{"id":1004144931,"date":"2016-05-26T13:42:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004144931"},"modified":"2022-12-08T10:29:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T18:29:18","slug":"executive-spotlight-david-liebman-merit-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/executive-spotlight-david-liebman-merit-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"Executive Spotlight: David Liebman, Merit Partners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/05\/Liebman-D-HS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"1004144930\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/executive-spotlight-david-liebman-merit-partners\/liebman-d-hs\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/05\/Liebman-D-HS.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"800,700\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"David Liebman\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/05\/Liebman-D-HS.jpg?w=800\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1004144930\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/05\/Liebman-D-HS.jpg\" alt=\"David Liebman\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>By Leah Etling, Contributing Editor<\/p>\n<p>The Midwest\u2019s industrial real estate market has recovered and thrived over the last two years, and veteran industrial property broker David Liebman doesn\u2019t see the end of the game coming anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve fully recovered from the doldrums of the economic downturn, to the point that some people are saying we\u2019re in the sixth to eighth inning of the recovery,\u201d Liebman said. \u201cI think slowdown fears may be overblown. There has not been overbuilding; there has not been overspending. We\u2019re actually seeing real rent appreciation in the Chicago market for the first time in over 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With more than two decades of experience as a broker and a previous career as a transactional real estate attorney, Liebman started an independent brokerage firm in 2014 after working for CBRE and Colliers International earlier in his career.<\/p>\n<p>Also speaker elect of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors\u2019 Council of Presidents and a past president of SIOR\u2019s Chicago chapter, he shared his insights on the Midwest\u2019s industrial market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: What\u2019s the current state of the Midwest\u2019s industrial real estate market?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: \u00a0The Midwest has become a pretty vibrant market in the last 18 to 24 months. Some people are already saying that the end of \u201916, beginning of \u201917 might not be so rosy anymore. I don\u2019t know if I necessarily subscribe to that, but I think there are a lot of variables, not the least of which is that the Fed is poised to finally raise interest rates for the first time in 10 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: What led you to strike out as an independent broker?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: I was finding that I was tripping over my own colleagues so much that it was hard for me to develop new business. It\u2019s different if you are running a large team or have large institutional clients. It wasn\u2019t working out the way it had for the last 10 to 11 years. So it was time to move on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: How has SIOR helped you with that transition?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: I have learned much about how to hone my skills and have been able to turn to my fellow SIOR brokers for advice and help. We have a group called the Independent Brokerage Group that consists of all the smaller firms and brokers within SIOR at large. It\u2019s a great group and has really gained traction over the last two or three years. It serves the 40 to 45 percent of members of SIOR who are not with the big firms. We interface regularly through the Internet and hold specialty IBG meetings at the two world conferences each year. It\u2019s been a great benefit to me.<\/p>\n<p>Last year I was elected speaker elect of the SIOR Council of Presidents, which is the SIOR chapter leadership group. All of the presidents and vice presidents of the 48 worldwide chapters get together at both world conferences, each spring and fall. They partake in a leadership conference that really helps the chapters recruit and maintain members to build the SIOR brand and to help train top brokers in advanced skills. I\u2019ll be the speaker of the Council of Presidents starting next fall, and it\u2019s a four-year commitment. It\u2019s one of the upper-level responsibilities in the organization, and I really enjoy being active at that level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: Why has SIOR been a priority for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: I joined in 1999. Someone who mentored me into the organization said: If you do nothing else, make sure you remain active. That means joining and remaining active on committees, being part of the process, and coming to the biannual conferences. I have followed that advice for 16 years, and only missed two conferences. They\u2019ve been held everywhere from Hawaii to North Carolina, and in fall 2016 we will be in New York City for the first time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: Tell us about one of your most significant career transactions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: I did a deal in 2010 that was the biggest industrial deal in Wisconsin for that year. A company that had been looking to relocate in Canada, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, SEDA Packaging Corp., ended up in Mt. Pleasant, Wis. My client had built a spec 323,000-square-foot LEED-certified warehouse. This Italian packaging company was interested in buying it instead of leasing it. My client really was offering it for lease. In true Italian form, the company gave him \u201can offer he couldn\u2019t refuse\u201d and ended up buying the building. They put $30 million to $40 million into it to create a cutting-edge food packaging facility for anything from McDonald\u2019s hamburgers to ice cream containers for Edy\u2019s ice cream.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: What\u2019s happening with industrial development in your region?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman:\u00a0 When the handcuffs came off from the downturn about four years ago, we finally started to have some speculative development. Now we are seeing one million to two million square feet per year of speculative development, up from what had been essentially zero, and that inventory is getting absorbed. I don\u2019t think there is any overdevelopment going on like we had in the late \u201880s and early \u201890s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CPE: Why did you leave law for the brokerage world?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liebman: I really wasn\u2019t a very good attorney. I didn\u2019t like being stuck in the office, doing research and writing briefs. I really wanted to be around people on a more regular basis. So I did some work with real estate developers on a regular basis and I saw that the brokers and developers were having a lot more fun and making a LOT more money than I was! So I decided to check that out. Twenty years later, I\u2019m still doing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Midwest\u2019s industrial real estate market has recovered and thrived over the last two years, and industry veteran David Liebman doesn\u2019t see the end of the game coming anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":1004144930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21784,1491,22251,21748,13,21744],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004144931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brokerage","category-chicago","category-in-focus","category-industrial","category-midwest","category-people"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.4 (Yoast SEO v24.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Executive Spotlight: David Liebman, Merit Partners - 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