This week, C. Whitney Knoll shared his insights on the current investment sales market for retail property. A true veteran of commercial real estate, Knoll has been in the business since 1972 and since entering the retail investment sales brokerage world in 1988 at CB Commercial, has established himself among the market leaders in the brokerage of high-profile shopping center sale transactions. During his extensive career in retail real estate, Knoll has led retail investment sales brokerage teams at firms including Ben Carter Associates, Trammell Crow Company, Staubach and Holiday Fenoglio Fowler, and had a hand in closing more than 225 retail transactions totaling 33 million square feet in excess of $3 billion in total sales volume. Today, Knoll's East Coast Retail Investment Sales Team can be found at Atlanta-based Lavista Associates. Knoll began our conversation by recounting one of his most notable deals. In November 2007, his retail investment sales team represented Jacksonville-based shopping center REIT, Regency Centers (NYSE:REG) in its $104 million sale of a grocery and drugstore-anchored portfolio to DLC Management. The portfolio, which totaled 670,000 square feet, included seven well-occupied neighborhood shopping centers in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina, anchored primarily by Florida grocery leader, Publix. The portfolio traded at a then-market norm cap rate of 6.8%. That deal, however, closed during the height of the market for retail real estate. Since then, the number of major retail property sales has plunged and Knoll, like most in the industry, found himself challenged to close any deals. Having had the experience of working through previous recessions, Knoll said that this has been the worst by far. "It was really fast and severe. The rug was pulled out from under us," he said. In response, Knoll was forced to change his mantra during the recession. With the availability of $20 million+ deals falling off the radar, his team was no longer so busy that it could choose to turn down representation of smaller sale transactions. Instead, Knoll has kept his focus on maintaining client relationships and found this method worked to maintain a respectable level of transaction activity during this down period. "While the deals aren't as big, it's the relationship with our clients that matter and are just as important. When I have a client that needs something, as long as it’s in my 'wheel house,' we help them. Period." More representative of Knoll's recession-era work is his team's representation of Centro Properties Group in some transactions during 2009. The debt-ridden Australian property owner sold many of its U.S. shopping centers during 2009 at sale prices below their prior acquisition price, as it still had equity in these properties to help it pay off portions of its massive debt load, which justified selling the centers at the new market pricing. Then affiliated with HFF, Knoll's team represented Centro in the $17 million sale of the 130,000-square-foot, LA Fitness-anchored Merchants Exchange in Marietta, GA; the $12.6 million sale of the Food World-anchored Shoppes at Letson Farms in McCalla, AL; and the $2.6 million sale of the Big Lots-anchored Hampton Plaza in Tampa, FL. We asked Knoll how his strategy in marketing his listings has changed. During the market high, Knoll's team would generally solicit offers from its known circle of clients. These days, however, Knoll has found that to be most effective, he's had to market his listings to the widest pool of buyers possible. He also spends extra time at more industry conferences making new contacts. Additionally, Knoll said he's wound back the clock to bring back buyers that were in the market several years ago, banking on the theory that they'll get back in the game because the "pricing is right for them again." One persistent recession-related complaint of investment sale brokers has been the challenge of establishing pricing in a market that's absent of comparable transactions. "We've focused on serving people that know the market was better before, but still want to sell for whatever reason, so it's simply a matter of going to market and bringing at least a few parties to the table to look for the best number we can get."