The commercial real estate sales star says data from his 40-year career is the key to unlocking the power of AI. Bob Nacal has sold $22 billion in real estate, making him one of America’s most successful brokers. In February 2024, he said he was fired from real estate giant JLL in 2016. Now he is planning a career revival.
Bob Nakal rose to the top of the commercial real estate sales business by focusing not on multibillion-dollar Manhattan skyscrapers but on tens of thousands of ordinary apartment buildings and lots across New York City.
The 62-year-old sales executive is now adding new approaches using artificial intelligence.
He said his new sales company, BKREA, will leverage the real estate data and market observations he has carefully collected since the mid-1980s and combine it with the blossoming capabilities of AI.
Kunakal believes this hot technology will allow him to compete with much larger real estate services companies with just a few employees. BKREA currently employs 15 people, but Knakal doesn’t expect it to get any bigger.
“How much the world will change in the next five years will blow away what has happened in the last 40 years,” Kunakal said. “Once we realized that, the first thing we did when we started a new company was the first person we hired was an AI person.”
Many commercial real estate companies and professionals rely on AI to gather market insights, categorize large amounts of data, create promotional and marketing materials, and organize and manage customer relationships and outreach. Have you started using it or have plans to use it?
Knakal said he believes his company can leverage technology more effectively in its niche because the quality and consistency of its data is better than its competitors.
New York City real estate records are available to anyone online, but over the years Nakal has amassed a wealth of unique observations, including sensitive information that is not publicly available. For example, a rental apartment slated for demolition and redevelopment may have remaining tenants that will detract from its value. On the other hand, vacant land may have access agreements with neighboring properties, which may allow construction to proceed more smoothly and at a higher price.
“If you’re putting in bad data, you’re also putting out bad data,” said Kunakal, who spent three years during the pandemic to gather more of these insights. He added that he had personally verified the sale of the product.
“So how can we compete with the big players?” Nakal asked. “Please show me at least one research institution that has had the same research director for 10 years.”
Tenure at JLL
If Mr. Kunakal, whose outward appearance always seems to be a cheerful one, seems a little irritated by some of the big real estate companies that dominate the country’s commercial real estate sales and services business, it is because he Because it is.
Kunakal built his career primarily outside of that world, starting a small brokerage firm, Massey Kunakal, in 1988 with business partner Paul Massey. Over the next several decades, the two built the company into one of New York City’s largest and most prolific real estate sales companies. In late 2014, they sold the 250-employee business to Cushman & Wakefield, a global commercial real estate firm, for $100 million.
Nakal joined Cushman as part of the sale, but left in 2018 to join rival corporate real estate services giant JLL.
Kunakal’s tenure at JLL came to an end in February 2024 when he was abruptly fired.
He elaborated on his departure, saying he was a guest on CNBC earlier that month to discuss the real estate market with news anchor Brian Sullivan. I was then warned by a representative from JLL’s marketing department that any such media appearance would first require approval from the company. Kunakal said he explained to the person that his employment contract provided him with “unfettered access to the press.”
Shortly after, Kunakal was the subject of a weekend feature in the New York Times. He said he received a call from JLL executives on Monday requesting an emergency meeting. Kunakal sat down with executives in a conference room at JLL’s offices in Manhattan.
“As soon as I walked into the room, the HR director came in,” Kunakal said. “I knew I was going to be fired.”
Kunakal said his firing ended a “dark era in my career.”
“I don’t think they appreciated what I brought to the table,” he said.
A JLL spokesperson said:We thank Bob for his contributions to the company and wish him well in his future endeavors. ”
Mr. Massey, who also left Mr. Cushman in 2018 but remains close with Mr. Nakal, was one of the “funniest people” Mr. Nakal knew, but “became honest about his feelings. It wasn’t very fun,” he said. In the commercial real estate business.
desire to adapt and compete
BKREA also mixes analog elements. In his new office on West 36th Street, a giant map is printed that spans Manhattan from 110th Street on the west side and 96th Street on the east side to the southern tip of the island. Spread across eight tables, the 24-foot-long by 8-foot-wide print details 27,649 commercial buildings and development sites, not only conveying the enormity of the market but also providing a more sensory experience. It is also an easy method to understand.
Bob Nakal’s Map Room Daniel Geiger
Seth Samowitz, a 30-year-old data expert whom Knakal hired earlier this year to spearhead BKREA’s AI efforts, said he initially thought it was “crazy” to put a giant map in an overwhelmingly digital world. spoke. Since then he has come.
“Honestly, this is the best marketing tool in the whole world,” Samowitz said.
Knakal said he has used maps as an important prop in pitching his services to 26 clients. “I got 26 exclusive items.”
Now, he has been hired to sell about $2 billion in real estate assets, the largest pipeline in years. Kunakal said he has sold 2,342 properties totaling approximately $22 billion over his career, which he believes is more than almost any other brokerage in the country.
James Nelson, 49 years old, now Head of Tri-State Investment Sales He joined Avison Young and began his career at Massey Knakal in the 1990s. He said he considers Kunakal a mentor and admires Kunakal’s greed to continue to adapt, innovate and compete.
“Bob talks about what he’ll be doing in 10, 20, 30 years, and that’s to be a broker,” Nelson said. “He enjoys the process and the thrill of hunting.”
