On January 31 IOREBA (The Industrial and Office Real Estate Brokers Association) met at the New York Athletic Club in a meeting co-sponsored by the New York City Chapter of CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Members) and by The Downstate New York and New Jersey Chapters of SIOR (The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors). There were approximately 80 IOREBA members in attendance to hear Tom Hill III, CCIM, SIOR representing and speaking on behalf of the New York City CCIM Chapter. Tom Hill is one of only 500 real estate professionals worldwide who holds both CCIM and SIOR designations. Hill expounded upon the virtues of the CCIM educational courses and the networking opportunities available to its membership.
The keynote speaker for the evening was David Zimmer, SIOR, FRICS. Zimmer is the 2011 international president of SIOR as well as being the principal at Zimmer Real Estate Services in Kansas City, MO. Zimmer spoke of his goals for SIOR for 2011 and beyond which include a heavy emphasis on expanding SIOR's global membership. Zimmer provided numerous statistics on the economy and commercial real estate including vacancy factors, absorption rates, and so forth. He also told the audience many of whom were SIOR and CCIM designees and some of whom would like to be SIOR designees that the Society currently has over 3,000 members. Each member does an average sales and leasing volume of $33 million per year and that in 2010 the SIOR membership was directly responsible for in excess of 78,000 commercial real estate transactions.

IOREBA meets monthly at changing venues throughout the Manhattan area.

Shown (from left) are: Kevin Geenty, Northeast regional director of SIOR, CT Chapter; Howard Greenberg, SIOR Designee, N.J. Chapter; David Zimmer, international president of SIOR, FRICS, Kansas City, MO; Tom Hill III, CCIM, SIOR, CT Chapter, Waterbury, Conn.; and Sean Brady, 2011 president of IOREBA, NYC.