Jeffrey Dunne
When the March of Dimes honored Jeffrey R. Dunne with the 2012 Real Estate Award at an annual gathering at The Hilton Stamford last month, he was introduced not by one of his assembled colleagues, but by a trio of young women who knew a different side of the CBRE vice chairman.
Dunne, who heads CBRE’s New York Institutional Group from the Stamford office, has closed on more than $17 billion in deals in his 27 years as a broker.
And as his daughters revealed, he did it while maintaining a vocal presence on the sidelines of their basketball and soccer games. Family dinners were interactive affairs, daughter Chelsea said, and each girl would share the best thing that had happened to them that nd the nicest thing they had done for someone else that day.
“I still think that these dinner questions were largely responsible for me beginning to consciously think about doing nice things for other people,” she said. “I certainly knew enough to know that the correct answer to that question wasn’t: ‘Dad, I didn’t do anything nice for anyone today.’ “
Mentorship, expertise, integrity and competition are all at the core of Dunne’s philosophy, at home and at work.
He leads an 11-person investment sales team, many of whom he hired straight out of college or early in their careers.
“I like to hire athletes,” he said. “They don’t have to be a professional athlete but they should like competition, because the fact is, we compete for things. It’s pretty competitive, particularly for larger deals.”
He’s only ever lost one person he didn’t want to see go, he said, and tries to help young people find a position that fits their talents best. The one thing he won’t stand, though, is dishonesty.
“You really have to protect your brand. The most important thing in the business is people perceive you as having a high level of integrity – that you’re going to tell them the truth, not what’s in your best interest; you’re thinking long-term, not a deal today; and that you just do the right thing ethically,” he said. “I would fire you if you did something unethical in a minute.”
Dunne’s team is collaborative and innovative, according to Kevin Welsh, a New Jersey-based senior vice president who joined the team six years ago. And working with Dunne provides an opportunity to learn the deal process from one of the industry’s great closers, he said.
“Every day you wake up and the adrenaline is amazing,” Welsh said.
Dunne started with Coldwell Banker in the early 80’s, leaving a position in marketing with Proctor and Gamble to pursue the dream of working for himself.
With an undergraduate degree in marketing from Penn State and a master’s in finance from NYU, he quickly moved from leasing industrial space to investment sales.
The team works mainly in the New York metropolitan area, but they’re not afraid of a national portfolio. Their accomplishments have included the 17,000-unit Kushner portfolio – the combined retail and residential portions of which sold for over $2 billion – and dozens of deals over $100 million.
The biggest mistake brokers make, Dunne said, is quitting in the face of a problem at the end of a deal.
“I never want to get to the three yard line and not succeed because we’ve done 99 percent of the work, and we get paid nothing if we don’t succeed,” he said.
Instead of giving up, late-deal speed bumps are an opportunity for Dunne to deploy his market knowledge and financial acumen to keep the parties at the table.
“I will figure a way to solve a problem, no matter how much a buyer and a seller hate each other – which happens sometimes – or won’t get on a the phone with each other, or totally disagree on issues,” he said. “I will go sit with one and get them to move and give me some flexibility, I will go sit with the other, so two people are never really happy at the end of deal… That’s what we do. How do I get so this person is happier – maybe not as happy as they wanted to be – and the seller felt the deal was fair.”
Dunne’s network of contacts are the starting point for most of the team’s deals, he said, and while he is training other members to find their own work he still canvasses himself. Recently, he was planning to leave his Connecticut home early in the morning to meet in Manhattan with a new contact.
“I’m still hungry that I’m going to get up, I’ll get on a 5:30 train to go have a seven o’clock breakfast,” he said. “I like the hunt.”
