How a Techie Followed the Money to Win Brokers Over Real Estate by Shelly Garcia One of the things that I’ve always liked about covering the real estate scene in the San Fernando Valley is just how easy it is to get brokers to talk about their deals. Deals are, after all, what brokers live for. Which makes Rick Pelz’s accomplishments all the more noteworthy. In January, Pelz, vice president and CIO at Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co., landed on Computerworld magazine’s list of the 100 premier information technology leaders in the country. It is a list that also includes folks like Michael E. Cromar, vice president of e-business and global business process for IBM Global Financing, and Bob Bickel, chief technology officer at Hewlett-Packard Co., all worthy recipients, I’m certain. But their clients know technology, they like it. Heck, they breathe it. When guys like Cromar or Bickel sit down to work with others in their company, they all speak the same language. Pelz, on the other hand, would seem to be a fish out of water in the real estate biz, an engineer in a world of glad-handing, people people in relentless pursuit of their next deal. His job, when he joined Marcus & Millichap in 1998, was easy enough for a techie: set up a centralized, Web-based network that far-flung brokers could use to access listing and sales and marketing tools and send e-mails, among other tasks. But in 1998, brokerage houses were pretty much the insects of the information technology evolutionary chain. (Pelz says it’s still the most sophisticated system in use in the brokerage business, where many companies outsource their computer services.) And unlike his former “clients” at Bank of America Corp. or Pacific Gas & Electric Co., where Pelz set up similar systems, brokers didn’t want to devote a nanosecond to technology. Pelz not only had to get up to speed on how the real estate business works, he had to make the system so seamless brokers would buy in and use it. And he had to do all that while cajoling the brokers into paying attention and offering input and perspective on their needs. “In a brokerage they give you about a minute, and in banking they give you about a day,” Pelz said. What earned Pelz the respect of his broker colleagues along with his recent award was his ability to break through the culture gap to get the broad-based support he needed to build the system, and it didn’t come without a few mistakes. Pelz found he had to start over when his first assumptions that brokers would be willing and able to spend time inputting data and managing their databases turned out to be unrealistic. “I realized the broker makes no money doing that, so you’ve got to get the broker out from behind the desk and into the field,” said Pelz. He also had to find a solution that was attractive enough to get brokers to give up the systems they had been using, systems that, it turned out, were as individual as the brokers themselves. “Every broker had their way of doing a deal, of managing a contact, of doing a listing proposal, of doing a marketing package,” said Pelz. “They don’t like change. The big challenge was to get all of them to migrate to an IT solution that would increase their production.” How did he do that? “Rick’s had to sell his technology as something that will help our brokers make more money,” said Bill Millichap, chairman of the company. “Rick knew that took speed, reliability and the vision to bring us incrementally along.” Yeah, but how did he do that? I asked Pelz. “Keep it simple and make it productive,” he said, an answer that I suspect doesn’t begin to explain the complexity of the process he went through. Medical Facility Leased Up Rolling Oaks Medical Center, a Thousand Oaks facility developed by Amoroso Cos., has been fully leased to six tenants: Kidney Center of Thousand Oaks, Comprehensive Imaging Center, Dr. Melvin Hayashi, Thousand Oaks Dental Center, Southern California Orthopedic Institute and Thousand Oaks Surgical Institute. The 38,000-square-foot medical center is the first of a two-phase development that will also include a 40,000-square-foot hospital. Michael Slater and Tom Dwyer, brokers with CB Richard Ellis, represented Amoroso. Sublease Activity Stirs Some of the growing inventory of sublease space was filled in recent weeks. Axius/Autoshade, a maker of automotive accessories, subleased 126,662 square feet of warehouse space at 700 Science Drive in Moorpark from its former occupant, Aldik Flower. Bob Kahn at CB Richard Ellis represented Axius. CB’s Craig Peters and Doug Sonderegger represented Aldik. eBuilt Inc., a software company based in Irvine, subleased 9,600 square feet of office space in North Hollywood to two tenants. Herzog Productions, an entertainment firm, and Media Temple Inc., a web-hosting company, signed on for the remaining four-year terms at 4640 Lankershim Blvd. The combined transactions are valued at $700,000. Robert D. Erickson, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield, represented eBuilt. Trevor Belden with Lee & Associates represented Herzog and Gil Canton of CB Richard Ellis represented Media Temple Westlake Leases Among the new tenants at Westlake Corporate Centre, an 85,000-square-foot office complex at 2659 Townsgate Road and 875 Westlake Blvd. in Westlake Village are: Cain Technologies, an electronics firm; Eugene Lee, physical therapist; Barbara Freedman, psychologist; Philip Black, attorney at law; Heidi Ellis Buschow, speech therapist; and Nagy Protection Services. Tony Principe and Alisa Barbarino, brokers with Westcord Commercial Real Estate Services, represented the landlord, Johnston Group. Senior reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 676-1750, ext. 14, or by e-mail at [email protected].