Has Florida Finally Turned the Corner?

MIAMI—Avison Young hit the ground running in South Florida about eight months ago when eight Flagler brokers joined the firm. The stats have been impressive.

If you missed part one of this article, click here to see the impact Avison Young has made on the region so far. In part two of our exclusive interview with Pike Rowley, a principal in the Fort Lauderdale office of Avison, we talk about the future outlook for Florida markets.

GlobeSt.com: Are there specific service lines you will be concentrating on growing in particular?

Rowley: We have limited our focus to the four competencies aforementioned purposefully and are applying best of breed assets to each to ensure the highest level of service and execution is delivered.

GlobeSt.com: The economic turmoil of the past few years has forced companies to no longer operate as "business as usual.” How has this new paradigm changed the way firms serve clients?

Rowley: Clients expect great service from successful and seasoned veterans regardless of the economy. Great brokers are still successful in poor economic times but their platforms may suffer due to the economic pressures of their passive shareholders for continued strong returns on investment.

In our case, the service providers and the shareholders are one and the same, and thus making less money for the “house” in slow times does not mean massive layoffs--it means we make less money but keep great people employed and that ensures our clients' interests always come first. This period in our history has exposed the traditional brokerage platform flaws.  

GlobeSt.com: Have we turned the corner and, if so, where should we look for bright spots?

Rowley: As a second-generation native Floridian, I naively thought that Florida was largely immune to dramatic downturns in the national economy due to our steady stream of tourism dollars and in-bound investors and capital from Europe and Latin America. The housing crisis really kicked us in the teeth and brought most of the financial services in Florida to a grinding halt.

The trickle effect was massive vacancies in the office, industrial and retail properties, which led to dramatic devaluation of all property types. The bright spot is the reappearance of residential development and residential land acquisitions as this jump-starts construction jobs, sub-contractors' businesses, lenders, law firms and, of course, all of the real estate brokerage and property management service providers.

Low interest rates combined with demand for space and underpriced property equals signs of life for our industry. Developers of all product types are back looking for land acquisitions, which is the first great signal that we have, in fact, turned the corner.

Click here to read part one of this article.