Our monthly “Get to Know…” posts provide the opportunity to learn more about our member firms – what sets them apart as best-in-class in their markets, the expertise they offer their clients, and the value they provide during every stage of their clients’ journey to find the perfect space for their business.

Have real estate needs in Boston? Consider the experts at McCall & Almy.

McCall & Almy – Boston, MA, USA

  1. When was your company founded? 1990
  2. How long have you been a member of Exis? Since 2014
  3. Are there specific areas of focus/expertise that M&A practices? Within the Tenant Representation world, we work with all different industries but we do have a strong expertise in representing technology companies as well as the hospital/healthcare and higher education industries.
  4. What is the current size of your team? 12 brokers with 24 total employees – and growing!
  5. Amount of square footage secured in 2017: 3 Million square feet
  6. What are some of the credentials/characteristics/values you look for when hiring your team – to ensure you offer the highest quality service possible? As a small professional services company, we all rely on each other to get the best results for our client. And so trust in one another and speed of communication are key. There are no silos within McCall & Almy and our compensation structure ensures that we can all pitch in and help on any assignment, as we all share in everyone’s successes and failures.
  7. What are your company’s core values? Deliver exceptional results. Build client’s trust every day. Trust in one another. Team before Individual. Have fun.
  8. How would you describe the commercial real estate atmosphere in Boston? In general, it’s very collegial. There is healthy competition, which can occasionally be described as fierce, but generally speaking the professionals at competing firms respect and like each other. We’ve all enjoyed a great 8+ year run of a growing Boston economy and workforce, which has helped everyone in CRE in Boston. As a negative, it can also seem very parochial and homogenous.
  9. What’s the most valuable advice you can give a client in today’s overall CRE atmosphere? If you’re looking to sign a new lease in the coming year or two, there is a good chance there will be some sort of economic downturn during the course of that lease term. So maintaining flexibility is paramount, even more than ever right now. The only certainty is that something is going to change.
  10. What are some upcoming trends in the CRE industry that you feel will affect how companies do business? It will be interesting to see what effect WeWork has on the larger CRE industry – term flexibility, lack of barriers to entry, “cool” space, etc. have all been extremely successful. We can also all work anywhere at any times, and so the change in personal space needs in the office and commuting patterns must also somehow impact our world.
  11. Why is exclusively representing tenants important to you? We are all resolute in our belief that there is an inherent conflict when a broker represents both tenants and landlords. The tenant is working at a disadvantage when its representation also represents landlords. Landlords know real estate, and so the landlord broker is providing a different service than the tenant broker. The tenant broker is providing a superior level of guidance to its client whose core business is not real estate – there is something extremely satisfying in that distinction.
  12. What is the most valuable feedback you’ve received from a client? We cannot over-communicate. Even if our response is an update on when we’ll have an answer to their question, clients want to hear from us as quickly as possible.