Cresa Doubles its North Texas Operations with Move into New Dallas Office

It's only been a few months since the re-established team behind Cresa Dallas moved into its new North Texas regional hub at the recently-renovated Pinnacle Tower near LBJ Freeway and the Dallas North Tollway, but, in that time, managing principal Scott Bumpas has more than doubled the size of his staff. 

The tenant rep-only brokerage firm has taken its Dallas employee base from four executives to a team of nine brokers and employees focused on turning North Texas into a major market for Cresa. 

"Our goal when Alex and I first started was to build a quality brokerage firm that would be committed to diversity and attracting women," Bumpas told the Dallas Business Journal during a recent tour of the firm's new office, which they hope to grow in the years to come.

"Good quality female brokers are tough to find, and we want to bring in diversity in the broad sense of the term, not just females to build a better team, so we aren't all thinking the same way," he added. 

The employee-owned brokerage firm, which is based out of Washington D.C., is in the process of re-establishing its Dallas office with the backing of it headquarters.

In doing so, Bumpas and his management team, which includes Cresa Managing Principal Brant Bryan, have been able to recruit some top North Texas brokers attracted to the ability to exclusively deal with tenants or other occupiers of real estate, he said. 

"We want to get the right people in to do it," he said, adding Cresa has the ability to expand its 4,400-square-foot office at 5005 LBJ Freeway in Dallas. 

We sat down to talk to Bumpas and his team in their new conference room:

Where does Cresa see opportunity to expand in the future?
The tenant rep-only business doesn't exist globally, and we see an opportunity to bring full tenant representation to other countries, like Poland or Beijing, that want to be part of the tenant rep-only business.

What kind of recruitment tools are you using to lure brokers to the firm in North Texas? 
We are attracting brokers who see an opportunity for ownership and who act like entrepreneurs. These are the kind of brokers we want to work with us because we also work with those type of companies. The role of a commercial real estate broker has changed because buyers have done their homework and they may know what they want. We are acting more in a consultant role, with our real estate knowledge being of secondary importance to our clients. 

What is your team bringing to the market that's different from other brokerage firms? 
We have three different service lines that are all focused on the corporate occupier. We bring our expertise, insights and experience to help companies find the right real estate to support their business objectives. Real estate costs are less than 10 percent of a business' costs. We can help them make sure the real estate they are searching for is actually needed, and a lot of times, like in the case of logistics firms, we can help them whittle down the number of logistics hubs they have after a full analysis to save them money.

Original article: https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/03/07/cresa-doubles-its-north-texas-operations-with-move.html