Heavy Hitters Team for Grubb & Ellis Investment Sales Play

The faces behind the initiative are Scot C. Farber, who has left Credit Suisse First Boston's Dallas office for the senior vice president's slot, and Darrell L. Betts, a four-year senior vice president in the Houston market. Farber was part of a seven-member investment sales team that left Jones Lang LaSalle in midyear 2001 and linked up with Credit Suisse First Boston. His move to Grubb & Ellis puts him with a long-time friend and a co-worker of 14 years ago.

The strategic alliance will keep Farber on Dallas turf and Betts in his usual stomping grounds. They will function as one despite separate offices and separate staffs while building a listing pipeline that has one contract ready to sign and others in final negotiating stages for 500,000 sf in Texas metropolises.

Larger market share and top producers in two major markets are the keys to the concept's success, the team concurs. Farber and Betts are known in their respective markets for their sharp deals. Each has racked up more than $1 billion in transactions in their 14-year careers. "It was," Betts tells GlobeSt.com, "an opportunity for Grubb & Ellis to get a top investment sales broker in the Dallas office."

Farber took a more humble approach to his new role: "It's an incredible opportunity for me. Grubb & Ellis has a terrific national platform." What he does bring with him is that same black book of clients that he had at Credit Suisse First Boston. Farber is working the Dallas market hard and talking to some prospects as he settles into his new surroundings.

Betts says the partnership breaks away from the norm of completing investment sales with a different local broker from deal to deal. Before striking up the Farber-Betts alliance, they consulted with clients about the merit of an investment sales regional play. Their answers, he says, are coming in the form of the pending contracts for 700,000 sf of office properties. Today's pipeline is Texas and tomorrow's goal, the entire Southwest US.