Jerry Anderson, CCIM
Wednesday morning at 7am I posted a tweet on Twitter that a Sperry Van Ness Florida advisor had a “buyer that was frustrated with being unable to get an FDIC commercial real estate contractor to present an offer on a property now in receivership with the FDIC.” I wrote the tweet without a tone of criticism but simply one of frustration and I did not name the contractor, bank involved, location or property .
Four hours later I received a personal phone call from the Senior Asset Manager at CBRE asking if it was one of their FDIC distressed assets and how could he be of help. CBRE is one of two contractors hired by the FDIC to manage and market properties when the FDIC takes over a bank. The Senior Asset Manager could not have been more helpful and said he had received an email “from the FDIC about the tweet”. From there I suspect he Googled me or went direct to Twitter to find my email and phone contact information.
We quickly discovered the property we were chasing was NOT being handled by CBRE for the FDIC. That left the other FDIC Marketing & Management contractor, Prescient, as the vendor handling the effort. Before I could finish another business lunch at 1pm, Prescient had two of their asset managers chasing me down to see if they could be of help. Both received my voicemail and left similar messages. One was friendly and offered assistance plus mentioned they “received an email from the FDIC about a tweet of a frustrated buyer and they wanted to help us get the offer presented”. The other, although professional was a bit muffled, rapid fire, short and curt, but nonetheless, both were proactive and offered assistance. So, it was an exciting day with a few valuable takeaways.
- The FDIC is serious in their RFP’s when they require contractors to respond quickly to “protect the image of the FDIC to the public”(I’ve been involved in RFP’s for the FDIC and have had to answer that “how” question)
- Both CBRE and Prescient as FDIC contractors are being proactive for their client – at least they were today
- I posted tweets bestowing kudos on both companies for their action– I doubt FDIC will call them on the kudos tweet, though
- We made a valuable contact with the Prescient asset manager handling the asset and will be able to present the offer when appropriate
- Used professionally, social media can help you find business and make contact with others that might never take your cold call –Important to note that I did not slam contractors, individuals or the FDIC
- Pity our poor commercial real estate competitors that “still don’t get social media”
- But the most important lesson today? The FDIC is using and monitoring social media just like much of the business world and for us today . . . that was a very good tactic.
Visit www.svnflorida.com to learn more about Jerry Anderson,CCIM and the SVN Florida team. Visit www.svnart.com for troubled asset services.
Tags: CBRE, CCIM, Commercial Real Estate, Distressed Assets, FDIC, Jerry Anderson, Prescient, real estate commercial, Sperry Van Ness Florida, SVN Florida