Future of CRE Technology with Yannis Papadakis, Business Development Manager and Podcast Host at CREXi

Yannis Papadakis is a Business Development Manager and Podcast Host at CREXi. Based in Los Angeles, CREXi is a commercial real estate community, marketplace, and technology company that simplifies transactions and accelerates business for brokers, buyers, agents and tenants. 

Yannis is responsible for building relationships with commercial real estate professionals from across the country and connecting, educating, and supporting them through CREXi’s platform. His real estate experience began at age 19, when he started managing a shopping center and 80,000 square-feet of retail space. From there, Yannis has worn many hats as a sales agent, property manager, auction manager, and investor. 

Yannis hosts the Crexi Podcast, which provides a window into the inner workings of commercial real estate for new and established real estate professionals. His guests include top producing brokers and real estate industry leaders from across the country. Yannis earned his undergraduate degree from Lynn University. 

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Transcript

AY Strauss: Hello everybody, welcome to the Dealmakers’ Edge. Today, we're really happy to be joined by Yannis Papadakis, who's head of Business Development and Podcast Host at CREXi. Based in LA, CREXi is a Commercial Real Estate community, marketplace, and technology company that simplifies transactions and accelerates business for brokers, buyers, agents, and tenants. Yannis is responsible for building relationships with Commercial Real Estate professionals from across the country and connecting, educating and supporting them through CREXi's platform. His real estate experience began at 19 in property management. From there, he's also been on the sales side, the brokerage side, property manager, auction manager and investor. There's a lot to cover here. But, you also – you host the Crexi podcast, of which I've been a guest, so thank you so much for having me on. 

Yannis Papadakis: Thanks for coming on. 

AY Strauss: Of course. And that provides a window into the inner workings of commercial real estate for new and established real estate professionals. Your guests have included top producing brokers, industry leaders from across the country. I think it's very vibrant to bring somebody with your unique skill set and background, talk about the CREXi platform, but also broadly to speak on how to brand build and market and the value of doing things like podcasting and all the social media and all the influence that you're doing. How that could be successful for building a brand. So – I'm going to stop the rambling, but Yannis, we're pumped you’re on. And thank you so much for making the time today. 

Yannis Papadakis: So happy to be here. It was a great episode to have you on. And if you're watching this and you haven't seen that episode, go check it out. The podcast has been one of the hats that I wear at CREXi and, you know, being part of a growing startup, sometimes you have to wear multiple hats at once. But it's one of the more fun hats I get to wear, especially because I get to connect with amazing guests like yourself. 

AY Strauss: Likewise. And it's a totally different vibe being interviewed than interviewing, is it not? 

Yannis Papadakis: It is. It is. You know, usually I've got the talk track in front of me. I've got the guests that are ready to have questions thrown at them. So, it's exciting to be on the other side of it. 

AY Strauss: Yeah, and if I'm being honest, I like the interviewing side better. You're a little more in control. 

Yannis Papadakis:  Yeah, I know, who doesn't. You got the power. 

AY Strauss: You could do less damage. But anyway, it's awesome you're here. I appreciate your friendship. What I want to do is give listeners a little bit of a background of how you got to where you are today. And then we can jump into more present times and all the good things we're doing. Maybe you can walk people through your background? You've had a lot of roles – just sort of walk us through ‘til the present day. 

Yannis Papadakis: Well, I started learning about property management at a really young age. My dad owned liquor stores and the underlying real estate here in Los Angeles. I grew up as a kid first, working in the liquor stores, dusting wine bottles, and scraping gum off the sidewalk. I'd go with him from location to location, understanding and seeing how he would manage these properties, manage tenants. I got a real boots on the ground, hands in the dirt feel for commercial real estate. From the time I was 13-14 years old, right? On Saturdays, kids would go play soccer – I'd go to the liquor store to put in some hours.

