StripMallGuy’s Good at Social Media. Is He Good at Business?

This week, real estate investment fund TownCentre Capital inked its largest deal to date, buying a strip mall for $13 million in Union City, California. That came on the heels of a $9 million strip mall acquisition in another Bay Area suburb.

Sales of two humble shopping centers would not typically be news. But the man behind them has become a sensation in online branding and self-promotion.

He is social media celebrity Don Tepman, known by his 316,000 followers on X and LinkedIn as StripMallGuy.

“All of our deals are happening now because of this account,” Tepman said. “It changed my entire life.”

For two and a half years, StripMallGuy posted anonymously, dishing out real estate advice — notably the best tenant mix for strip malls — and posting casual observations about life. He amassed a loyal fan base among real estate players and gained followers inside buttoned-up institutions like the “Big Four” brokerages and Blackstone.

Tepman decided to go public in January, letting the world know he’s the man behind the brown-haired cartoon figure in a sweater vest. That opened the floodgates to brokers, investors and developers looking to do business, he said.

“My thought behind the unveiling was that now we’re going to be pitched more deals, we’re going to be top-of-mind for brokers around the country,” Tepman said. “It was a theory and now it’s absolutely happened and it’s changed our entire business.”

Tepman runs TownCentre Capital out of a modest office in Midtown Manhattan. He launched his latest fund in 2022 with $50 million in capital and a goal of investing $90 million in strip malls. The fund closed $25 million in deals over its first two years, Tepman said. It is on track to invest more than $40 million this year, thanks largely to the unmasking of StripMallGuy, he said.

“A lot of brokers, especially the younger ones, are on social media every day,” Tepman said. “If you’re a fund that’s raised capital, how do you get their attention? By taking them to golf events or happy hours? I can host 50 brokers at Madison Square Garden or I can have a nicely worded tweet that reaches 10,000 brokers in one day.”

Real estate investment trust Terreno reached out to Tepman about the Union City deal before taking it to market, he said. Terreno execs were familiar with the StripMallGuy brand and trusted that he would close the deal quickly, Tepman said. Terreno did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A JLL broker brought him the $9 million deal after reaching out for a meeting when he was visiting New York City, Tepman said. He also followed StripMallGuy online.

“We met, we had coffee, and when he was going to market the deal, he already knew us,” Tepman said. “That one didn’t go to market. We gave them their price and they were happy. All of our deals are happening now because of the account.”

A JLL spokesperson declined a request for an interview with the broker.

Although Tepman’s dealmaking is concentrated in sleepy suburbs, most of his followers hail from big cities like Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, he said. StripMallGuy fans feel like they know Tepman, who occasionally posts about personal things such as the idiosyncrasies of raising kids in New York City.

Broker Eric Cline was working for Cushman & Wakefield in Chicago when he reached out to StripMallGuy last year. At the time, the account was still anonymous.

“I was one of his X followers and he put it out there that he was looking for connections,” said Cline, who has since left commercial brokerage. “I didn’t hesitate to try to reach out and get in front of whoever this person was. I was the youngest broker on our team and the two other members were older and not as familiar with X, so they kind of looked at me sideways.”

Cline, 32, met with Tepman, 44, over Zoom the next day and they struck up a relationship. He eventually brought Tepman a $3.6 million deal for a strip mall in northwest Indiana, where he lives.

“The amount of followers that he had and the fact that he had a verified account made it seem more secure and like this person actually knows what he’s doing,” Cline said. “He has an actual following and seems legit.”

Marcus & Millichap broker Adrian Mendoza reached out to Tepman last spring about a property in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn. He had been following StripMallGuy for two years.

“The fact that I had been reading his content was basically a pre-qualifier in my mind that he knew exactly what he was doing in the strip mall space,” Mendoza said. “I felt like I knew him, I felt like I knew how he thinks.”

They didn’t close that deal, but Mendoza and Tepman speak regularly.

“All of our shopping center listings and deals we’re bringing to him now,” Mendoza said. “He’s really our No. 1 person to bring deals to.”