Listen to this articleA lot of money is going into warehouses these days. At the very least, since the start of the pandemic, the industrial market has shot up while other assets have slowed. Many people have noted this trend, and among them is Colliers senior associate Peter Loehrer.
Loehrer is part of the capital markets team at Colliers, working in office and industrial spaces. Loehrer said his role on the team as senior associate means he helps finish the deals that his team is facilitating and to market the deals when they are finished.
This means he is trying to identify information and analyses that are useful to investors or potential buyers. Though every day is different, which Loehrer said he loves.
Loehrer sat down for an interview with Finance & Commerce to discuss his work, what led him to Colliers and what advice he’d give to other younger people in the commercial real estate industry.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Can you tell me where you went to school and what you majored in there?
A: I went to school up in the north – at University of Minnesota-Duluth (Go Dogs!). At UMD, I chose to study economics.
My reason for choosing economics was I had a really good econ teacher in my AP economics course in high school. It really set me on a good path, and they taught things in an interesting way. And so I wanted to continue my studies in economics in college. To extrapolate on that, my main goals when studying economics wasn’t to be any economist per se, more to be someone who understands the economy, money and banking, can think critically about what’s going on and apply economic concepts to their own life.
Q: Before joining the Colliers team, did you work for another commercial real estate group?
A: My two last summers in college, I had an internship with The Meritex Company, a Minneapolis-based family office investing company, primarily focused on industrial.
It really helped me crystallize my interest in commercial real estate. I was with them for two years, after which I graduated and began working with the CBRE Research Department. I was with CBRE Research for just over two years. I was a support staff member on the investment sales team there, where primarily I was in charge of helping out with buyer databases — who’s the sellers, who’s the buyers? What kind of sales are going on? Cap rates, price per square foot, which buildings are going up…which ones are being torn down, those sorts of things.
Q: So you joined Colliers in the pandemic or just before the pandemic started?
A: It was towards the end of the serious “don’t leave your house” lockdown that I made the jump to Colliers.
Q: What was it like to join to make a job change and to join a new company in the middle of the pandemic?
A: It was a little uncertain — you didn’t know who the winners and losers were going to be coming out of the pandemic, so my mindset was “pick somebody with a proven track record with plenty of room for me to grow and just make a leap of faith.”
I had heard of Mark Kolsrud (Colliers vice chair), I had heard of the Colliers team, and I had heard really good things about Colliers. I’d spoken to quite a few people that I respected, mentors of mine that also endorsed Colliers and endorsed the Mark Kolsrud team and brand. When it came down to it, it was really just trusting your gut. And that’s what I did.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about what your role is on the Capital Markets team?
A: My role in the team is kind of two-handed. I’m responsible for sourcing and executing business. And I’m also responsible for helping create all our marketing efforts, marketing materials, and helping execute deals the rest of the team brings in as well.
Q: Could you elaborate on what your day-to-day work looks like?
A: First thing in the morning, get all my emails figured out. I like to work off an empty inbox.
My morning goes on to … prospecting, calling investors, looking at information, finding sale comps, lease comps, and identifying who might be a good person to call on them. Who might find the information useful? Then my day might shift into what do we have in the market and who is the best buyer? Or who are the best buyers who need to know about this?
The end of the day is typically more back-of-the-house work. Are we creating any offering memorandums? Is there any financial analysis that needs to be reviewed? Are there more products we’re working on, trying to get our name out there, trying to create more quarterly reports?
That’s a typical day. But part of what attracted me to brokerages is that there isn’t a “day-to-day,” you kind of take each day as it comes. More often than not, I wake up and I have no idea what I’m going to do that day.
Q: Are there any trends you’re hoping to maybe highlight about the industrial market?
A: I would want to highlight the potential for explosive rent growth in Minneapolis next year. The limitation on our supply pipeline is hard to understate. We still have extremely low vacancies. We still have extremely low credit loss. We still have extremely high absorption. We have great leasing momentum all over the Twin Cities market.
To have our supply cut in half, cut by a quarter… any impact of supply is going to go directly in direct growth. If anyone has any doubts about whether Minneapolis rent growth is going to continue in the future — it certainly will. Most investors buying property in the Twin Cities industrial market today are usually underwriting significant rent growth to justify the returns they need.
Q: You’re a younger person. Do you have any advice for someone who’s on the younger side in the commercial real estate industry making their way through the industry?
A: Find a spot where you’re going to be exposed to a lot of deals, a lot of transactions and actually be able to get your hands dirty. I heard on other podcasts that there’s an inverse relationship between the size of the deal and the experience you get out of it, which I think is absolutely true, especially in real estate.
if you’re hunting for a shop that does $100 million deals only and you go in as a year-one analyst or a year-one associate, you’re going to get a small piece of experience from that deal, but you go into a shop that’s taken down $2 million to $10 million deals six to 10 times a year, you’re going to have a significantly better experience from the latter experience than you will at the big deal shop.
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