From there, I actually was able to really appreciate how much work goes into effectively managing commercial real estate properties, especially if you're the one doing it and you're not delegating that to a management company. As I got older, I took on more responsibility on the management side. Helping manage the family's portfolio. Then went to college, didn't really think about commercial real estate all that much. I was having fun in South Florida, where I went to school. It wasn't until I got back (moved back to LA) that I got my license, got into brokerage, and first started working with Marcus & Millichap in the downtown LA office. Focusing on apartments and exchanging apartment sellers in Southern California into a net leased retail properties out of state. We just had such a very clear transition from super low caps apartments selling in LA into higher cap, corporate owned – corporate guaranteed triple net properties out of state where clients were doubling their effective cash flow and giving room to the management responsibilities. Which, considering my experience of management, sounded like a great time. 

While at Marcus, I had the good fortune of being able to purchase property – Multi-family deal here in Los Angeles. So, I went from broker, to owner, and the manager again. Which, managing multi-family (completely different animal than managing retail), I took a crash course in and I still have the building. It was while I was working at brokerage at Marcus & Millichap that I actually came across CREXi. In the course of the brokerage side of things, I started growing a team there to not only focus on the apartment deals that we were trying to sell here in LA, but also to secure listings for high quality net lease assets out of state to help transition clients into those deals as well. While doing that, we were looking for every edge we could get. We were a young team that was scrappy (myself and my partner) that came into the business at the same time. A couple of junior agents who were training to come up through the market system. We wanted to get every advantage we could because we're competing against these guys that have been in the industry for decades. It's hard to set yourself apart when you've never worked a specific market or a specific tenant and you're competing with guys that have a huge track record, sold billions of dollar’s worth of deals.

So, we really tried to leverage as much technology as we could. And CREXi was something that came onto our radar pretty early in CREXi 's history. The experience I had with CREXi as a broker was unlike any other service that I'd been using in brokerage. First off, they had amazing customer service and were very available at all times. If I got a new deal, I could call and talk to somebody and say, "Hey, I'm sending you an OM for a listing that I just got. Can you put it up there? Can you blast it?" They were on it really quickly, literally on the way back to the office. After meeting with a client, if I had a price reduction, I'd call them and say, "Hey, can you adjust the price?" and they would get it done like that. It was that kind of responsiveness that initially was like, "Okay, these guys are a little different." But it was ultimately the results that I was getting from using CREXi that really piqued my interest into them as a company.

The way that most brokers approached marketing their properties online was: throw it online and you wait for a motivated buyer to come and bang your door down with an offer. It's in a very reactive way of marketing the property and then connecting with buyers. The unique thing about CREXi (one of the unique things) was they were giving you the tools to be proactive in that space. So, instead of waiting for somebody that wants to submit an offer, knocking on your door, giving you a call and saying, "Hey, I'd like to submit an offer.", CREXi was giving you transparency into everybody that was engaging with your property on different levels.

Somebody that just viewed your listing, versus somebody that downloaded the offering memorandum, versus somebody that went into the due diligence vault. You could see what they downloaded. They can submit an offer as well, but being able to break down those leads into those different types of activities was so immediately beneficial towards me because it led me to getting significantly more listings in a very short amount of time. I quickly outpaced the other agents that started at the same time. That was because I was calling everybody that was looking at my deals. First, if somebody just looked at the listing and they didn't do anything else, I wanted to know why they looked at it. So, I'd give them a call and ask:  

"Hey, you looked at my deal” 

“Oh, I'm not really buying right now.”  

“Okay, but you looked at it. Why were you looking at it?" 

It was a great way to open a conversation and find somebody that's a seller and is trying to see what else is out there in the market. 

