In the first round of the Battle of the Bids, retail properties were king, and an Upstate New York broker who's competing is pretty sure he knows why.
"It's about familiarity," Patrick Wahl, a CBRE broker in the Rochester, New York market, said in an interview. "There's probably more retail brokers than any other property type." That, plus, people in general find stores and shopping centers more relatable than other properties because they use them frequently, he said.
Battle of the Bids is a six-round competition in which players place bets each round on the final sale prices of 10 properties to be auctioned on Ten-X, the online commercial real estate exchange owned by CoStar Group, publisher of CoStar News. Ten-X will give away prizes totaling up to $3 million, including a $1 million grand prize to the player who accumulates the most points across the six-round competition.
Wahl focused on auctions involving industrial properties, but he's placed some bets on retail assets among his 10 wagers in round one of the competition that Ten-X said is the biggest of its kind in commercial real estate.
He's part of a wave of players who are selecting shopping centers and net-lease shop spaces when picking assets to play. Of the 14,686 bets that had been placed as of late Friday, 6,356 — or about 43%— have been placed on retail properties to be auctioned this week on the Ten-X platform.
Players in the first round can choose 10 properties to wager on from the 61 being offered for auction in a contest that ends Thursday. With 23 retail centers in the mix, the sector has the most properties available for players to bet on in the first round. Still, the amount of wagers made on the shopping centers and stores outweighs their representation in the contest.
The office sector has the second-highest amount of properties available in this week's Ten-X auction. Although a generalization exists that office buildings are struggling, Wahl said some offer good investment opportunities, especially if they're well-leased and stabilized properties that produce a steady income stream.
"It's so property focused," he said, "and depends on occupancy, specific location" and other factors.
Wahl got into commercial real estate more than 10 years ago after starting his career in investment banking. A self-described vagabond, Wahl has "lived for at least three months on every continent but Antarctica," according to his LinkedIn profile.
Commercial real estate has "proved to be intellectually stimulating and emotionally challenging," Wahl said.
He decided to compete in the Battle of the Bids this year because it's interesting and winnable, Wahl said. "I'm not a gambler," he said. "I don't go to casinos. I don't do things where I think I'm making a losing bet."
Moreover, participating costs nothing but some time, he said. "I felt like I had a legitimate chance of winning," he said.
More information about Battle of the Bids and how to sign up can be found here.