Broker Dan Granot says this Father's Day will be extra special because he's one step closer to a career goal he's longed for since he became a father.
His eldest daughter, Hannah Granot, just landed a job as a sales coordinator at JLL in New York City. Though she works at a rival real estate services firm, her father says the move put them on a path to one day work together, hopefully on the same side of the deal table.
"It was always a dream that one day I could work side by side with all my kids," Dan Granot said in an interview. "Nothing would make me happier than getting to work with one or all of my kids." In October, he dissolved the brokerage he owned with a partner and took over as executive managing director of office tenant representation at Savills Atlanta.
Dan Granot and his wife, Wendy, who worked in commercial real estate when she met her husband, have three daughters. Hannah is their eldest.
Dan Granot never worked directly with his late father Alex Granot, but his dad taught him some lessons that helped him succeed as a broker. They also invested together in duplexes and other multifamily properties in and around Atlanta.
"The best thing that I learned from my dad is work ethic," Dan Granot said. "I mean, my dad worked in a small cash business like a lot of immigrants do. But damned if he didn't work six, seven days a week, and from morning 'til night."
Alex Granot, who was born in Poland and ran away from home at 13 to escape the Nazis, immigrated to the United States from Israel with his wife Jaffa Granot. They raised Dan in Atlanta. Jaffa Granot still lives there.
Alex Granot was in the grocery business and then ran a sundry shop business and later a dry cleaning business. "It was not that we were so wealthy by any stretch, but just watching him get up every day and do what he needed to provide for our family, and he and my mom are the ones who gave me the opportunities to succeed," Dan Granot said.
Dan Granot then passed down that work ethic and his enthusiasm for the real estate industry to her, Hannah Granot said in an interview.
"I grew up watching my dad do commercial real estate and seeing how much he enjoyed it and I liked being taken on tours with him and like sitting in on broker functions and just running around his office as I was younger," she said. "My dad are similar in a lot of ways. We're very social and have the same work ethic and I knew how much he loved real estate and I kind of just fell into that.
Picking his career
After leaving the University of Arkansas with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism in 1987, Granot had to pick a career path. A star tennis player for the Razorbacks, he ran a tennis academy for his college coach for a while, but knew he wanted to work in the business world or become a lawyer.
"I was going to go to law school, but I was always told that I should get into sales," he said. "And I didn't really know what that means or what that meant."
He did some research and ended up picking commercial real estate over selling insurance or stocks. "Commercial real estate seemed like it was the most fun and that I'd have a path to being financially successful," Granot said. "I figured I had a backstop of going to law school if that didn't work out."
In 1989, he started his career as a broker at Richard Bowers & Co., an Atlanta firm headed by Richard Bowers, somewhat of a local real estate legend. Once cellphones became eponymous, he was at times seen with one in each hand, working two deals at once. "Richard Bowyers was really a great mentor in the sense that his work ethic was unmatched," Granot said. "So, you know, I made a good choice at the time."
While working at Bowers, Granot met his wife, who was working at healthcare real estate services firm, Meadows & Ohly. They met on the softball field when they were part of Atlanta's Broker Softball League.
Over the next three decades-plus, Granot became a successful office tenant broker who worked at Insignia/ESG, now part of CBRE, and other firms such as Joel & Granot, the one he owned with a former partner.
As he and Wendy had their daughters Hannah, Ava and Olivia, Dan Granot thought there might be less of a chance for him to realize his dream of working with one or all of them.
"When I started in the real estate business, there were far fewer women in our business," he said. "I didn't think about it much then, but it's pretty cool to know that there are lots of opportunities for females now in our industry."
Following Dad's footsteps
Granot said it made him happy when his eldest daughter, Hannah, picked a career in commercial real estate after graduating from the University of Alabama in 2023, where she had a double major in finance and marketing with a minor in real estate. She worked for about 18 months as a sales analyst at investment sales advisory firm Meridian Capital Group. Though she served as an analyst on the mid-market multifamily team, she got her brokerage license while at Meridian. Earlier this year, she began to consider a job at a big brokerage.
"She drove it, and she would bounce ideas off of me," Dan Granot said. "I thought that she may enjoy the energy of a big firm. And so I encouraged her to look at all the big firms out there, and she spoke to a few of them. In her eyes, this is an opportunity that popped up that she was really excited about."
The opportunity that came was with JLL, the world's second-largest commercial property services firm based on revenue. She serves as a sales coordinator on a retail team whose main client is a major drugstore chain. "Retail is something that's a little more personable," she said. "It's something I'm interested in, and retail is something that I do on a daily basis."
As for his other daughters, Granot said Ava is interning at executive search firm Korn Ferry this summer, and Olivia is a psychology major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
On Sunday, Granot said he plans to spend Father's Day with Olivia and Ava. Hannah, only a week into her new job at JLL, will be in New York, but will be on Dad's mind.
"I'll speak to Hannah up there," he said. "And, you know, it's a family day, so will be the best day it can be."