Eisberg, Perlmutter, Angel and Walwyn more over from Orion
SAN RAFAEL – Parkway Properties Investment Corp., which has been handling commercial real estate transactions and property management for a pool of Bay Area investors, made a significant move further into property brokerage with the addition of a broker and four well-known North Bay agents.
Brian Eisberg, Jerry Angel, Martin Perlmutter and David Walwyn left commercial real estate brokerage Orion Partners Ltd. in late January to join Parkway.
Parkway's second broker now is Jodi Azevedo, who also is office manager and chief financial officer for the investment company and a real estate law firm that Parkway founder, broker and Chief Executive Officer Basil Plastiras operates out of the same San Rafael office. She also serves as property manager.
"With this group on board, we believe we will be well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities as the real estate market starts to pick up," Mr. Plastiras said.
Mr. Plastiras co-founded Orion Partners along with current President and CEO Bill McCubbin. Orion has since become one of the North Bay's largest commercial real estate brokerages. Mr. Plastiras sold his interest in the firm some years ago.
Parkway's portfolio now totals 400,000 square feet of office, commercial and retail property. The firm helps its clients with sales and leasing, property management, tax-deferred exchanges, syndication and due diligence.
With the plethora of troubled home mortgages in the past few years, Parkway partnered with Old Republic Title Co. to negotiate with lenders for short sales and loan modifications, according to Ms. Azevedo. However, Senate Bill 94 adopted last year to bar up-front fees for such services cut that business to a trickle.
"We went into residential for the last couple of years, but we're seeing banks foreclosing on commercial properties," Ms. Azevedo said.
That's bringing Parkway's focus back to commercial property, after two years of steady expectations of returns from owners of such real estate and reluctance of banks to lend for capitalization rates at that level led to "stagnation" in certain parts of the North Bay commercial property investment market.
Enter the new agents.
Mr. Eisberg has a quarter century of commercial real estate brokerage experience and was a top-producing agent during his decade-long stints at brokerages Keegan & Coppin/Oncor International and Orion.
Though Parkway's transactions have not been as large as a number of deals he's completed in the past few years along the Highway 101 corridor in Marin and Sonoma counties, Mr. Eisberg was attracted to Parkway for reasons including its investment advisory and virtually in-house real estate law counsel with Plastiras & Terrizzi.
"I anticipate I will do larger deals than Parkway has before, based on what I'm working on now," Mr. Eisberg said. "2010 looks like it will be a lot better for leasing than 2009."
Mr. Angel also has about a quarter century of real estate transactions, development and investing.
Mr. Perlmutter while at Orion had been handling leasing for Parkway's headquarters at 24 Professional Center Drive. His 30-year career includes residential real estate transactions and work with the federal General Services Administration.
Mr. Walwyn comes from multifamily property brokerage with stints at Insignia ESG in San Francisco, apartment market data firm RealFacts in Novato and most recently as director of research and an agent at Orion.
For more information, call 415-472-8115 or visit www.parkwayprops.com.
