in the country, one would find many of them in the Southeast. It's no surprise, then, that the up-and-coming CRE professionals in those areas are making a name for themselves in the industry. Here's a sampling of the region's emerging leaders.       

Karyl Argamasilla, 35
Attorney
Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP
Miami
Karyl Argamasilla not only speaks English and Spanish—she speaks the language of commercial real estate law as well. Argamasilla is an attorney in Bilzin Sumberg's Real Estate Group who is focused on structuring and executing large deals across commercial real estate classes. She represents the nation's largest CMBS special servicer, LNR Partners. The 13-year legal industry veteran is also the youngest-ever CREW Miami president. She loves negotiating deals and helping women and minorities climb the commercial real estate ranks. Daily Business Review has recognized her among the Top Dealmakers of the Year (Hotel), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation named her on a list of 40 Under 40 Outstanding Lawyers of Miami-Dade County in 2012, and she's on the Florida Super Lawyers' Stars list, among other accolades. She says, “This is an exciting time for Miami's commercial real estate market because we continue to experience stabilization and strengthening of fundamentals in key submarkets.”

Tyler Averitt, 30
Senior Director
Multi Housing Advisors
Atlanta
Since joining Multi Housing Advisors in the spring of 2007, Averitt has been instrumental in the sale of more than 25,000 units with an aggregate volume in excess of $600 million. He currently oversees the future development and growth of the team at MHA and their overall market share in the Atlanta MSA. Hard work, dedication and a little luck are what Averitt feels are the most important things for someone to rise to the top of their peer group. His goals for the future of his career and the overall growth of MHA are to continue to grow the firm's  market share in the Atlanta MSA by moving more into class B+ and class A space, while maintaining his team's notable market share in the C and B spaces.

Justin Beck, 32
President
Beck Property Co.
Pensacola, FL
In just a few years, Beck has built a business that provides a broad array of services. He assembled and manages a team that includes property managers, commercial insurance producers, 11 commercial real estate brokers and other staff. And after three years as the firm's president, Beck has already compiled an impressive record. He has acted as the principal/developer of several major projects in Pensacola, including One51Main, a $5.5-million mixed-use project at the city's Community Maritime Park and the Shops of East Hill, a $6-million retail redevelopment in the historic East Hill neighborhood. In addition, the firm oversees the property and asset management of two million square feet of properties. Beck has completed more than $50 million in transactions over the past two years, finished a merger with a commercial insurance company and, at the same time, expanded the company's presence across the Gulf Coast by opening a Tallahassee office and expanding services into South Alabama. He says this expansion perfectly positions the company for even more growth. “I believe we will continue to see the rise of the urban center throughout the country and, specifically, in the Southeast.”

Max Boehmer, 33
Founding Partner
Vertica Partners
Tampa, FL
Before his 30th birthday, Boehmer was a founding principal at Vertica Partners. He oversees the real estate investment and advisory firm's operations and leads its sales, marketing and acquisitions platforms. He was directly involved in nearly $240 million in transactions in 2013, including about $140 million in multifamily investment and development sales. A member of CCIM, ULI, NAR and a number of other organizations, Boehmer is also involved in charities like Meals on Wheels. His secret to success, as he describes it, is hard work. “The Southeast property market has benefited better than any other region in the country and will continue to do so through this cycle,” he says. “With the high quality of life, continued migration from the Midwest and Northeast combined with the continued influx of foreign investment, the Southeast is poised to be the regional leader for years to come.”

Wesley Crunkleton, 35
Principal
Crunkleton & Associates LLC
Huntsville, AL
Wesley Crunkleton has been the driving force behind the growth at C&A since moving to Huntsville in December 2005. Over the course of his career, he has developed several multi-tenant retail centers occupied by nationally recognized retailers. His total leasing and brokerage transaction volume for the past two years alone exceeds $100 million. For all his accomplishments—he's a CPM, CCIM candidate and also serves on the board for Downtown Huntsville and Huntsville Hospital Development Council—he realizes, “Rising to the top of Southeast commercial real estate will take patience, humility and calculated risk.” But he's on his way and has a strong sense of the market dynamics in Huntsville and beyond. “As the Southeast region continues to show investors successful returns, there will continue to be an influx of capital into the region, putting pressure on competition for institutional grade investments.”