“I've got a similar deal” 

“I also own a Denny's”

“I'm just trying to understand where cap rates are right now” 

Well, great! Let’s talk about your Denny's. When did you buy it, who's the operator – all that good stuff. The other thing that was extremely useful was, I could change the notifications on CREXi's Marketplace to send me a text message whenever somebody opened up one of my OM’s. I had a rule for myself and the team: I don't care if you're in the middle of a bite of food, if you're getting that text and somebody opens your OM, call them right then and there. Because a couple of things are true about this: A) they're at their computer. B) they're looking for commercial real estate and see they got your deal in front of them, right? Could there possibly be a better time to reach out to them and talk about real estate. Nine times out of 10, I'd be met with somebody surprised and impressed, like, “Oh, my God, you guys are really on it.  I'm literally looking at your deal right now”. One time out of 10, they'd be a little creeped out like, “Hey, how do you know – how do you know I'm looking at your deal?” It's like, well, that’s the point of this is to be able to shorten the distance between buyer and seller.

The effectiveness with which CREXi transformed by business at Marcus made it a no-brainer when I was offered to come join their team and help not only educate the sales professionals here on the brokerage experience, but also use my experience using it to go into other offices and help other brokers understand, “Hey, how do I more effectively utilize these tools?” Cause they're powerful tools. I mean, they were powerful tools back then. CREXi has transformed quite significantly since then, right? I mean, we're still a marketplace.

AY Strauss: Let's talk about that for a second. Talk about that growth. 'Cause when you started, I think the head count has just been exponential. So, from when you started ‘till now, maybe you could talk about the growth from then ‘till present day and how has it been being part of such a growing organization?

Yannis Papadakis: Well, sometimes it feels like drinking from a fire hose. I think when I started, there was 35, maybe 40 employees at CREXi total. Currently, I think there's over 400, maybe over 500 employees at CREXi, and we're continuing to grow. What we're seeing is a pretty big demand for technology. 

The way that CREXi itself has changed is that most people know us for being a marketplace, and it definitely started that way. Especially to help brokers, but it's turned into so much more with auctions, intelligence, comps data – it's a networking tool, due diligence hub, leasing platform. When I started, it was only sales or sales and leasing. There's ownership information and debt information for property records that you look for. It really is a tool for anyone that engages with commercial real estate. I think we're really bullish on creating the most useful and accessible tools for stakeholders, no matter what side of the transaction they're on. No matter what point in the transaction they're in. That's kind of the direction that we're growing into is: how can we be more useful to people engaging in commercial real estate?

I think our commitment to, one, listening to our customers, listening to our clients and understanding what their needs are. Pretty frequently we will get suggestions from people that engage with CREXi frequently and say, “Hey, you know, it'd be great if we could do X” or, “Y is really good, but Y would be better if I could also do Z”. That feedback goes directly to the product team, and a lot of times we're able to turn those improvements around in pretty short order. I think that's one of the fun things about being in a startup is you can be pretty nimble and you can be pretty agile and implement things that the market wants pretty quickly.

AY Strauss: Sure. A question for you on auctions. Obviously the market today is a lot different than two, three years ago. Do you have any data points on, I guess the rate of velocity of more properties being auctioned? Are you seeing an increase given the market and a little bit more distress? People just need to sell out their deals before loan maturity? Pressure to sell now? The traditional markets are a little dysfunctional. Are you seeing an increase of activity on auctions in general, say year over year – is that something you would know of? 

Yannis Papadakis: I mean, we're definitely seeing an increase in the adoption of auction tools. I think that that would be happening regardless of the state of the market. Largely because more brokers are realizing that they have these auction tools. The actual market itself – yes. If you're out there and you're engaging in commercial real estate right now, there are a lot of challenges, right? For development, construction costs are still quite high, interest rates are on the tip of everybody's tongue, and deal volume has slowed down a bit.

I think that definitely has added to the desire for auction tools to help differentiate your property from others out there. Generally speaking, a lot of the buyers that I talked to are thinking why purchase something today when I'm expecting in five, six months, I may be able to get the same deal or a larger one for a better price? It's kind of a fair assessment. I think everybody's waiting to see which way interest rates start moving. But I think auctions are being really leveraged as not only a way to differentiate your property from other ones that are out there. In a market when there's a lot of inventory, or a glut of inventory, how does your deal stand apart? Well, you put an expiration date on it and say, “Hey, this deal is trading on this specific day. It's either you're interested and you’ll engage in it or you're not. You don't”. Instead of waiting to see what more deals come and what more deals come and what's coming on next week – this deal is going to trade on a date-specific auction. I think that brokers and sellers are both really resonating with the kind of the call-to-action and the power that an auction has.

