The 10 Top Stories of the Decade

NEW YORK CITY-To mark the 10^th anniversary of Globest.com, the editors polled its national readership and asked them to rank “10 Top 10s,” ranging from the Top 10 Stories of the Past Decade and the Top 10 Companies to Watch to the Most Iconic Industry Figures and Worst Politicians.

Who Took the Poll

More than 350 registered users responded to the survey. The overwhelming majority (85.9%) were male with more than 26 years in real estate (32.6%). Nearly 25.7% have logged 21 to 25 years in the market, while 13.7% have 16 to 20 years under their belt and 12.6% have been at it for five to 10 years. Just over 11% have been in the business from 11 to 15 years while only 4.3% have less than five years under their belts.

Almost 27% of respondents work for service providers, and 20.2% are in ownership/investment. Lenders of one sort or another made up 11.8% of our respondents and developers 11%.  The remainder--institutional investors, corporate users, sponsors, asset managers, private equity firms and REITs—each made up less than 10% of our survey base. Those representing fields not listed made up 12% of our respondents.

Some 26.6% of our respondents work on a national basis, broken out regionally by the West (18%); Northeast (16.6%); Southwest (11.4%); Southeast (8%); Midwest (7.7%); and Mid-Atlantic (4%). Nearly 8% of our respondents also work internationally.

The Results

The online survey ranked the “Wall Street Collapse of 2007,” which saw the fall of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and the start of perhaps the worst recession since the Great Depression, as the “Top Real Estate Story” of the past 10 years. A total of 72% of survey respondents picked the Wall Street Collapse as their first, second or third choice.

Other highlights of the survey were that a majority of respondents felt that Starwood Capital Group is the company to watch and that the Tishman-Blackrock purchase of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village was the worst deal of the decade. In the political arena, the survey reported that former Hewlett-Packard chairman, CEO and Carly Fiorina, who failed to unseat incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer in California, was voted the savviest politician of the past 10 years, while the outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took dubious honors as the most clueless politician.  She won the title by a landslide vote. Following are the complete survey results:

Top 10 Real Estate Stories

One respondent, who selected the 2007 Wall Street Collapse as his number one choice, said the event was the “biggest thing that's happened in real estate in my 51 years of involvement.” Another respondent shared, “It had the largest impact on our society, (economically, socially and politically) more than any other event since WWII.”

However, the most passionate responses came from those who believed the Terrorist Attacks of 9-11 was the top real estate story of the decade, which came in at number two. A total of 48% of respondents had 9-11 as its first-, second- or third-place choice.

Explaining his selection, one executive related, “September 11 was the catalyst for all the turmoil we live with today. Another wrote: “September 11 changed every dynamic of our lives.” And yet another wrote: “Nothing comes close to the significance of this one event to our industry and the resulting economic downturn it precipitated.”

Rounding out the other choices for Top Story (in the order of their ranking) were: The Rise of Distress as an Opportunity (No. 3); Growth of Public Markets (No. 4); Equity Office Properties Sale (No. 5); Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town Bankruptcy (No. 6); Mega-Merger Mania of the Early 2000s (No. 7); Resurrection of the Public Markets in 2010 (No. 8); Congressional Vote on Carried Interest (No. 9); and The Rebuilding of Downtown Manhattan (No. 10).

Tomorrow: Look for the results of the Globest.com survey “Top 10 Companies to Watch.”