Andres del Corral, 33
Vice President
Blanca Commercial Real Estate
Miami
Coming up on his fourth year as one of the top-producing brokers at Blanca Commercial, del Corral has been promoted to VP. He's an integral part of the team responsible for leasing and marketing more than 1.5 million square feet of space at nearly a dozen office towers throughout six different Miami-Dade County submarkets. For him, leadership in commercial real estate must include being a team player, knowledge of the market, responsiveness and community involvement. He's known for his skill in supporting his team in all aspects of assignments and deals, he is responsive to co-brokers' requests and is able to adapt to different strategies required for specific assignments. He also has a deep knowledge of the Miami market, history and business industry, and is always looking to improve best practices to maximize efficiencies.

Mario Gonzalez, 34
Senior Asset Manager
Health Care REIT Mgmt. Services Group
Jupiter, FL
“The gap between class A strategic medical office assets and the next tier of assets will continue to grow,” according to Gonzalez. “Hospital and health system consolidation will create winners and losers in each market, making due diligence and vision increasingly important in our investment decisions. Healthcare will likely continue to create uncertainty amongst physicians, which will further bolster the consolidation trend.” Gonzalez is currently responsible for the financial performance of 3.4 million square feet of medical office space in the company's Florida and East regions. During his five years at the firm, he has negotiated more than 400,000 square feet of new leases and more than one million square feet of renewals. He has also sourced off-market acquisition opportunities valued in excess of $50 million.

April Hawkinson, 34
Associate Vice President
Cassidy Turley
Atlanta
Creativity. Diligence. Positive attitude. Those are among the qualities April Hawkinson carries in an ultra-competitive Atlanta commercial real estate landscape. Working with both tenants and landlords, she was instrumental in winning the corporate services business for the State of Georgia's 195-million-square-foot portfolio, SunTrust Bank's 14-million-square-foot portfolio and Aaron's three-million-square-foot portfolio. She's been named a Cassidy Turley 2013 Rising Star and received the firm's national Cross-Selling Award for the past two years, among other accolades. Hawkinson chooses to work in Atlanta because she sees an opportunity to create her own business and specialize in an area that's best suited for her personality and skill set. “My overall career goals are to not only be the top-producing female broker in my office,” she says, “but to be an overall top-producing broker in the Southeast.”

Kinsey Hinkson, 31
Property Manager
Granite Properties
Atlanta
Described as high-energy by her peers, Hinkson currently manages a diverse commercial office portfolio in Atlanta totaling over 700,000 square feet. Besides an attention to detail, she believes it's important to motivate people and to remain “on the go.” Granite Properties has acquired or developed more than 20 million square feet of commercial real estate and is known for taking an unusually long-term view. Hinkson also adheres to that philosophy in her day-to-day work. That means keeping an eye on the financial aspects of her role, designing more efficient operations and lowering operating expenses for tenants. As a new board member for BOMA Georgia, she takes advantage of educational opportunities offered by that organization and others to stay up on the latest technology and trends in the field. And within Granite, Kinsey participated in its Tenant Segmentation Task Force for Customer Expert Project in the latter half of 2013. She was one of seven employees involved in this company-wide project to study customers' needs in depth and help further define Granite as a company.

Alex Horn, 28
Managing Partner
BridgeInvest
Miami
Alex Horn founded BridgeInvest based on the principals of integrity, transparency and professionalism. He continues to uphold these values in the firm's daily operations, and has since led BridgeInvest to become one of the largest, most successful private commercial real estate lenders in Florida. Horn has closed nearly $100 million in commercial real estate loans and created a standardization process for the company to review and provide feedback to clients on their loan requests within 48 hours. He is particularly proud of BridgeInvest's ability to devise and structure creative financing solutions to time-sensitive problems that turn most other lenders away. Horn chose a career in real estate lending due to his passion for real estate and finance. Lending was a marriage of the two whereby he could provide capital to developers and investors looking to redevelop and improve neighborhoods. 

