Commercial Investment Real Estate November/December 2017 | Page 74
“WE BROUGHT IN
EXPERTS , AS
WELL AS USED
SOME OF OUR
OWN PEOPLE.”
20
CCIM.COM
Changing Industry
Dynamics
The 1980s saw a very different climate for the
commercial real estate industry. After a boom in
commercial construction activity fueled in part by
the Economic Recovery Act of 1981, the end of the
decade brought a market crash due to overbuilding
in many markets.
During the early 1990s, the number of savings
and loan institutions that failed and the volume of
their losses hit record numbers.
“The market did collapse substantially,” says Mark
Lee Levine, CCIM, CIPS, MAI, professor at the
University of Denver in Denver. “CCIMs were right
on top of it. We had to survive through these changes
for a number of years and make changes.”
This was further complicated by tax law changes.
“Subsequent to the 1986 tax act, we had rampant
inflation, high interest rates, and many foreclo-
sures,” says Patricia Lynn, CCIM, CDEI, a senior
instructor and principal at LYNNK in San Fran-
cisco. “1989 saw the creation of the Resolution Trust
Corporation, a U.S. government-owned asset man-
agement company, which was selling off properties
en masse. Auctions became a popular disposition
vehicle in the early 1990s.”
The Institute was quick to respond. “We saw a
need for dealing with a different kind of client and
a different disposition approach,” Lynn says. “We
brought in experts, as well as used some of our own
people, to develop a course that helped our clientele
understand how to work with regulatory agencies,
such as the RTC and the FDIC. Since we were
selling large blocks of property as opposed to indi-
vidual one-off properties, a nontraditional approach
needed to be deployed. That was either the auction
or the sealed bid sale.”
But the Institute had more changes in store —
beginning in the early 1980s with the introduc-
tion of computers and investment analysis soft-
ware into the classroom. “Technology became
another reason why people flocked to the courses.
We were ahead of our time at that point,” says
Myles, who worked on the education committee
that embraced the investment analysis software
that Palmer Berge, CCIM, had developed using
Hewlett-Packard’s equipment.
CCIM Institute very early on adopted comput-
ers, says Ralph Spencer, CCIM, SIOR, principal
with Innovative Learning LLC, in Richmond,
Va., and a senior instructor. Bob Ward, CCIM,
developed the Excel workbooks for CCIM courses.
COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE / NOV.17
What made the CCIM
courses different from uni-
versity courses? Practitioners.
From the start, CCIM courses
used seasoned commercial real
estate practitioners to teach its
courses, while consulting with
those in the education field.
“ W hat the st udents
couldn’t find anywhere else
in the marketplace was
courses taught by prac-
titioners,” says Dunn,
who was designated in
1974. “I have always
thought that’s what
made the courses what
they came to be. It was
one of the things that
attracted me.”
CCIM Institute
also offered technol-
ogy not found else-
where. Designees
have long heard the
stories about the cumbersome Ell-
wood tables. Eager to embrace new
technology, in the late 1970s the
Institute introduced the hand-held
calculator to the courses. But these,
too, had a period of adjustment,
says Dunn, who was a CCIM
instructor for 20 years.
“There was a very significant,
sometimes heated argument as to
whether they should be used in
the classroom for fear the students
— Patricia Lynn, CCIM, CDEI wouldn’t learn the process,” Dunn
says. Fueled by the enthusiasm of
members and 1997 Institute presi-
dent Palmer Berge, CCIM, the hand-held calculator
was incorporated into the courses in the late 1970s.
“The first instructor up Monday morning had at
least 25 percent of the class just tearing the cello-
phane off the calculator, which was difficult because
at that point we had to teach them how to use the
calculator as well as what it meant,” Dunn says. “But
once they learned how to use them, the calculations
they had to make went faster and, in all probabil-
ity, were more accurate. From day one the financial
calculators were programmed to calculate the IRR,
so all you had to do was make the entries, and that
just saved a lot of time.”