Economist Sam Chandan leaves RCA

Influential commercial real estate analyst and frequent media commentator Sam
Chandan has left his job as global chief economist and executive vice president
at commercial property data firm Real Capital Analytics to launch a new venture.

Chandan left the firm last month after only a year and a half, but has not made a
public statement about his future plans.

“I am a huge fan of Real Capital Analytics. It’s just a move in a different
direction,” he told The Real Deal during a break at the National Association of
Real Estate Investment Trusts conference
in Midtown today.

He would not say what his new venture was about, only that he would, “definitely
stay in the industry.”

Matt Stone, senior vice president at Real Capital, said the company would not
comment other than, “To wish him well.”

Chandan was hired in February 2010 by Real Capital to be the firm’s top global
economist, as well as a member of the firm’s management committee. Along with
him, Real Capital hired the team Chandan formed in 2008 called Real Estate
Econometrics. Real Capital is a major provider of global data on commercial
real estate to clients worldwide. His team, with about five people on it, provided
analysis on the impact policy and government regulations would have on
commercial real estate.

He did not take any of the team when he left, he said. Several members of the
team remain at Real Capital, a source familiar with the move said.

In addition to his work with Real Capital, Chandan is a columnist for the real
estate weekly the Commercial Observer, an occasional market analyst on cable
channels such as Fox Business and CNBC, and has been an adjunct professor
of real estate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, and a
frequent television commentator as well, described Chandan as an even-handed
market analyst.

“I see him as balanced. I don’t see him as a bull or a bear; I just see him as
smart. Neutral,” Miller said.