Stephanie McCullough, 30 and Nancy Sumner, 30
Senior Leasing Advisors
Shopping Center Group 
Jacksonville, FL
The team of McCullough (top) and Sumner (bottom) focuses exclusively on landlord representation, a specialization that has enabled them to develop superior market knowledge and create a niche in retail leasing. Together, they have grown their leasing portfolio from seven properties in 2011 to 39 properties and four million square feet. It consists of grocery-anchored shopping centers, lifestyle developments, ground-up projects and redevelopments and power centers across North Florida and South Georgia. They seek to create value for each client's asset by identifying the highest and best uses to target for each property and executing that plan in a timely manner. McCullough and Sumner communicate with peers across markets to share ideas and help launch systems they have developed in order to be more efficient and effective.

Nitin Motwani, 35
Managing Principal
Miami Worldcenter
Miami
At 35 years old, Motwani is managing every aspect of one of the highest profile and anticipated projects in the world, the $2-billion, 30-acre mixed-use Miami Worldcenter Downtown. He was also responsible for bringing in a multi-billion-dollar institutional partner, CIM, to capitalize on the project. At the same time, Motwani is developing the luxury Paramount Fort Lauderdale Beach condominium on the site of the former Howard Johnson hotel and is managing director of Encore Housing Opportunity Fund, with over $1 billion of investments across four states. A South Florida native, he is involved in various organizations, including the Miami Downtown Development Authority and Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. He received the 2014 Urban Land Institute Young Leader of the Year award. “Cities like Miami are requiring projects to be more pedestrian-friendly,” he says. “That will draw even more people Downtown, which will make for a thriving real estate market that is sustainable.”

Falon Parker, 31
Property Manager
Greystar Management
Huntersville, NC
Parker, a property manager at Greystar Management, started in the business as a leasing agent. In less than three years, she demonstrated such a natural talent for the industry, she was promoted to asset manager and then property manager. Her current responsibility is to act as a floating manager for various Greystar properties and assure that on-site managers are living up to Greystar standards, including working within budget guidelines, encouraging and overseeing the firm's newly implemented energy management and sustainable practices, training new managers and their staff—in short, being the eyes and ears on the ground for the corporate office. She is also responsible for developing operating budgets that increase the value of the property, reduce operating expenses, meet or exceed investor projections and maintain or increase the integrity of the property.

Jorge Rodriguez, 34
Director
Colliers International Central Florida
Orlando
Rodriguez is responsible for retail leasing and sales in Colliers' Orlando office, splitting his efforts among landlord representation for institutional and private capital clients, tenant representation and building sales. He handles site selection, lease negotiation, new business solicitation and tenant relations for his clients. Among his other accomplishments, Rodriguez was responsible for the Central Florida office's largest land lease in 2013, and in 2012 won a Colliers International Retail Services Deal of the Year award at the national level for the Market at Southside in Orlando. Beyond his dealmaking acumen, Rodriguez gives his time and talent to help others in the Colliers ecosystem succeed. This year, for example, he has taken on the responsibility of training a junior broker. He's on track to becoming a statewide retail leader throughout Florida for Colliers.

Nik Sachdev, 35
Managing Director
Convergent Capital Partners
Tampa, FL
Sachdev and his other partner founded Convergent Capital Partners in 2008.  He oversees the acquisitions for the company, manages its eight employees and oversees more than $200 million in real estate assets. Since Convergent's founding, it has made more than $450 million worth of acquisitions, and Sachdev has risen to be one of the top real estate executives in the Tampa Bay real estate community. He brought to the startup a background in the banking industry, a grounding that put him in good stead for Convergent's $63-million acquisition in 2010 of a full-service hotel in Clearwater Beach, a deal that involved more than 65 lenders. “The downturn in 2007-2009 made real estate professionals evaluate risk more closely,” he says. “The next generation will rely on strict financial modeling, technology and data gathering in making real estate investment decisions.”

Zachary Sackley
First Vice President
CBRE
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Sackley is an integral member of CBRE's South Florida Multifamily Institutional Properties team, which has handled over 60,000 multi-housing units and land transactions with a value in excess of $11 billion. Sackley has played a pivotal role in almost every noteworthy team transaction over the past six years, including some of the most high-profile deals in South Florida during 2013-2014. Since joining CBRE in 2006, he participated in the sale, marketing and consulting of over $3.4 billion of multifamily and land assignments representing over 30,000 units. Sackley is an active participant and contributor to CBRE's internal philanthropic program, CBRE Cares, raising funds for local community organizations including the Shelter Program, a non-profit organization that focuses on improving housing options for those in need. Recently, he spearheaded a toy drive, collecting over 200 toys for local South Florida families during the holiday season.

