Longtime office capital markets executive Russell Ingrum has left his role as vice chairman at real estate services firm CBRE to tackle a leadership role for Cushman & Wakefield.
Ingrum exited CBRE on Friday and began working at Cushman & Wakefield in Dallas on Monday as an executive vice chairman in what he told CoStar News has been a "smooth transition." Ingrum is overseeing Texas for Cushman & Wakefield's capital markets division and will have a leadership role in the national office practice.
"I'm doing a lot of listening and understanding the skill sets we have — our goal is to be great — and no one walks in with the prescription," he said in an interview. "There's a process to it."
Other former CBRE capital markets brokers joining Ingrum in the move to Cushman & Wakefield include Jared Chua in Houston and Matt Murphy in Dallas. Chua is joining Cushman & Wakefield as an executive managing director and Murphy as a director.
The brokerage's capital markets team also includes Kelsey Shebay, who recently joined Cushman & Wakefield in Austin, Texas, as an executive managing director and formerly worked at JLL, and Todd Savage started in February at the brokerage's Dallas office.
Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield, Ingrum was a vice chairman in CBRE's Dallas office. He had been at CBRE for 28 years, having served in a variety of leadership roles in Dallas, Houston and San Francisco. He also spent eight years at Trammell Crow before CBRE acquired the development firm. He has a degree from Texas Tech University.
The Texas team at Cushman & Wakefield will focus on the four primary cities in the Lone Star State, including the Dallas-Fort Worth region, Austin, Houston and San Antonio. Ingrum said he expects the state will keep the newly formed team busy for the foreseeable future.
"The market is getting better with more investors interested in office and more deals coming to the market," he added. "It's not a tidal wave by any stretch, but there's an increased flow of deals and investor interest in Class AA building and A+ locations."
National viewpoint
Along with leading the Texas team, Ingrum has been tasked to help shape the firm's national platform.
Broadly speaking, Texas and Florida continue to benefit from population and job growth, while New York continues to be the first place where big investors are looking to buy, he said. In San Francisco, where he once worked during his tenure at CBRE, Ingrum said it appears to be the first market where investors have embraced the change of value in office properties.
"The office investment market is improving before our eyes, and every market will participate in it," he added. "Investors want what tenants want, and that's the best buildings in the best locations."
With limited new office construction in the pipeline, Ingrum said his team is seeing an upward pressure on rents, with the cost of new construction being "significantly higher" compared with even three years ago. The new construction is driving the rent growth in markets across the Sun Belt, he said, as tenants seek out the "best of the best" space.
Generally speaking, he said, tenant demand for high-end office space has driven rental rates to up to $87 per square foot in Dallas, with the Austin region hitting the mid-$50s per square foot and Houston's rental rates nearing $50 per square foot. In top U.S. office hubs, such as Manhattan and Miami's Brickell neighborhood, rental rates are over $100 per square foot.
With fewer office buildings underway as construction prices push rents, Ingrum said he expects price to be the great equalizer as demand continues to outpace supply.