JLL Team Joins Walker & Dunlop To Set Up Dallas Office

DALLAS–Walker & Dunlop Inc. has hired away a six-person team from Jones Lang LaSalle in Dallas to set up a new investment sales office in the Texas city.

Dallas marks the third new market that Walker & Dunlop’s investment sales group has entered so far this year, after New England and Southern California. Managing directors Jeff Price, Bill Simmons and Alisan Rutland will lead the team originating and executing multifamily investment sales, with a focus on Texas and the southern United States.

Greg Engler, executive vice president of Walker & Dunlop’s investment sales group, acknowledges that there are some marketplace concerns about oversupply in the multifamily market. Despite those concerns, Walker & Dunlop is both excited about the Dallas market and multifamily in general, he tells GlobeSt.com.

“Our thoughts is that there’s plenty of liquidity for investments in multifamily,” Engler says. “Interest rates continue to remain low. Concerns about underwriting has given us a little more supply but we’re in this for the long haul. And we’re very bullish even in the short term for multifamily transactions.”

Walker & Dunlop has also been eyeing the Texas market for some time, according to Engler.

“Dallas is one of the most active multifamily markets in the country, with incredible job growth and a tremendous amount of transaction volume,” he says. “We see a lot of potential to expand throughout Texas. Hiring this sales team is the first step in that process.”

The trio of newly hired managing directors has more than six decades of combined experience and have closed over $10 billion of investment sales volumes during their careers, according to Walker & Dunlop. They previously were part of Jones Lang LaSalle’s capital markets group and also worked at The Apartment Group – a multifamily brokerage and consulting firm that Price had founded.

The team has “consistently been one of the top-producing teams for JLL in the country over the last five years,” Engler says.

Bethesda, Md.-based Walker & Dunlop notes that it grew its investment sales volume by 29% in the first half of 2018. The company employs more than 650 professionals across 29 offices across the United States.