Looking ahead to recruit talent to keep firms in New England competitive and meaningful - by Bill Norton

Bill Norton, Norton Asset Management

Sitting down to write this column, there are only two more days of summer left! But the Red Sox have just taken 4 with the Yankees and the Patriots (without Brady and now Garappolo) won over Miami, so the end of summer seems to be on a high note.

It is a great temptation to go on a rant about the presidential election, the candidates, the campaign spending... but I will spare you. I read in this morning’s paper that none other than Warren Buffett is optimistic and even gung ho! He said do not count America out. Over our 200+ year history, we have repeatedly rallied to show entrepreneurial spirit and business marketing/savvy. He even said that Social Security will get squared away and reasonably funded. As a 65-year-old Baby Boomer, I was not personally worried, but I was fretting for my son and daughter (27 and 30). So I am going to take Warren’s word for it and not worry about it anymore! 

But as fall approaches, we have seen the traditional increase in phone calls, requested site tours, etc. It is past Labor Day and people want to get back to work. Sometimes this surprises me because it is not like the “old days” when many people took one or two weeks’ vacation in August (and kids did not go back to school until after Labor Day). Those were truly the dog days of Summer. But with the ubiquitous cell phone, texts and emails, there is no such thing anymore (I am not sure this is a good thing by the way). I got my first mobile phone (a “bag phone” actually) in 1988. It was the size of the old Manhattan Yellow Pages and weighed about as much as two bricks. It cost $0.50 a minute! Today, 8 or 10 cellphones later, I have a Samsung Galaxy 5 or 6 “smart phone.” I text, email, send photos and, oh yes, have conversations. One of the downsides of all these instant communications is the absence of cerebral time. Some of the younger brokers in our office will come to me and say “I just got this text (email or voicemail) asking this question - what should I say?” Well, first is it worthy of a reply? Second, do you have enough information to reply concisely and accurately? If not, then do not reply now until you get your facts in order. On occasion, I tell them go home, sleep on it and respond tomorrow (the world will not end!).

Ironically, while the pace of communication has mushroomed, getting deals done seems to be more chaotic in this faster paced environment. Looking back over the last two quarters, there have been several closings that were not complete when the parties all gathered in one room. Today, this can be a figure of speech as many/most closings are not live events - electronic documents, wired funds... In fact, as a broker, and frequently an escrow agent, I have not been to a commercial closing in a long time. Once we have confirmed that our part of the transaction is complete and accurate, we move on to the next one. The young folks in the office enjoy hearing the stories of all day or half day closings where sometimes our administrative staff had to retype documents on legal size paper without any typos, not to mention celebratory lunches (or dinners), often including adult beverages – ah, those were the days!

All this reminiscing simply brings into focus that transactions in the early decades of the 21^st century will continue to be electronic and this greatly expands the playing field. We recently sold a medical office portfolio to three clients based in Tennessee, Chicago and California. The attorneys were in Texas and the due diligence team was in Atlanta. We don’t see many of these cosmopolitan deals in New Hampshire and north of Boston, as ours is a “tertiary market,” which does not draw global capital & investment. Looking ahead, an aging and a graying New England needs to figure out how to recruit talent to staff our firms to keep us competitive and meaningful as we head to the third decade of the 21^st Century.

Bill Norton, CRE, FMA, Hon. AIA NH, is president of Norton Asset Management, Manchester, N.H.