Customer Spotlight on Sean Fulp, Executive Managing Director at Newmark

Reonomy’s Customer Spotlight Series highlights professionals from across CRE and focuses on their experiences with data and technology, their thoughts on the largest growth opportunities for organizations leveraging data, along with how data providers should think about innovation to best serve their customer’s needs.

In this first edition of the series, we had the pleasure of hearing from Sean Fulp, Executive Managing Director at Newmark.

Tell us about your role. What are the tools or workflows you have in place that make you and your team successful?

I lead Newmark’s Private Capital Group in Los Angeles, with a focus on office, industrial, and now multifamily. Our team has grown quickly over the past few years and are on target to complete over 50 sales this year, so it’s critical that we’re system minded.

We look at all our deal sourcing processes and try to find ways to digitize, while also eliminating redundant, manual inputs wherever possible. We feel our time is best spent listening to our clients and advising, as opposed to manual research that doesn’t necessarily bring value to the client.

Our team leverages Reonomy, CoStar, Real Capital Analytics, LinkedIn, Trepp, Land Vision, and Google to conduct research. Reonomy is a great tool for research and lead generation. We find it very intuitive, the data is very reliable, and we appreciate the predictive analytics it offers. 

Describe how the data landscape has changed since you originally started in CRE. 

I started in CRE in the early 2000’s, and at that time, we relied on a database manager to provide quarterly market studies that analyzed market size, vacancy, under construction and absorption. The data was supplied by the agents, who at times played the role of data scientist. Our business has obviously come a long way.

Have you worked in any industries outside of CRE?

I have not, however, we find ourselves researching outside of our industry, so we are continually learning new things. For example, our team needs to understand and analyze the quality and creditworthiness of the rent roll, which requires us to learn more about non-real estate related business models. 

What is the most significant benefit of having access to Reonomy’s data? 

The most significant benefit of having access to Reonomy’s data is the quality of the data and how user friendly the interface is. Reonomy has developed a platform that will continue to do more and more for our industry because of the way it gathers data at scale and presents that data in intuitive and easy-to-access formats. 

What are your organization’s largest blindspots when it comes to CRE data today? 

Predictive analytics is an area where we’ll see more solutions. The investors that shifted their investment strategies early to multifamily and industrial mostly did that based upon data, and the same goes for the investors that entered early this past cycle into markets like Seattle, Oakland, Denver, and pockets of LA, such as Burbank, Culver City or Hollywood. 

Getting ahead of demand requires predictive analytics which requires data and appropriately designed models. PropTech platforms are helping with the process and allowing users to get to valuable insights more easily.

In your opinion, what are the largest growth opportunities for organizations leveraging CRE data? 

Organizations first need to figure out what data to leverage and then organize it in a way so that it’s actionable. 

Next, it comes down to how the data is collected and the need to deploy technology that requires fewer inputs from our team, so that our team can allocate more time to revenue producing activities.

What about data providers in CRE? 

More tools need to be developed that capture and process data as we take actions, without requiring manual inputs. As we get closer to that type of workflow, the data and the insights the data produces will be more reliable and consistent.

What should the PropTech industry keep in mind when innovating on technology for the CRE industry? 

On the surface, our business seems simple but it’s actually very nuanced. I would encourage any player in the PropTech industry to focus on our pain points and work to develop solutions that are easy to adopt and save us time and resources that can be put towards producing more revenue. 

Biography

As Executive Managing Director for Newmark, Sean Fulp leads the Newmark Private Capital Group, which focuses on office, industrial and multifamily properties valued between $5 and $25 million throughout the Western U.S.

Throughout his career, Mr. Fulp has completed over 500 transactions worth more than $4 billion in total consideration. In 2016 and 2017, he received the Chairman’s Circle 100 distinction, which is awarded to the Top 100 Producers across Newmark nationally.

​Previously, Mr. Fulp worked at Rockwood Real Estate Advisors where he was Managing Director and Head of Western U.S. Investment Sales. In this role, he built the company’s western U.S. practice and sold assets in all product type categories throughout major western markets such as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.

Prior to joining Rockwood, Mr. Fulp was a Managing Director of Cornish & Carey Commercial (acquired by Newmark in 2014) in San Francisco where he focused on institutional office and industrial sales. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, he completed more than $1 billion in transaction volume. From 2004 to 2009, Mr. Fulp was with Cornish & Carey Commercial in Sacramento, where he consistently ranked among the entire company’s Top 20 producers.

Mr. Fulp has received industry designations from the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) and CCIM Institute, and is a member of the NAIOP, International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Urban Land Institute (ULI).