Former GFI Realty presidents Aaron Jungreis and David Berger are already locking in deals with their new venture, Rosewood Realty Firm, a building sales brokerage they started in November after departing from GFI.
Rosewood Realty completed one building sale in November and was going to contract with two deals in late December, at press time. The new firm has six brokers but plans to double its staff by the end of 2008.
“Even though I was president there of the firm, I wanted to have my own firm, on my own terms,” said Jungreis, who started his career at GFI 14 years ago and became president in 2001. When he left, he had about 30 brokers working under him.
Berger, who held both the president and senior director title at GFI Realty, had been there for five years. GFI declined to comment for this article.
Jungreis brokered in excess of $5 billion in building sales in his time at GFI, and was named one of the top 10 brokers in New York City twice by commercial real estate information company CoStar. He said he represented around 45 to 50 transactions per year. Despite the recent slowdown in high-priced building transactions, Jungreis is hopeful about the market. He and Berger have enjoyed success with a lot of off-market transactions, which they “don’t see going away anytime soon.”
“We get a lot of deals where the sellers don’t want to go on the market, because they don’t want people harassing them or they don’t want their tenants to find out,” Jungreis said. “[Brokers] only have one or two shots to do it, and it’s based on expertise.”