Two veteran residential brokers in Westchester and Putnam counties have joined in opening a commercial real estate business with a goal of capturing a substantial share of Putnam County”™s downtown development and leasing market.
Jennifer Maher and J. Philip Faranda this month celebrated the opening of their J. Philip Commercial Group office at 609 Route 6 in Mahopac. The co-owners will have satellite operations in the existing Briarcliff Manor and Pelham offices of J. Philip Real Estate, the independent residential brokerage started by Faranda in 2005 in a spare room of his home.
“We each have our own baby,” Maher said of the business partners, who began planning their commercial real estate company two years ago. “His is the residential, mine is the commercial.”
Both Realtors have been active in real estate and business organizations. Faranda is president of the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service and a member of Zillow.com”™s agent advisory board. Maher is vice president of the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors and a director of the New York State Association of Realtors. She serves as chairwoman of the Putnam County Chambers of Commerce board of directors.
Maher ran her own Mahopac brokerage firm, Incline Real Property Services, from 2008 to 2010 before merging with Keller Williams Realty Group, where she headed the Scarsdale office. Stepping down from the CEO position in Scarsdale to become an assistant broker and business strategist at Keller Williams NY Realty in White Plains, Maher said she “had to look at my spheres of influence” in her community.
“My sphere is really elected officials and business owners,” she said. She began focusing on commercial real estate deals as a result, she said.
Maher said the company initially has focused on Putnam County, where she aims to capture 40 percent of the commercial market share. The company is also doing deals in Westchester and Dutchess counties and plans to move into Fairfield County, Conn., this year.
“Because the market is so diversified in Putnam County, it”™s mostly downtown mom-and-pop-type stores” in their commercial leasing business, Maher said. She said she is focusing on downtown areas in the county “and what makes a good fit” in retail, restaurant, medical office and mixed-use development.
“We”™re not the Class A (office)-leasing White Plains company,” Maher said. “Not that we”™re afraid to do it, but this is sort of our niche ”“ downtown Main Street development and leasing.”
Maher said the firm has two licensed commercial agents in the Mahopac office and three more employees obtaining their real estate licenses. She said she projects a team of 20 brokers in the Putnam County office by the end of 2016.
“I think very big,” Maher said of that projection. “We”™re poised. We”™ve spent a year getting ourselves ready,” studying their competition in the commercial market and doing guerrilla marketing.
Faranda in a press release attributed the growth of his residential brokerage through the housing downturn to his firm”™s adoption of technology, the Internet and social media in marketing. “We were early adapters of things that the public wanted, like listing syndication (on online real estate sites) and video,” he said. “We are excited to bring this fresh approach to the commercial market as we feel it is currently being underserved.”
