Miami group advises how to make deals happen

As the calendar page flipped to a new decade, Commercial Real Estate Women in Miami launched “Make it Happen,” a regional awareness campaign to encourage industry professionals to get deals done.

Suzanne Amaducci-Adams, CREW-Miami’s newly elected president and a partner at law firm Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, said much more time and effort goes into inking deals now, as opposed to a few years ago. So real estate professionals have to be innovative, she said, and “think outside of the box.”

“You’ve got to be the catalyst,” she said.

In the new year, transactions are going to be complicated and more difficult, with a host of new issues to overcome, she said. So throughout the year, CREW’s workshops and events will focus on educating its members and other professionals on how to make deals in the current market.

Whether it’s financing transactions on distressed assets or leasing
space in bank-owned properties, there are a slew of new complex
challenges only a small number of people in real estate dealt with
prior to the real estate crash, said William Hardin, director of real
estate programs at Florida International University. Many turn to
professional organizations to learn how to handle these situations, he
said.

By itself, no education program will change the market, Hardin said. But professional groups play a role in making sure its members understand how to operate in the current climate.

“As people are more aware, it allows them to make logical and sound decisions,” he said.

Beyond the education, Amaducci-Adams said the connections made through professional organizations are a key to success.

“The campaign will work for those that want it to work for them,” she said.

The trick with any organization is that you have to get involved. That way you get to know people and learn how they can help you and how you can help them, she said.

In fact, Amaducci-Adams said it was through CREW-Miami that she and three other members brokered the city’s largest office transaction of 2009: Bilzin Sumberg’s 80,000-square-foot lease at 1450 Brickell. Beyond assisting with the leasing of the space, other CREW members have been working with Bilzin to help it move and build out the new space, she said.

The education initiative was announced in conjunction with the election of CREW-Miami’s new 2010 board of directors.