Name: Carol Karney
Title: Commercial & Industrial Specialist
Company/firm: O,R&L Commercial, LLC
Years with company/firm: 8
Years in field: 8
Years in real estate industry: 25+
Address: 2340 Silas Deane Highway, Rocky Hill, CT 06067
Telephone: 860-761-6015
Email: [email protected]
URL: www.orlcommercial.com
What advice would you give to women just starting out in commercial real estate?
Try to build experience from a variety of real estate related areas like finance, design/construction, property management, legal, and brokerage. Stay current on national and global trends in addition to local trends. For your more experienced owner or investor you bring value in translating how those macro trends echo in our local market from financial instruments to adaptive re-use of older product or perhaps explaining energy incentives.
Now I'd like to make a plug for why real estate is an interesting career for those just starting out. Transactional real estate perpetually puts you in the forefront of change. Some industries shrink while others emerge to take their place. This creates opportunity for you since there is a fee to be earned in both cases. Years from now even though the use may have changed the real estate will still have value. The better you are at understanding the real estate market and how it evolves the better you can assist your client.
How do you contribute to your company and/or the industry?
Real Estate brokerage was a career change for me after a long stint in corporate real estate. When I started at O,R&L, my contribution was to volunteer for all sorts of assignments to gain experience. It also seemed to test my persistence since none were straightforward. It turns out deals I thought certain, vanished while others I thought dead, revived. I could also offer a unique perspective from having started out in local facility management which over time evolved to a corporate role focused on highly structured sale / leaseback transactions of owned assets. I also bring value because I understand the business from both sides. I used to be responsible for engaging the best and brightest brokers and now try to mirror those characteristics. My contribution to the industry and my clients is equanimity. By staying calm sometimes you can tease out a solution but even when you miss out on an opportunity don't despair. Especially for a small business owner who infrequently does real estate transactions my contribution in addition to finding just the right property is to explain how the process works and how long it can take. Exploring the many facets of a decision with an owner, like considering their future exit strategy while in the market to purchase, can bring another dimension in the selection process. Sellers often think their real estate is worth more than the market will offer; a knowledgeable broker can help them be realistic so they don't miss the market entirely.