The Real Deal recently sat down with Bob Knakal, Senior Managing Director and Head of New York Private Capital Group at JLL as well as a former Real Deal contributor, to get his take on how far TRD has come since it hit newsstands 20 years ago. “The first time I heard about The Real Deal must have been shortly after your first publication,” said Knakal, who remembered immediately calling TRD publisher Amir Korangy to set up a meeting. “I think Paul Massey and I were on cover number five, which was a big thrill for us. We were so excited to be on the cover, it was something we put on the wall immediately.”
It was the beginning of a decades-long relationship for Knakal, both as an avid reader and a contributor. “My favorite aspect of TRD is the way that you get very granular in the way you look at things,” said Knakal. “You report on facts and statistics, you do a lot of research.” As someone whose business depends on knowing the ins and outs of the industry, TRD has been an invaluable resource for Knakal over the years.
Of course, in journalism, information is a two-way street, and TRD tapped Knakal to star in a series of videos back in the early 2010s. “They started out as Adam Pincus interviewing me, and it turned into something where I was just doing these videos by myself,” recalls Knakal, who starred in a series called Insights from The Real Deal. “I got to know everybody, and it was always a great bunch of people.”