I think another big piece of it too is, as I said, the tools have become more available. Previously, auctions used to be a four-letter word where it would be a tough deal, or a complex deal. A deal that can't really come or the dog would flee. And the auction is the only way you're going to get this off your plate. But I think we've really transformed auctions into really representing quality real estate that just has a high level of competition around it.

For example, we've only been doing auctions since 2019. So we've been in the auction space for about five years now. Five years, I think, in August this year. We've quickly taken the record for the single largest online transaction with a reserve price of $150 million and a final bid of $205 million. Institutional groups were competing on it. It was the Beltway Business Park in Las Vegas.  And to be able to add $55 million of value after the reserve price is really testament to what happens when you've got a great platform that's bringing all the players and forcing them to compete on a level playing field. I think when brokers realize that, "Hey, I've got an asset and I want to give my seller the best possible terms and do it in a way that's transparent – auctions are really unique”. 

AY Strauss: I agree. I think years ago, brokers would be very, very hesitant to mention the word auction. For any reason, at any time in connection with the process because it kind of undermines their value if a tool can help run a process. But, I think the brokers that are more advisors – and I think the brokerage industry in general has gotten more comfortable in teaming up with platforms that can execute the auction. You see a lot of, this property is listed through broker X in conjunction with auction platform Y. I think that's the ideal situation where it's a complimentary tool with a knowledgeable broker and both parties (all parties) can win in the transaction. So that's really cool. 

From a legal perspective, what scares me with the auctions is, I've had clients come and say, "Hey, we were under contract." I said, "How?" He said, "Through the auction process." No due diligence except what's in the room. We're not even aware till after they've signed and the closing process could get interesting. Let's just put it that way. But it's a wonderful tool and especially in a market which is moving. I think it's good that it's being more widely adopted generally. 

Yannis Papadakis: Just to kind of follow up on that. You kind of hit the nail on the head there and it really is a partnership. CREXi doesn't do any for sale by owner listings on our website or auctions, as well. It requires a listing broker. The reason is because these deals would not sell without a broker that understands the deal, understands the market, and can sell it. We're auction experts, we've got the tech, we've got the platform. We can expose it to millions of people looking for commercial real estate. But, we're not experts in every market or every product type and we really do require that listing broker on the deal because without them, the deal doesn't get sold. Brokers move deals. I know that from both the broker perspective and being on the auction side now. If you're not there on your end doing the boots on the ground brokerage work of talking to the merits of the deal, talking to the merits of the market – it's not going to trade. 

It definitely is a partnership, and I think more brokers are realizing, “Hey, deals that maybe I expired this year, I didn't have to expire – I could have gone the auction route”. I think what a lot of brokers don't realize too is they can use a third party, like CREXi and the auction platform, as kind of a neutral voice to help navigate their seller to maybe a better outcome.

Maybe it's not an auction, right? I think discussing and having a neutral third party talk about the deal and what an auction would look like can lead to one of two things. Either an auction, or perhaps even a price reduction, continuing marketing it traditionally with some adjusted price expectations. So I think either way, you wind up with a more sellable deal and our goal is to really help brokerage sell more deals and help sellers transact. 

AY Strauss: 100%. Well said. Another question for you I have is, you've been hosting successful podcasts. You walk a fine line, you know, business development, helping execute in your day job. You're also a brand builder. I think a theme today is trying to build brands around commercial real estate companies. There's more operating tech companies, there's obviously service businesses, there's brokerage houses. You've developed a niche for yourself where you've established the ability to enhance, augment, and expand on a commercial real estate brand that was very, very vibrant. Maybe you could talk about your ideas on marketing, branding, and the benefits of podcasting.