Amanda Steidtmann, 35
Senior Associate
Crossman & Co.
Atlanta
In just two years as a senior associate, Steidtmann has already established herself as a leader in the company's Southeast region. She inked nearly 25 deals just last year, totaling over 235,000 square feet. The company has given Steidtmann the responsibility for leasing all of the Publix-owned shopping centers in Atlanta metro area, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. She is no stranger to such responsibilities. Prior to joining Crossman & Co., Steidtmann was a partner with DART Retail Advisors in Atlanta, which she joined shortly after it was founded in April 2009, and leased a portfolio of almost four million square feet. Furthermore, she spent four years as a regional leasing director for at Equity One Inc. and one year with Victory Real Estate in Columbus, GA. Already licensed in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee, she is currently working on her license for North Carolina and completing her CCIM candidacy.

Moss Withers, 30
Broker
NAI Carolantic Realty Inc.
Raleigh, NC
Withers joined NAI Carolantic in 2009 as an intern while completing his MBA at North Carolina State University. He quickly distinguished himself as a strong member of the team and a top producer in the local commercial real estate market. Within his first year of becoming a broker, Withers finalized more than 30 real estate transactions ranging from retail and office leasing to land sales. His tenure within the company has now led to a focus in land and large investment sales. Among his credits over the past year include the sale of Raleigh Center Ice, the practice facility for the Carolina Hurricanes; the sale of 286 acres along Capital Boulevard in Franklin County; and 18 acres along Raeford Road in Fayetteville, NC for a new Nissan Dealership. His individual deal volume between 2012 and 2013 consisted of 94 transactions totaling more than $30 million.

Paul Wrights, 31
Executive Vice President
Cortland Partners
Atlanta
The primary renter demographic of individuals aged 22 to 34 has grown to a level not seen since the late 1980s, generating tremendous demand for rental housing. That is according to Paul Wrights, who says, “The demographic trends show there is more growth left to come for this primary renter cohort, which will continue to greatly benefit the multifamily industry. The decrease in the home ownership rate, the increase in average student debt and the continued trend of men and women waiting longer to marry and form households, have all combined to push demand for rental housing even higher.” Wrights has a passion for real estate that shows in everything he does. Currently, he leads a team of 15 investment professionals with direct oversight of all underwriting, business planning and asset management for Cortland's multifamily investment portfolio, comprising 25,000-plus apartments worth more than $2 billion.

Yamal Yidios Char, 32
President and CEO
Ytech International
Miami
A nationwide multifamily investment and development company headquartered in Miami, Ytech International has invested in some 7,000 apartments and currently owns or operates a $300-million portfolio of 3,000 units in Florida and Texas, with $40 million in rental revenue in 2013. Yidios Char founded it from scratch in 2005, and since then has created more than 50 holding companies and subsidiaries including Ytech Development, Ytech Lenders, Ytech Realty, Ytech Financial, Ytech Investments, Ytech R.E. Holdings and Ytech Construction, among many others. Currently Ytech International's portfolio counts 1,700 units in South Florida and 1,300 units in Houston; single-family home subdivisions; three retail assets totaling more than 200,000 square feet; an ownership interest in a 10,000-acre master-planned community; and 500,000 square feet of class A and B office space.

Craig Zogby, 32
Managing Director
Kayne Anderson Real Estate Advisors
Boca Raton, FL
Zogby learned the real estate business literally from the ground up as a construction contractor, then as a developer and now as an equity investor. Although this arguably wasn't the typical career path, it has given him insight across a broad spectrum and has enabled him to integrate his experience in the different aspects of dealmaking into successful execution of complicated deals. At Kayne Anderson, Zogby manages all phases of the transaction and remains engaged with joint venture partners throughout the development process for Kayne Anderson's real estate private equity platform, specifically its student and conventional housing deals. “The Southeast property market is changing in much of the same ways it has over the past 20 years,” he says. “I think that we will see a lot of secondary markets begin to be built out as the majors are peaking in both value and cost to construct.”