Experience Matters

Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of RE/MAX, is the Keynote Speaker at CCIM Live! 2013 in Denver. He recently shared his industry insight with Commercial Investment Real Estate magazine. Check out his CCIM Connections piece from the July/August issue below.

Experience is often the foundation upon which success is built. For Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of RE/MAX LLC in Denver, a yearlong recovery from a life-threatening illness allowed him to draw on the vision, determination, and experience of establishing one of the world’s most successful real estate brokerage companies in 1973. His miraculous road to recovery inspired Liniger to write the book, My Next Step: An Extraordinary Journey of Healing and Hope, a memoir created to “inspire others facing similar difficult challenges in their lives,” he says.

“Like those in the residential field, many commercial professionals have faced some very difficult challenges over the last few years,” Liniger adds. While he believes the cycle is not quite complete, the worst is over and recovery is taking hold.

As one of the industry’s most prominent voices for housing reform, Liniger sees the positive momentum in the single-family home sector fueling activity in the commercial markets. In addition to economic and GDP gains, demographic shifts bode well for commercial real estate’s resurgence. “As the millennial generation comes of home-buying age, they will have an influence in many ways. Many of these young people want to be where the action is, so they are renting and buying in urban areas. This is already increasing demand for apartments and condos in many central business districts,” Liniger says. “It’s also changing the way many new developments are being designed, and where residential goes retail will quickly follow.”

An influx of inbound investment is another positive trend, Liniger notes. “Global investors see the U.S. as a stable, safe haven with the prospect for long-term appreciation.” These factors combined are contributing to Re/Max’s strong commitment to growing its brokerage business, he adds.

“The new challenge is adapting to the new economic environment and discovering the tools and resources that will make us successful,” Liniger says. As he so keenly knows from his personal road to recovery, “The past is behind us. An entirely new world of opportunity is on our doorstep.”