I mean, I'm a podcaster and you wonder sometimes, “What's really the value?”. I've used this successfully to build great relationships. I love that we're educating our community. I love that we're part of the conversation. Maybe you can share your perspective on how being a marketer within an operating company has been successful for you and for the brand. 

Yannis Papadakis: Absolutely. Well, I mean, I can only speak to my own experience in marketing, which started with brokerage. In the brokerage world, it's very competitive. Obviously, you're competing against the other brokers in your market to win assignments. I learned from more experienced and very sophisticated brokers when I first started that, your marketing materials matter – a lot. How you present a deal, is how you present yourself. Don't shy away from  investing in your marketing so that you can present yourself, your operation, your team in the best possible light. 

I think when it comes to CREXi, I can't take any credit for the branding here. We have an amazing chief marketing officer, Courtney Ettus, who's been widely recognized as somebody that's really helping shape commercial real estate as a whole. She's really the genius behind the CREXi branding and marketing, but being able to be an arm of that by being on the podcast and connecting with brokers, investors, different stakeholders in commercial real estate has been really fulfilling. 

I think when CREXi as a brand gets brought up when we go to conferences or ICSC, we constantly have our clients coming up to us telling us how much they love us as a platform they use. They love the team that they work with and the customer service. We're extremely customer service oriented and partner with our users, really. This goes back to the responsiveness to feedback and adding updates based on their input.

A good tool is good for everyone in the industry. I think by putting a heavy focus on the customer experience and putting brokers' needs first, in terms of how we design the product, has really made the path a little easier for us than some of our competitors. We want to be the best at customer service. We want to be responsive and goal oriented in terms of making sure that we're helping you hit your goals. 

Now, when it comes to building a brand, I know that CREXi has come a long way from the small startup that I first joined after leaving brokerage. A lot of that has to do because we really hire for people, right? Skills can be trained but the right people? The right personalities that are happy to engage with their clients and provide a positive impact in the industry as a whole? It has really made a world of difference. Which is why it's like walking the red carpet every time you go to an event. People see CREXi and they want to tell us how much they love us, how great the results they're getting on the platform. They know their customer service rep by name. “Hey, is JB here?” I remember when I did the same thing when I first came to CREXi. JB was my customer service rep, helping put my deals up and market my deals. I got to meet him in person. It was just a really solid high five like, "Hey, man, you've been helping me get deals done. It's great to finally meet you." So the people here definitely are the tip of the spear in terms of branding.

And I think as long as you're making an honest effort to connect with your audience, connect with your clients, and provide them value – then that comes back to you ten-fold. The podcast, the different things that we're putting out on social media, the data – all of that is oriented around, how can we provide more value to the market? 

AY Strauss: And I think also what you said with respect to responsiveness: any business you're in (whether it's tech, service, operating) the more responsive, the better the relationship. That's obviously assuming that you're going to be responsive on the right things. The marriage between tons of data, tons of tech – it's proof that you can have the best technology in the world but without the right people in the service capacity, augmenting and amplifying the technology, you can't really grow. You need a combination, no matter how far we advance technologically. 

Now Yannis, I want to really thank you for being on today, it's been wonderful to catch up. I hope people check out your podcast through the CREXi platform. It's been wonderful learning more about the platform, catching up with you generally. And I hope that we'll continue to talk a lot more as you continue to grow.

Yannis Papadakis: Absolutely. Aaron, thanks so much for having me on. If anybody wants to reach me and talk about auctions or anything about the market, feel free. You can send me an email. It's just my first name, yannis@crexi.com. And to check out the Crexi podcast, it's just Crexi.com/podcast.

AY Strauss: That's awesome, my friend. Well, have a wonderful weekend. Thank you again so much for being on and looking forward to hearing a lot more great things in the future Yannis. 

Yannis Papadakis: Thank you, Aaron, take care.