David Becker’s role as managing director of the equities division at Time Equities Inc., may seem to have been written in the stars.
Becker’s real estate pedigree stretches back to his grandfather and it includes the current president and COO of Time Equities, Robert Kantor.
But Becker told Real Estate Weekly that he entered the working world with no set roadmap for his professional future.
“I sort of had a real estate mindset,” Becker said, before stressing that he was open-minded when he graduated from Tulane University in the mid-90’s.
But he never strayed too far from the industry — or the company — that loomed so large in his past and that would eventually play a pivotal role in his future.
He spent nearly four years as an associate at Arthur Anderson LLP, in the real estate consulting division, a time that Becker called a “good opportunity to get my own experience elsewhere.”
After four years of networking, and working with “a lot of interesting clients,” Becker was drawn back to the company that his father had helped thrive.
But the move wasn’t inspired by family ties. According to Becker, it was strictly a business decision.
“When I decided to go to Time Equities, I actually had an opportunity to go to Bear Sterns, but I wanted to be more entrepreneurial,” Becker said. Time Equities gave him that opportunity.
“When I first started (at Time Equities) I was an acquisition guy,” Becker said. “I started to evolve a position managing new investors and that sort of morphed into a larger strategy.”
Time Equities wanted to figure out a more efficient way to raise capital for all of its properties. In 2010, Becker was tasked with the responsibility of establishing the a securities broker-dealer division.
In 2014 alone, Becker’s division helped acquire more than $300,000,000 in development funds via established relationships with more than 20 companies and other wealth management firms that continue to see Time Equities and its diversified opportunity fund and a smart home for investment capital.
“We group investors together and allow them to invest in a diversified way throughout the United States, said Becker. “Essentially, they co-invest with us.
“Our mandate now is to expand and grow the network so we have a very diversified, well established investor base.”
While Time Equities didn’t need much help building an already established reputation in the real estate world, a large part of Becker’s role is helping the company to gain trust and exposure in other wealth management circles.
“(Potential partners) are not going to see us on commercials,” said Becker. Thanks in large part to his networking and pitching, the company now enjoys “a lot of demand” for its diversified opportunity fund with partners who may have otherwise never heard of the powerful-yet low-key brand.
“A lot of people do think of Time Equities as being New York-centric,” said Becker, who enjoys a focus that expands beyond the boroughs. “But really the company is more diversified, so we’ll really look at anything anywhere.
“We have a lot of people who are hunting for new deals and new acquisitions and really what ends up happening is we go where the deal is.”
Becker said that Time Equities is extremely thorough when seeking out potential investments and when asked if there was a particular domestic market that he was drawn too, he opted to not rule out or elevate any particular city.
“We don’t really have markets that we’ve targeted,” he said, labeling the company as ”really deal specific.” Becker pointed to a pending closing in Chicago and a potential deal involving shopping centers in Milwaukee as two projects that were currently near the top of his docket.
He talked further about Time Equities’ desire to continue growing outside of the Big Apple. “I would say that New York is very expensive right now. We typically like to buy where we can get a good current yield and have upside.”
Thus, it’s not surprising that one upcoming neighborhood in Queens has caught Becker’s eye.
“There are a lot of emerging areas in New York,” Becker said and pointed to Long Island City as a territory that could be provide that low entry but high yield combo that he is always on the look out for. Time Equities currently has three properties in LIC: 27-28 Thomson Road, a converted factory that now houses nearly 240 luxury apartments, 47-47 Austell Place, an office building which commands 120,000 s/f and The Silks Building at 37-24 24th Street, which is a 110,000 s/f office property.
