It was the summer of 2005 and David Schechtman was holed up in a small room in Alabama late at night performing due diligence for a bankruptcy. One of the documents the then-DLA Piper attorney pored over was an account statement for a young real estate broker who was brokering a deal from the bankruptcy sale. It showed the broker’s salary, which was triple that of Schechtman.
“That was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. I applied to be a real estate broker at my former firm just weeks later,” Schechtman said during an interview with The Real Deal’s Mark Maurer.
Schechtman is now one of the most active middle-market investment-sales brokers in New York City. He serves as senior executive managing director of Meridian Capital Group’s investment-sales division, which he joined upon launching in 2005. He previously worked at Eastern Consolidated for 10 years.
Schechtman’s team recently brokered the Gilardian family’s $110 million purchase of a Murray Hill rental building and Delshah Capital’s pending $100 million-plus purchase of 28 rental buildings.
In the interview, Schechtman also talked about the challenge of brokering retail deals, anti-tenant harassment legislation, President Trump, and the gender gap within the real estate industry and his own firm.
Video produced by Jhila Farzaneh. Interview conducted by Mark Maurer.